Page 118 of The Moments You Were Mine
He’d known what I’d needed without me saying a word.
But it wasn’t the flowers that caused the tears to finally crest. It was the body at the end of the aisle, waiting next to the officiant.
Maisey.
My best friend was there.
I swallowed hard and wiped at the tears with the knuckle of my free hand as Parker said, “Don’t cry, Ducky. Please don’t cry.”
I looked up at him, meeting gray eyes awash with love, and the last of my remaining doubts went sailing to the sky. I’d always belonged to Parker, and he’d always belonged to me. Thatwasn’t going to change, no matter if we said “I do” now or later or never. I cleared the thickness from my throat and said, “They’re happy tears, Parker. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“I didn’t do it just for you. I did it for both of us. So we wouldn’t remember today as some secretive, rushed event, but as something we chose. Something we both wanted and celebrated with people we love at our sides.”
“Keep it up, and I’ll never stop crying.”
Before he could respond, we’d made it to the officiant and Maisey. She handed me a bouquet of wildflowers and gave me a saucy smile. “You didn’t think you’d actually get married without me, did you?”
She wore a simple summer dress of creamy yellow, and her brown hair was up in a messy bun, but she looked happy and beautiful. I pulled away from Parker to hug her.
“Stop, you’re going to crush yourself,” she said, but her voice sounded as achy and raw as I felt.
I let her go and turned back to Parker to see he was messing with his phone.
“One more thing before we get started,” he said.
Parker swiped some more, and suddenly, the two large screens hanging on the walls on either side of the altar came alive.
“What are you doing?” I asked Parker.
“Hold on,” he said while his fingers moved. The large screens came to life, revealing a virtual conference software program, and my confusion grew. Parker logged in as the meeting’s host, and the image showed the chapel with me standing next to him.
I started to ask again what he was doing until, one by one, other attendees joined the meeting.
My pulse jumped as Dad and Sadie appeared, squished together on a screen. My father’s brows were furrowed together as tightly as Jim’s were when he emerged in the next square. Mom looked puzzled in her room at the rehabilitation center, but at least her eyes were clear of any drugs. Then, more people joined the meeting—Parker’s teammates, Kurt, Teddy, Andie, Kevin, and even Rae.
My heart had already felt like it was full to the top, but itswelled impossibly more as I realized what he’d done. Parker had gotten our family here. For us… For me… Just like he’d gotten the wildflowers and Maisey. He’d made sure we did this with the people we loved watching on.
I swallowed hard and grabbed his free hand. When his eyes met mine, I saw in them the one thing I needed most. I saw love. It hadn’t been just an offhanded throw-out comment earlier, and it wasn’t the platonic love of a long-time friendship. It was the forever kind of love he’d once said only a rare couple was lucky to have.
And we were one of them.
“What the hell is going on?” Dad demanded, his voice ringing down from the screens. “Parker sends us some cryptic message insisting we sign into this meeting immediately, and instead of seeing you at the ranch, dealing with the shit there, I see you in the goddamn chapel at The Fortress. With. Fallon.”
Dad’s voice cracked as if he’d already answered his own questions. He knew, just as everyone else did, what was happening.
Parker slid his phone into his pants pocket and then grabbed both my hands, turning me to face him. He didn’t talk to the screens or the dozen or so people watching. Instead, he spoke directly to me.
“The other day, I almost lost the most precious thing in my life, the one person I was supposed to spend forever with, and I realized I’d already lost more minutes than I could count with her. Minutes I could never get back. But from this day forward, I pledge to never lose another.”
“Parker…” My voice trailed away. I didn’t know what to say.
He kept his gaze locked on me as he said, “While I wasn’t willing to wait another minute to marry her and ensure we’d claimed each other as our own, it was important to both of us that we have the people we love at our sides as we took this step. This was the best compromise I could come up with. So thank you for joining us as we say ourI dos.”
A cacophony of voices tried to talk over each other, but Dad’s voice won out with a loud, “Damnit.”
Parker chuckled. “And with that, I’m putting you all on mute.”
He pulled his phone out, tapped a button, and put it away again. He turned to the officiant and nodded. Parker tangled our fingers together and brought our joined hands to his chest. The heat of his body comforted me. The strong and masculine and earthy scent of him brought me home. This was where I belonged. With him.
