Page 93 of Take Me to the Wedding

“You’re a nice person too,” I said. “Thanks for saying that. Hang in there.”

After he left and I was checking my phone again, I heard a bark and some dog tags jingling. The notorious little Labrador wedding crasher came bounding down the aisle. With, of all things, a rose in her mouth.

The dog bounded right up to my chair, sat, and looked up at me adoringly.

“You’re precious,” I said, bending down to take the rose. I looked around, but no one was in sight. So I petted the dog—without hesitation this time. She nuzzled my fingers and jumped up on my dress, licking my face. Okay, so she didn’t have the best manners. Yet.

I confess that at that moment, I really needed every bit of the love and affection that she lavished upon me.

“You need a name,” I said. “You need a person. I think you’re really special. Not every dog can help stop a wedding that never should’ve happened in the first place.”

“I think you’re really special too.”

I jerked up my head to find Caleb standing there, looking unbelievably handsome in his suit, his cast mostly hidden by some seamstress magic.

I tripped on my dress as I tried to stand up. Which got the hem grassy, but it didn’t really matter, did it? As I straightened out, I was close enough to see that his hair was a little out of place, and that he had gray circles under his eyes. We could all use a few more hours of sleep. “You don’t love Lilly,” I blurted.

“I do not.”

Tears rose to my eyes. I felt relief, but really—I’d known that all along. “Did you take a job in Oak Bluff?”

“I’m still waiting to hear back. Why?”

“Lilly told me you did.”

“I think we both realize now that the truth for Lilly is what she wants it to be.” He moved his crutches to sit, and I sat down beside him. “Why did you give her a free pass to tell me she loved me?”

“At first, I thought I did it because I wanted you to have the free will to choose. But now I think I did it because part of me didn’t believe you could really love me—my problem.”

“Samantha, what’s not to love about you?” He took my hands. Held them so tightly that I teared up with relief. “You’re the whole package. Everything that I ever could want in a partner. Beside you, Lilly is just… Lilly was my temps.”

“Your…what?”

He shot me a handsome grin. “My permit. Now I have my driver’s license.”

That was so cornball. But they were words I didn’t know I’d been waiting my whole life to hear. And I couldn’t stop smiling.

“I’m sorry that I was so quick to believe that you’d run away,” he said. “My problem. I kept thinking something wasn’t right, but I had no idea Lilly would do something like that. I’m sorry she put you in that position.”

“I didn’t know what to do. But I was afraid to make the choice for you.”

“My mom helped me see that Lilly put you in an impossible position—and that you were giving me a full, free choice.” He looked deeply into my eyes. “But Sam, I already had it figured out long before that. I love you.”

“I love you too.” And just like that, the awful weight on my heart lifted. Caleb looked at me with love in his eyes and gently cradled my face, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “It’s been you ever since you stomped up to me with your pink clogs that day in the OR and called me a handsome meathead ortho guy. Handsome being the key, of course. That made me fall in love with you right then and there.”

I looked into those beautiful, familiar pale green eyes and smiled. “I think I fell in love with you when you offered me a ride to the farm even though you couldn’t stand me.”

He gave a little shrug. “There’s a fine line between love and hate.”

I was crying, and the dog was too, so I picked her up and put her in my lap. “She’s special. And I’ve got the perfect name for her.”

“Uh-oh,” Caleb said, rubbing her head. “You know what that means. If you name her, she’s yours.”

“What do you think of Dora?”

He lifted a brow in inquisition. “Like the Explorer?”

“No. LikeAdorable.” I scratched behind her ears. “Which she is. In spades.”

---