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I removed the ring from the box and took her hand, sliding the diamond Haven and Bree had helped me pick out onto her finger. “Aurora Casteel, I love you with all of my heart. I want to live the rest of my life with you. I want to create a family with you. I want to wade through a sea of dogs to get to you on the other side of our bed.” She let out a tearful laugh. “I want to go on adventures with you. I want to break rules and create new ones. I want to find perfect in unexpected places, and I want to embrace messy and risky sometimes too. I want to love you all the days of my life. Will you do me the great honor of becoming my wife?”
She went down on her knees then, too, taking my face in her hands and bringing her tear-streaked face to mine. “Yes,” she whispered against my lips. “Yes, yes, yes.”
The room erupted in applause again and we both stood, continuing to kiss and smile against each other’s lips. “I don’t want a long engagement,” she said. “I hope you feel the same way. A month…maybe two.”
I laughed. “Anything you want, Cakes. Anything.”
She grinned. “I love you, Ivy League.”
The barrage of love could be held back no longer and our families pushed forward, enveloping us with unrestrained joy, all talking over each other, hugging us and one another, and as always, making room for more. Mud Gulch mixed with Pelion and Calliope and Bree’s hometown of Cincinnati and also California where Haven and Easton had arrived from to create this beautiful melding of clans.
Yes, there were stories here. And our moment would sink into the bones of this building, to whisper through time. I had a feeling that Ophelia Casteel and Nathan Hale were looking down on this celebration and I made them a secret promise to always take care of their daughter, mind, body, and soul.
And I promised myself that I’d strive to create a healthy balance between pleasing other people and living with all the intensity I had to offer the world. Rory had taught me that part of my legacy was to live my life to the fullest. To meet it head on and then to open my arms wide and fall, knowing—trusting—that she’d always be there to catch me.
