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He dropped the handle to his suitcase and wrapped his arms around her waist, his driver’s license and phone still in his hand.
She kissed him again. “Come back to Nestled Hollow.”
He could kiss Joselyn and listen to her pleas to stay all day, but he had to know what it was that she truly wanted. He needed to hear the words. He pushed the phone and license into his pocket, then put his hands on her hips and stepped back to where he could look into her eyes. “Are you saying you want to get back together?”
She looked at him, those green eyes intense and searching and still pleading. “I’m saying that I was so wrong, Marcus. So, so wrong. About so many things. Yes, I want to get back together. I think it took almost losing you to realize exactly how badly I want you in my life and how you are so perfectly, exactly who I want to be with every single day of always. I want to build a life with you, and a family with you, and grow old with you, and run With a Cherry on Top with you, and disagree about things with you, and have spirited debates about it all through every single bit of it.”
He searched her eyes for truth because the words were too sweet, too perfect, too much of what he had wanted for as long as he could remember for him to possibly dare to believe them.
But all he could see in her eyes was love, determination, and commitment. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yes!” She placed another kiss on his lips. “Yes. More sure than I’ve been of anything in my life.”
Her eyes were full of truth. Beautiful truth. Exquisite, perfect, enduring truth. Heart-mending truth.
He let go of her and bent down next to his suitcase, fumbling to open the zipper just enough to pull out the little box packed right on top. His fingers found it and he gently tugged it out. He had bought the ring a few weeks ago, hoping he would get a chance to propose soon— maybe when the shop opened.
He knew it had no longer been a possibility, but it had been the one thing that he hadn’t been able to let go of when he packed up the rest of his life to move away. Returning the ring felt too much like he would be parting with the last bit of hope he had in him, and doing that could ruin him. Now, he was so grateful he hadn’t.
With the box in hand, he got down on one knee, and he heard the collective gasp of all the Zimmermans in front of him and all the people waiting in the airport security line behind him— people he’d forgotten were even there while he’d been in his bubble with Joselyn.
“Joselyn.” He laughed, and as the sound carried, he realized how quiet the very busy area had become. “I’ve imagined this moment hundreds of times, and I can’t say I ever pictured it happening in an airport as I was about to move across an ocean. And I never pictured being at the point where I’m down on one knee, ring in hand, without having figured out exactly what I want to say.”
But as he looked up at her, her brown hair framing that beautiful face that he had memorized and re-memorized so many times over the years, those perfect eyes that held the best of everything, he knew what he wanted to say.
“Joselyn, I’ve known you since I was nine, and I’ve been in love with you every day since then. I want to be with you and love you every day for the rest of my life, too. Please say you’ll marry me.”
“Yes. Yes!” She held out her left hand as he pulled the ring from the box. Her fingers shook slightly, almost like she was as impatient as he was for every day of the rest of their lives to begin.
He slid the ring onto her finger, then stood and brought his hands to her face, sliding his fingers into her hair, cradling her head like it was the most precious thing on earth because that was exactly what it was. Then he leaned forward and pressed a soft, gentle kiss on her lips. A promise to always be there for her. She kissed her own promise into his lips, and the peace of knowing everything was exactly as it should be washed over him.
A chorus of “Aww!”s sounded from a couple of hundred people, reminding him, once again, that they were there. And because he now remembered they were there, he dropped her into a dip and let himself feel his hammering pulse, so near the surface, the electricity coursing through him as he gave her another kiss—a promise for the future he had always wanted but hardly let himself dream of.
This time, the applause was thunderous. He lifted Joselyn upright and wrapped his arms around her, a grin spread across his face that he knew wasn’t going to leave anytime soon. They were both flushed as all the Zimmerman family gathered around them, clapping him on the back and giving them hugs and congratulating them.
The family that he thought was going to be lost to him forever was welcoming him in. In all the ways he had imagined proposing to Joselyn over the years, he couldn’t say he imagined doing it with nearly all of her very large family present. But somehow, that felt exactly right.
Mr. Z shook Marcus’s hand with both of his, Marcus’s hand sandwiched between his. “Welcome to the family, Son. I’ve waited a long time to be able to say that.” Mr. Z smiled at him, and Marcus was pretty sure he was tearing up just a bit.
Once everyone had gotten a chance to congratulate them, Everett grabbed Marcus’s suitcase, and all the Zimmermans headed back out of the airport. Marcus and Joselyn stayed at the back of the group, walking slowly and taking their time. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned in, resting her head against him.
When they got to the vestibule and everyone else was outside, Joselyn turned and wrapped her arms around his waist, stopping him. “The thought of being with you forever, Marcus Williams, feels so right. How did we ever manage to wait so long to get back together after high school?”
Marcus ran his fingers down her temple and cheek, then ran his knuckles along her jawline. “Maybe we just needed to wait until it could be forever.”
epilogue
JOSELYN
If anyone would’ve asked Joselyn a year ago where she thought she’d be today, she might’ve been hopeful and said that she would be standing outside of her own business on Main Street, basking in unseasonably warm and sunny weather for November 5th. But she never, ever, would’ve guessed that she would’ve discovered that the love of her life had been right under her nose the whole time, that she would’ve gotten married, and that she would now be waiting with what seemed like half the town to find out the gender of the baby they were having.
Marcus stepped up behind Joselyn and wrapped his arms around her, his hands landing on her growing stomach. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, yet his arms were still warm against her. “Are you ready to find out where this next adventure is going to lead us?”
They had definitely had plenty of adventures in the past year. They had gone from planning a business to planning a wedding to planning a new home to now, planning to be parents. The business was going well, the wedding was perfect, the finishing touches were being put on the home Nate was building them on her part of the Zimmerman family plot right next to the house he just finished for Kennon and his family, and now they were about to find out if they were going to be parents to a son or a daughter. She tilted her head up toward him. “If it’s anything like our other adventures, it’ll be perfect.”
Marcus gave her a kiss. “Just like you.”
Joselyn hadn’t often pictured herself being married before she and Marcus started dating, but even if she had, she wasn’t sure she could’ve imagined anything as wonderful as being married to Marcus. She couldn’t believe she had ever doubted that the two of them would work out. All the hard things they had faced together over the past year had made them strong, and she knew that they could face down anything that came their way.
