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Hope picked up her glass. “To the bride.”
Clare shook her head. “No, to marriage. To the promises, the compromises, the endurance. That’s what I’d like to drink to.”
“To marriage then,” Hope agreed as they touched glasses.
“And to family,” Clare added after a minute sip. “It’s not just marriage, children when you have them, the parents you came from. It’s this, too. It’s the people who make your life whole and rich and steady. You both do that for me.”
“You’re determined to make us cry,” Avery managed.
“I thought I would.” Clare took another tiny sip, then set her glass down. “But I’m feeling very clear-eyed. I thought about Clint last night. A lot about Clint. And I know, absolutely, he’d be glad I found Beckett. That I have Beckett, and the boys have him. Knowing that makes me happy. And all I want to do now is walk out to The Courtyard, walk to Beckett and the boys, carrying this one,” she said, pressing a hand to her belly. “And make those promises.
“Then I’m going to dance with my husband and our sons.”
“After I touch up your lipstick,” Hope declared.
While Hope fussed, Avery wandered onto the porch. A minute alone, she thought. Just a minute.
But she heard the porch door open, glanced down toward Elizabeth and Darcy. She had company after all. And, she decided, that was fine.
“I can’t figure it out. I’m not sad, but I don’t know if happy’s the word. For Clare, yes. Ecstatic for Clare. But otherwise, I’m somewhere between. I just wonder how it works, you know? I look at her, and I see she’s so sure, not at all nervous, no questions or doubts. What’s it like to feel that way? How do you get to that point?”
She looked over to Vesta, then down Main Street to Turn The Page. That she understood—that commitment, that endurance. But what flipped the switch inside to let someone take those steps for and with another person?
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not about me. It’s a happy day. It’s Clare’s day.”
She turned to go in, saw something on the table between the doors. Frowning, she walked over, picked up a small stone. It was smooth as a cobble, shaped like a heart. It sat in the cup of her hand as she stared at the initials carved in its center.
L. F.
B. R.
“Lizzy Ford. ‘B’ for Billy? It must be.” Heart drumming, she looked over. The door remained open, that summer scent fragile as petals.
“Did he give this to you? Billy? He must have. And it . . . endured. But how? How am I holding it right here, right now? How can—”
“Avery!” Hope called out. “Countdown.”
“It’s Clare’s day,” she repeated as she closed the little stone in her hand. “I can’t show them now, but I’ll get it to Owen. I promise.” She laid the hand holding the stone on her heart. “I promise,” she said again.
“Avery!”
“One second!” She hurried in, went straight to her purse. “Lipstick.” She tucked the stone safely inside, wondered if it would be there when she came back.
* * *
AS THE SUN slid toward the western hills, she watched her friends marry, heard their promises to each other, to the children that formed their family, saw the rings they exchanged glint—another promise—in the soft sparkle of light.
Joy, simple and huge, just flowed from them, she realized, in a slow, warm river. She felt it rise in her as well, something lovely and real, steady and strong.
The tears that swam into her eyes were of that joy when they moved together in their first kiss as husband and wife.
Then there were hugs, applause, music. Owen took her hand, led her down the aisle formed by chairs to The Lobby door. More hugs, a few tears, then laughter as Murphy announced, loudly, firmly, he had to pee, right now.
“Pee first, then pictures,” Hope announced. “Bride, groom, wedding party and family. Then Clare, Beckett, and the boys, then Clare and Beckett.” She glanced at the photographer. “Forty-five minutes. That would keep us on the mark.”
“Have you got a stopwatch on you?” Ryder asked.
“In here.” Avery tapped her forehead.
“Clare and Beckett need to be able to dance, eat, have fun,” Hope began.
“I don’t think they’re worried about it,” Ryder pointed out as the bride and groom shared another long kiss. “Relax, Commander.”
“You relax,” Hope muttered, and did her best to herd the group.
Avery considered pulling Owen aside, but the timing didn’t work, the circumstances weighed against it.
It could wait, she told herself, and fell into the moment.
After the pictures, the return of the bride and groom, the first dance, a few toasts, she managed to pull him back inside.
“I want to dance with you.”
“I’m all about that,” she agreed, “but I have to show you something first. Upstairs.”
“There’s also food—it looks good.”
“We’ll get food, drink, dance. We’ll get it all.” She kept his hand clutched in hers as she hurried upstairs. “Backstory. I was standing out on the porch right before we came down. I was feeling . . . pensive maybe. Big day. And she came out. Or anyway, the door to the porch opened. I was thinking about Clare and Beckett, getting married, taking vows—that sort of thing. Wondering, really, how people get up the spine or whatever it takes to move on that.”
“It’s not spine,” he began.
“Whatever.” She unlocked T&O, drew him in. “Hope called me in, and when I turned around, this was on that table between the doors.”
She closed her eyes a moment, reached into her bag, let out a sigh of relief when her fingers closed over the stone.
“A rock. God, that’s earth-shattering.”
“Shut up. Look at it, Owen.”
He took it when she shoved it at him, turned it over. His expression shifted from amusement to puzzlement, then wonder.
“She gave this to you.”
“She left it on the table. It wasn’t there when I went out. I’m sure it wasn’t. Then it was. I wouldn’t say she gave it to me, but she wanted me to see it. Don’t you think?”
“I’m still trying to get on board with how she could have this, or make it materialize. Or . . . I don’t know what.”
“I decided not to think too hard about that or my brain might explode. He must’ve given it to her. The shape, the initials.”
“Why would he give her a rock? When you think about it—”
“It’s a heart, with their initials inside. Sentimental, right?”
“I guess so. B for Billy works. William. R. It might help some having the first initial of his last name.”
“You and Hope are the ones looking into it, so I wanted to get it to you as soon as I could. Hope’s helping run the show here, so you’re elected. But we should get it to her after the reception.”
“She gave it to you.”
“Lizzy? No, she just left it where I’d find it.”
“Not much difference.”
“She’d want Hope to have it. Hope’s her descendent.”
“She didn’t leave it where Hope would find it.” He handed it back to Avery. “You need to keep it.”
“It doesn’t feel right.”
“I figure there’s a reason she left it for you. Maybe holding on to it awhile will help you find the reason. And meanwhile I’ll look for William R. We’ll fill Hope in after the wedding.”
“All right, but I feel weird about it
.” She traced the initials before she tucked it back in her purse. “And if she takes it back, she takes it back.”
“Did I tell you, you look amazing?”
Her eyes twinkled at him. “You might have mentioned it in passing.”
“You do. And I . . .” No, he thought, not on impulse, not on his brother’s day, even if it was lucky. “We need to get back down. My brother doesn’t get married every day.”
“You’re right.”
“What did you mean about spine?” he asked her as they headed down.
“What?”
“About needing spine to get married. You need spine to, I don’t know, go to war or take on the IRS or skydive.”
“I just meant people have to gear up to take that step into until-death-or-divorce-do-us-part.”
It struck him wrong, just wrong. “Were you always this cynical?”
“I’m not cynical.” Even the word annoyed her. “Just realistic—and curious. I’m a curious realist.”
“Take a look at that,” he suggested when they’d walked back out where couples danced—Clare and Beckett, his mother, her father, Clare’s parents and more. “That’s real.”
Real, he thought again, and what he wanted. What he wanted with Avery.
“And it’s nice. Really nice. A moment. An important moment. But there are thousands of moments after the party. And speaking of that, why aren’t you dancing with me?”
“Good idea.”
He did his best to keep it light, but something had shifted between them with her words. And he understood she felt it, too.
