Page 84 of A Wedding in a Week

I do what I’ve wanted to since I left him in London. What I last did in a bath deep enough for both of us.

I stand behind him, my arms locked around his chest, so close he has to feel the thump of my heart. It clenches when his head tilts back against my shoulder, Marc trusting me to keep him upright.

He can trust me with more than that. I’m a farming Luxton. This is exactly what I was born for. I also murmur, “You don’t mind that I organised this?”

“Mind?” His chest rises, his inhale slow and steady, and I love him. “It’s perfect. All of it. I only hope I can do it justice.”

I don’t hope. I don’t need to. I already know what will happen tomorrow.

Marc’s going to smash it.

For now though?

We’ll count every star together.

EPILOGUE

CORNWALL IN LATE AUGUST

MARC

Four months after leaving London, and the day before our first wedding, I jerk awake too early with no idea what woke me. It isn’t police sirens wailing or the drum and bass of city living. It isn’t the slam of a front door locking me out either. Those aren’t sounds I associate with Kara-Tir, but something familiar pierces my sleep, and for one bleary, confused moment, I think the girls must be impatient for their morning milking.

I roll out of bed to help Richard with them, like I used to.

Stef stops me.

He herds me back across the mattress, tucking me where he wants me like Jess herds her lambs on instinct, all while he’s still dead to the world. Which makes sense—we did stay up late to welcome Lukas home from London.

It’s dawn. Everyone under this farmhouse roof still sleeps. I should too. Instead I watch the rise and fall of Stef’s chest, the steady thrum of the pulse at the base of his throat, the curl of his hand incrementally relaxing, before I give up on getting any more shut-eye.

I can’t lie here while there’s a to-do list on my phone with three unchecked boxes, not when today has to be perfect. It has to be, and it might be if I can get a head start on double-checking every single wedding detail.

I know that’s an excuse even as I think it.

Something else nagged me awake, not checklists or long-gone cows that don’t need milking. Not slammed doors nor what my brother calls the feds chasing drug-dealing roadmen through the streets he barely made it out alive from.

Noah.

I ease away from Stef again, this time activating stealth-mode.

He still feels my movement. His eyes stay closed, and I’m an unemployed enterprise consultant, not a born romantic, but I can’t regret that someone else took the Penzance spot he tried to make mine, not when Stef’s arm tightens around me.

He blocks my way out of our bed like he blocks the dawn, nothing getting past his granite shoulders. He’s another sleeping giant like the tors bordering the farm, and I’ll always want to climb both versions, only right now I have another mission. A herding instinct of my own kicks in, an internal big-brother alarm amplifying, so I roll away one more time, and mean it.

Again, Stef rolls with me, his chest to my back, his palm sliding up to cover my mouth, only not in a replay of silent sex that having a teen in the house has perfected. This morning, he does it for just long enough to rasp in my ear.

“Stop worrying so hard.”

He inhales slowly, his chest rising behind me, his exhale coming with a tickle of chest hair and a rumbling question.

“You stopped yet?”

I shake my head. I also feel his smile against the back of my neck. At least I think it’s a smile. It is most mornings when I try to creep down the hallway without him.

“Noah was fine yesterday,” Stef whispers around a yawn. “Lukas says he’s doing amazing, so there’s no reason he won’t be fine this morning as well.” His lips brush the back of my neck while mine brush his palm before he lifts it, and I hope he knows what my kiss means.

I want to believe you.

---