My hands tighten on hers. Idon’thave to ask her to say it again. She reads me anyway. And then she gives it to me freely.
“Sullivan Mercer, I am going to marry you. I’ve been planning to marry you since you came down the ridge with your bad-attitude flannel and my Tupperware. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
I pick her up the way I imagined when I drove the access road this morning. She wraps her legs around my waist and buries her face in my neck. Holding her with both hands at the small ofher back in thegreenand gold mess oflightthroughthe trees, I press my cheek to herhairand breathe.
“I don’t have a ring,”I murmur.
“I don’t need it.”
“I'll get you a gold one in town.”
“Sure,”she agrees, and I can feel her smiling.
I set her down.
Wewalkback upto the house, and the yard sees us coming. Tank stands so fast that he spills his beer, and Jessie elbows him to sit back down. Maggie’s mouth slowly forms the smile of a woman who’s had a hand on the future of every man at the table for forty years and is allowed, today, to enjoy a small win.
Tess holds up her left hand.
There is no ring on it yet.
Nobody needs one.
“Yes,” she calls, her voice clear across the yard. “I said yes.”
The yard erupts.
Tankis yelling. Jessie is laughing. Henry takes his hat off, presses it briefly to his chest, then puts it back on his head and goes back to the grill because Henry is, at his core, a man who congratulates by feeding people.
Maggie comes to me and takes my face in her hands. “Welcome home.”
I cover her hands with mine. “Thank you, Maggie.”
She kisses my forehead and releases me.
Across the yard, Tess is already surrounded by Shay, Luna, Kitty, Delaney, Jenna—a small, delighted half-circle of women around her empty left hand.She’sglowing. She catches my eye over theirheads,and the glow only intensifies.
Tank materializes at my shoulder. “I knocked over my beer.”
“I saw.”
“Couldn’t be helped.”
“I know.”
A pause.
“Good man, Sullivan.”He pats me on the back, hard enough to mean something, then goes to salvagewhat’sleft of his drink.
I stay where I am for one more second. Look at the yard. The smoke off the grill. Thelight going long and gold across the grass. Seventeen people, not counting Tess, not counting me, and I’m not standing near the exit.
Then I move toward my future wife.
That night, wewalkback to our cabin under the apple trees, the second-to-last of the four guest cabins.It’ssmall. One room with a stove, a kettle, and a bluemugand a white mug now sitting on the windowsill where they belong.The bed is queen-sizedwith a white comforter.A small picture is taped to the wall over the headboard. Two pairs of boots sit by the door.
Andit has a porch, where we sit in the warm Montana dark. Tess is wearing the daffodil sweater. I’m in my flannel. The glow from the main house is a soft yellow square through the orchard.
“Sullivan?”
