Page 95 of Wedding or Not

“Ella, wait.” He’s tense and surprised, and he reaches over to touch my arm. “I need to say this. I really want to finally get it all said.”

“I know,” I gurgle. “You’re being mature and reasonable, but I can’t. I can’t hear it, Wes.” A sob breaks out despite my best effort. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t hear it right now.”

He makes a strange, soft sound in his throat.

In a different situation, I would have assumed it was pain, but that doesn’t make sense in this moment, and I don’t have any spare bandwidth to figure it out. My eyes are streaming with tears as I open the passenger door.

“I’m so, so sorry, Wes,” I choke out, stumbling out of the SUV.

“Okay. I understand. It’s… it’s okay.”

It’s not okay. Nothing is.

But I’m out of the car at last, so I make a dash for the cottage where I can finally stop pretending I’m all right.

CHAPTER 33

The hardest thing about the whole miserable situation is that I can’t stay in bed all day and cry.

It’s a Sunday in the middle of summer, and we have two weddings on the property today—a midsized in the evening and a small one in the early afternoon.

So I give myself ten minutes to cry, but then I have to shower, dress, and generally make myself presentable and wedding appropriate. Natalie has probably been working all day, and I need to help her with the inevitable venue issues that come up during events like this.

I might feel like death, but life doesn’t stop. And I’m not going to dump all the burdens of running this place on everyone else.

I’m not.

I might not get a life with Wes, but Blossom Park has been saved, and I’m going to keep doing my duty by it.

I thought Wes would return to his cottage and collapse after the two days, but he’s heading out of his cottage at the same time as me, dressed in a light gray suit with a gray-and-blue sweater-vest and a blue tie.

“Wh-what are you doing?” I ask him as our paths meet at the gate into the public areas.

He looks at me coldly, with a stoicism I haven’t seen on his face for a long time. “Dad needs help with something. If you don’t want to be around me, I can wait⁠—”

“No, no. Of course not.” Tears burn in my eyes again, but I fight to keep them back. I’m not going to fall apart again. I’m just not. “I’m sorry about before.”

“You already said that. Multiple times. I’m fine.”

The issue is more whether I’m fine or not since I’m the one who got her heart broken. He’s the one who did it to me. But there’s no sense in rehashing everything. I just nod and fall into step with him as we walk through the paths lined by flowering fruit trees.

I glance down at my hand at one point—at the engagement ring and wedding ring there—and for some reason it’s the saddest thing I’ve ever seen.

Sometime soon I need to take them off.

We part ways as we reach the wedding gazebo since he’s heading to help Jake with some issue with the reception tent. I walk over to Natalie, who is running through a checklist on her tablet, and I try to put Wes out of my mind for a while.

I’m used to weddings being a flurry of activity and nerves, and this one is no exception. It actually helps. I can get through one hour and then another with the grief hiding in the back of my mind rather than swarming and feeding on everything.

It’s not until the reception, which is being held in a wedding tent near the duck pond, that I see Wes again.

The couple got a deal on the tent, but there’s an obvious reason they got it leased on discount. It’s not good quality, and the supports aren’t stable in the strong wind we have today. Jake and Wes have to go around, continually resecuring it at different points so that the whole thing doesn’t collapse on the wedding party.

Once they’ve reassured themselves that they have it under control, Wes surprises me by coming over to stand beside me.

I look at him in confusion.

“We’re supposed to be married,” he murmurs dryly.