I didn’t see the signs at first.
Literally.
Until we rounded the last curve and I saw the first one nailed to a tree:
“The first time I saw you, I forgot how to breathe.”
The next one, a few steps ahead, said:
“The first time I kissed you, I remembered how.”
My heart stuttered.
Madison grinned. “I’ll wait back here.”
I kept walking.
More signs appeared, each one handwritten on wood panels in Greyson’s bold, uneven scrawl.
“You’ve always been the one.”
“Even when you weren’t mine.”
“Especially when you were.”
The final sign was nailed to the old orchard gate:
“Will you help me write the rest of our story?”
And there he was.
Standing in the clearing in his favorite flannel, holding a small, honey-colored box in one hand and looking like every reason I ever stopped running.
I covered my mouth. “Greyson.”
He walked to me, took both my hands. “I didn’t want to ask you in some restaurant or with a speech I practiced in front of a mirror. I wanted to ask you here where it all started, where you were able to rewrite the pages of our past.”
Tears slid down my cheeks.
He opened the box.
Inside was the simplest, most beautiful ring I’d ever seen, gold with a tiny honey bee etched into the band.
“Blair Cunningham,” he said, voice rough, “I have loved you since the moment we met, all those years ago. Will you marryme and be my forever?”
I laughed through the tears. “Of course I will.”
He slipped the ring on my finger and kissed me like he’d waited a thousand lifetimes.
That night, back at home, we sat on the porch with mugs of hot cider, the stars spread wide above us. I rested my head on his shoulder, the ring cool and perfect on my finger.
“You think people will want a second book?” I asked.
He smiled. “I think people will want all your books. But more than that, I think you finally want them too.”
I nodded.
Because I did.
