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He lifted his hand again, silently asking for her trust. She hesitated before her soft fingertips grazed his palm once more. Aaron gently closed his long fingers around hers and slipped the ring onto her finger.
“Is it too loose?” he asked.
She pulled her hand away, and he immediately missed the connection. She twisted the ring around her finger and shook her head. “No, it’s perfect. Thank you. I’ll give it back to you after.”
He stood back up and sat in the open space next to her on the window seat, leaning back against the wall and stretching his long legs out. “No. It’s a gift for you to keep.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to repay you for this.” Her voice grew quieter, shifting into a whisper.
“You don’t owe me anything. Everything I give is free of strings. That’s what a gift truly is. You can pay it forward to someone else in the future when they need help and when you have the means to do so.”
“Wow! I’m speechless.” She pressed her hand to her chest. “Thank you. Truly.”
“Now that you’ve accepted my ring, I wondered if you had any idea of which venue to use for the wedding?”
She shifted in her seat, turning to him so that her face was lit in sunshine, making her eyes sparkle like the gem on her finger. “Couldn’t we just go to city hall?”
He shook his head. “If you want people in our very gossipy small town to believe this is real, we’ll need to make an event of it. You and Danielle will need dresses.”
“I can’t afford all this.”
He held up his hand. “I’m going to pay for it, just like I would if this were different and we were really in love.”
“I can’t let you do that. It’s not even real.”
“You will legally be my wife, and that means I will treat you as such. You’ll get all the perks of being Mrs. Ridley without conceding on your boundaries. How does that sound?”
“Like it’s too good to be true,” she answered bluntly.
“I know it’s gonna take time to earn your trust. But I’m a patient man.”
She shook her head. “I’m buying the dresses. I can’t let you pay for everything.”
“Fine. You get the dresses, I’ll take care of everything else.” He’d let her keep her pride, and made a note to call the boutique in town and have them give her a sale price while he covered the rest. “Is there anything special you want for the wedding?”
“I’d just like Betty-Lou and Fred Moore from the diner invited, along with Pippa and Mason.”
He nodded. “Any preference on where?”
“It doesn’t matter to me. Somewhere small and affordable. We don’t need to go crazy.”
She was so sweet and grateful, and all he was doing was helping her out. “Would you like to go over everything with me, or should I take care of the details?”
“If you need help, I can do it, but I’d prefer to just get this over with.”
“Got it. I’ll take care of all the details and you can just show up. And after the wedding, you and Danielle are fine to move into my house?”
Brynn’s eyes widened.
“I just figured for this to look real, you’d be coming to my home. I have three bedrooms, so there will be plenty of space for all of us.”
She fidgeted with the sleeve of her grey sweater, the same one she’d worn to the quinceañera. “I-I hadn’t thought that far. I guess . . . it makes sense.” She sighed. “This is a lot more than I realized.”
“You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. We can wait.” Even though Aaron didn’t want to. The sooner he married Brynn, the sooner he could feel confident Danielle was going to be okay.
She was silent a moment and then shook her head. “No. This is for Danielle. She needs to see a doctor before she gets any further into puberty. I can’t watch her go into a depression again. Not when I just got my kid back . . . I’ll do it.”
He nodded and tried to come up with a way to lighten the mood. “What’s your favorite kind of cake?”
