Page 133 of Billionaire Lumberjack's Bride

He gives me a little wobbly smile, probably well aware I didn’t hear a fucking word he said. “Of course. I asked if you had written your own vows.”

“Oh, yes.”

I start to reach into my inner jacket pocket to grab what I jotted down over the last few weeks in preparation for today, but I still my hand and pull it out without ever touching the sheet of paper.

Because I don’t need to look at my notes to know what I want to say to Lyla.

I’ve been dying to let her know for so long, but the words always seem to escape me. If there was ever a day, it would be today.

I turn toward her and pull both her hands into mine, squeezing them and looking down at her soft, pale skin next to my darker, rough, tattooed hands. She squeezes them back, giving me the encouragement to finally say what I need to.

“You know I’m not very good at this stuff.”

Everyone in the church laughs, and it relieves a little tiny bit of the tension threatening to stop me and send me running like I have before.

“I know you thought it was strange that I wanted to get married in the church, considering neither one of us is religious, but there’s a reason for it. A good one.” I lock my gaze with hers, needing that connection when I make my confession. “My entire life, I never really believed in God because all the praying, all the begging I did growing up, for help, for somebody to make what was happening stop, went unanswered. To me, I felt like if there was a God, he wouldn’t have let it happen to me.”

The tears well in her eyes, and she doesn’t bother to try to swipe them away. They stream down her cheeks, through the perfect makeup she applied.

“But I changed my mind.Youchanged my mind. That night you got lost in the woods, I prayed for the first time in fifteen years. I prayed that I’d find you and that you’d be all right. It had absolutely nothing to do with the contract we had signed and needing a damn wife. I did it because even then, I was already falling in love with you. I just didn’t realize it. I didn’t know what it was because I had never seen it. And then, I prayed that God would help us succeed where so many other people had failed, in doing what was right, even if it hurt.”

She pulls her hand from mine and reaches out to press her palm over my heart because she knows exactly what I’m talking about, as does everyone else in this room now.

“I now believe in God because he clearly brought you to me. It may have been a long, torturous road full of thirty-two years I’d rather forget, but if none of that had happened, you never would’ve come up the mountain and shattered the world I thought I was going to live in the rest of my life.”

I swallow a sob threatening to slip from my throat.

“I love you, Lyla, and everything that comes with you. Even when we argue about stupid things, or you call me out on my bullshit.” I glance at the minister. “Sorry.”

He smirks but doesn’t correct or chide me for my language.

“I know it’s only because you care, probably more than you should. I love you, and I love this little family we’ve created.” I glance over my shoulder at Joey. “Your brother has become my brother, and I can’t imagine the two of you not being on the homestead with me.” I turn my head back to her. “So yeah, I want you to be my wife, and I sound like a fucking idiot.”

But given the tears still streaming down her face, I must’ve said something right.

She curls her hand against my chest and looks to the minister, who gives her a nod to go ahead. “God, I feel like what I’m about to say is so stupid compared to that.”

I give her a half-grin. “Nothing you say can ever be stupid.”

“Well, I hope not.” She offers a little laugh. “I didn’t write anything down because I thought I knew what I was going to say, but after that, I’m not so sure…”

Watching her struggle to find what she wants to say makes me want to tug her into my arms and hold her, tell her I don’t need to hear it because I already know.

But she takes a long, deep inhalation and gives me a sad smile. “I thought my life was over. When Joey got into trouble, I felt like I was twisting in the wind with nowhere to go and no one to ask for help until I walked into Carly’s office.” Her eyes dart to the blonde sitting in the second row. “It was a last-ditch effort, one that sent me on a car ride into the middle of nowhere to meet a man who absolutely did not want me there.”

I can’t fight my grin at her completely accurate description of what happened.

She squeezes my hands. “But I saw something in you, felt something, a spark, a knowledge that not everything was as it appeared, and the more I got to know you, the more I realized what a beautiful man you were underneath all the anger and attitude. Everything you just said is true for me, too. When I lost my mom, I felt like my life was over, and then, I lost Joey. So, I didn’t believe there was a God, either…until that night you saved me in the woods. I saw you in a whole new light. I saw what you tried to keep hidden from all these people, and I knew I could bring it into the light.”

Fucking hell.

If there was ever a way to shatter me, it’s withthatstatement, and she has no idea why I’m breaking apart with her words.

I shouldn’t interrupt her vows, but I can’t keep it in.

She has to know.

“You’rethe light, Lyla.”

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