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Her throat was still as full as her eyes, and she noddedbefore managing to squeak out, “Yes.” She took the ring from the velvet and gasped, her voice finally coming back. “It’s by Fabergé!”
“It seemed meant to be,” he said in a husky voice. His hand trembled as he took it from her and slipped it onto her left ring finger. His warm lips brushed her hand as he sealed the ring in place.
At the sound of clapping, she tore her gaze from his smiling face and saw her family clustered around. Gram was crying, and Carly realized she was too.
Lucas leaned closer and brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb. She sank into the love in his gaze and knew this was where the hard road of the past year had led her. Right into Lucas Bennett’s arms.
Epilogue
Friends, family, and strangers crowded Litchfield Books in Pawleys Island. Authors clamored for a book signing at the famous bookstore, and Carly was honored to have a spot. The beautiful blonde owners stood by her side, handing opened books to her as she needed them.
Carly sat at the table with a dwindling stack of her books. The line was moving slowly because so many remarked on the palindrome on her shirt that readMust sell at tallest sum.She couldn’t believe so many of her friends had made the trip from Beaufort for her first book signing. Even her great-grandmother, Sofia, had made the trip from New York.
Three-year-old Noah had escaped Lucas’s hand, and Carly caught him as he tried to knock over a stack of her books. Lucas—with their new son, Joe, in his arms—came to retrieve him. “Sorry. He’s fast.” He tried to take Noah’s hand, but her big guy resisted.
“Noah can stay with me. You want to help Mama?” she asked. He nodded and climbed into her lap, then reached for a book. She looked up to see who was in line, and Emily smiled proudly down at her. Ryan was beside her. “You don’t need to buy a book,” Carly told them.
“Every sale counts for the bestseller list.” Emily pushed ten books her way. “Just sign your name. I’m giving them as gifts.”
Ryan pushed another ten at her. “Same for me.”
She shook her head. “You guys.”
The bestseller list sounded like a dream that could never happen, but she’d thought that plenty of times over the past three years. She had recommendations from agents to change the time setting from 1955 to something more historic, and she’d listened.Beneath the Palmettoswas now set in early 1900 on a defunct plantation, and her agent had sold it to HarperCollins in a bidding war. While the time period changed, the basics of the story hadn’t. Love lost and found. Life broken and restored. And she hoped it resonated with readers the way it did in her own life.
She gave the books to her sister and Ryan. Something had changed for Ryan. He and Emily had been dating for a month now, too many dates to count. Maybe it had been seeing how fragile life really was when they’d all thought they were going to die. Maybe it was the happiness Ryan saw radiating from his brother’s face. Whatever had happened, Carly hoped things progressed well for him.
She signed so many books that her hands cramped. Even Ivan Bury came and bought twenty copies for gifts. The bookstore ran out just before closing, and owners Wendy and Olivia turned off the lights with happy smiles as she and Lucas walked to their truck with their kids.
“Ice cream?” Lucas asked. “Gilbert’s is still open. This is where our journey kind of started. We could go past yourold house if you like and see if the new owners are in the yard.”
Her life with Eric seemed so long ago. With his death she’d thought her life was over, but she’d been so wrong. With Joe in her arms and Noah in Lucas’s, she stood on tiptoe for a kiss. “I have all I need right here.”
