Chapter 11
Jenna
The women are arguing about my hair as I perch on a kitchen stool. The night before last, Ethan asked me to be his wife on a dark porch with a ring made of baling wire, and now the world is shifting around the fact that I’m getting married in two hours. Any other version of me would call this insanity. But any other version of me didn’t spend six months falling in love with a voice in the dark.
Not that I wanted to wait. I love Ethan with all my heart and can’t wait to be his wife. We’ll face whatever’s coming as Mr. and Mrs. Sutton. A team. And doing it quietly, before Vance has time to notice, is the smartest move we’ve got.
“Side part. Trust me,” Shay says, holding a comb in one hand. She drove over from Havenridge at dawn with enough food for an army and an unyielding plan for my hair.
“Half up,” Kitty chimes in from the counter, where she’s arranging white roses and snipping something thin and green with the focus of a surgeon. “Half up, loose curls, and leave that piece that always falls. It’s her thing.”
“She doesn't have a thing,” Delaney points out as she sits at the kitchen table. “We’re giving her a thing.”
“She has two things.” Luna, working on the hinge assembly of the screen door that decided to give up this morning, doesn’t look up. “The glasses. The tuck. Leave it.”
They’re referring to the strand I tuck behind my ear when I’m nervous, the tell I’ve never been able to shake. And these women, whom I’ve known for mere days, have figured it out.
I grip the edge of the stool, my painted nails done by Kitty last night in a quiet pale pink, making my hands look like someone else’s. Someone who belongs in a kitchen full of women preparing for a wedding.
Miss Maggie moves through the chaos with the authority of a woman who has run this kitchen through drought, calving season, and one Sutton wedding already. Her sequined tank top peeks out from beneath flannel as she presses a folded napkin to her eyes every few minutes when she thinks no one is watching. She doesn’t coordinate; she presides, refilling cups, organizing the space, and catching my eye across the counter with a look that says I chose well.
“She’s going to be a wreck by the time she has to speak,” Shay mutters, watching Maggie dab her eyes for the fourth time in ten minutes.
“She was worse at ours,” Delaney adds. “Got through ‘dearly beloved’ and had to take a water break.”
Kitty grins. “How long before she makes it a business? Miss Maggie’s Matrimonial Services. Sequins mandatory.”
Delaney’s eyes light up. “What a great idea!” She flips open her color-tabbed notebook and studies it closely. “Okay, so, flowers: done. Chairs: Daniel’s setting them up. Food: Shay, you’re at eighty percent?”
“Seventy. Henry ate the backup biscuits.”
“I’ll handle Henry.” She checks something off. “Maggie’s got her notes. Ethan is”—she glances at me—“being kept away from you by two brothers and three cousins who are enjoying this way too much.”
My chest tightens and won’t release. In two hours, he’ll be my husband, and I’m sitting on a stool while women argue about my hair, my painted nails catching the light as my hands tremble.
This is the moment when it all falls apart. Where someone checks a clipboard and says, “Actually,” and the bag gets packed.
Shay places a warm scone on the counter beside me with butter on the side, but she doesn’t ask if I’m hungry.
“Stop doing the math.” Luna straightens from the floor and captures one of my hands with the touch of someone who understands what’s swirling in my mind. “I did it too. You’re sitting there adding up the good things and waiting for the bill.”
My throat tightens as she returns her attention to the screen door.
“That’s where the Sutton men come in,” Delaney adds pragmatically. “They love you until you believe you deserve it.”
Shay presses a thin velvet gift box into my palm. “We all chipped in for your special day.”
Tears blur my vision as I hold the silver bracelet and attempt to hook the clasp. My fingers fumble twice before Kitty silently reaches over and secures it for me. The cool metal rests against my warm skin, and no one acknowledges the redness underneath.
The screen door creaks shut. Luna wipes her hands on her jeans and declares, “Done. Let’s get you married.”
Chairs are set up in the south pasture in a simple arrangement. Wildflowers line the makeshift aisle. Ben and Jacob stand on opposite sides, and for once, the space between them isn’t a wound; it’s just geography. Henry holds Max on his hip.
I stand at the end of the aisle, unable to move. Not frozen. Not afraid. Just... full. So full that my body doesn’t know how to handle it.
At the end of the row stands a man I almost don’t recognize.
Not because he looks different. Because he looks like himself, and he’s not hiding any of it.
