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What is thematterwith you?
She put her head against the cool wall and tried to breathe. It wasn’t easy. Her dress was tight. She’d thought it was perfect, from the asymmetrical hem that only dipped to mid-calf to the off-one-shoulder neckline, not to mention the frankly sexy way it hugged her body from top to bottom, if a five-months-pregnant nearly-forty-year-old judge could be said to be sexy. Beckett always said so, but …
Was there a reason, though, she hadn’t bought an actual wedding dress? Besides that the prices were truly stupid? The baby fluttered inside her, swimming, and she put her hand over her daughter and said, “Yeah. This is right. I know it’s right. He’s your dad, and he’s such a good man. He’s not a quitter, and I’m a hard worker, too, right? A hard worker can do most things.”
When the door opened, though, she didn’t raise her head. She said, “Hey, Dad. I need a pep talk.”
It wasn’t Cash’s voice she heard. It was an Australian one. “Or just a talk, maybe.” Beckett’s hand around hers. Beckett leading her over to the bed. “Let’s sit down.”
“This is so stupid,” she said. “Hormones.”
“If you’ve got cold feet,” he said, “we can wait.”
“What? No. I just need to get over this hump. Just give me a minute.”
“Quinn.” He didn’t say anything else, just waited, and finally, she raised her eyes to his. “You don’t have to get over this hump,” he said. “You don’thaveto do anything. Married or not married, I’m going to love you just the same. I’m going to love the baby just the same. Are you going to stop loving me?”
“No,” she said. “That’s why I moved the date up. Because it just gets better, doesn’t it? And probably because Idowant to go to the Great Barrier Reef, and there’s only a certain window when I’m going to be able to do that. But that’s what makes this so—”
“Scary,” he said.
“Well, I was going to say ‘stupid.’”
He smiled. “I think ‘scary’s’ more like it, don’t you? You had a dream before, and it came crashing to an end when you least expected it. Makes it hard to believe in dreams anymore, maybe.”
“Oh.” She considered. “Huh. I never thought of that.”
“I’m brilliant, yeah.” He squeezed her hand. “Maybe we don’t have to believe in dreams. Maybe we just have to believe in each other, and in ourselves. I trust you with my life. I have reason to. I know you’ll never give up trying. I’ve never known anyone more determined. If strength is going on when it’s hardest, you’ve got strength to burn. Strength, and loyalty. Not sure what more I could ask for in a wife than that.”
“Oh,” she said again. “Can I just … think about that for a second?”
“You can think about it for as long as you like.”
“OK. I don’t actually need a second, though.”
“I reckoned,” he said, and there was that smile again, barely repressed. As if it reallywasOK with him if she put this off. As if he really trusted her this much.
“That’s how I feel about you, too,” she said. “That you’ll stick. That your word is good. I believe that if I believe anything. So you’re saying—I don’t have to believe in the dream. I just have to believe that whatever happens, you and I can work it out. We can find a way.”
“That’s about the size of it,” he said. “That whatever we face, we’re facing it together. We prop each other up when we need it. We call each other to order when we need that. We take off each other every burden we can, and if we can’t, we share it.”
“Well,” she said, “I can definitely do that. So you’re saying that’s enough.”
“I’m saying,” he said, “that that’s all there is. That’s love, and that’s marriage. Working it out. Finding a way. That’s the promise.”
“Then,” she said, “let’s go do it.” She pulled the ruby ring off her finger and handed it to him. “Could you put this in your pocket until afterwards? I want to have it close. And I’d like it to be with you.”
“Too right,” he said, and did it. “And by the way? I like the eighty-dollar dress.”
* * *
It wasn’tthe most conventional wedding he could have had, in the end. Her dad didn’t walk her down the aisle to him. They walked each other. Under the altar, Troy and Janey waited, and Bacon rose on his hind legs, his tail wagging like mad, the twin gold rings tied to his collar catching the afternoon light.
Overhead, the crows circled. Boris and Natasha, come to witness the ceremony. He’d have to make sure to give them some peanuts later.
He held Quinn’s hand, looked at the white dress outlining the bump that was his daughter, stopped in front of the county’sotherdistrict judge, here in her black robes to marry them, and said the words.
“To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part.” Which was all there was. Which was the point.
Quinn said them to him, too. With a firm voice and eyes that shone just a little. Promising him with the hand pressed into his to do the only thing Quinn could do.
To give everything.
* * *
