Page 252 of Small Town Firsts
I shook my head, but then my timer started beeping and she scrambled down and we both raced to the bathroom. She elbowed me out of the way and grabbed the little plastic wand.
“What does it say?” I asked over her shoulder.
Her hand flew up to her mouth.
I banded my arms around her waist as we stood in front of the stick. “It’s okay, Al, we’ve got?—”
“Positive.”
I swear I went blind and dumb for a full ten seconds. “What?”
“Positive.” She twisted in my arms. “I think we’re having a baby.”
I crushed her to me.
“Seth, the stick.”
“Who cares? I’m getting that sucker framed. My girl said yes, and the test said yes. Best day ever!”
“I didn’t say yes yet.”
I scooped her up into my arms again and strode out of the bathroom. “Oh, you will.”
She grabbed my shoulder. “You’re so certain?”
I locked my gaze with hers. “More certain than I’ve ever been about anything.”
Her eyes were shiny, but the biggest, brightest smile lit her face.
Finally, I got the words right.
EPILOGUE
ALLY
The air was crisp, and the wind fluttered the curls cascading down my back. The lace of my veil lifted and settled around my shoulders to brush my arms. Fingertip length. All the things I’d learned about weddings had gone in one ear and out the other, other than a little of the background on my veil. The piece offered a touch of the traditional. As did the empire cut of the gown that hid some of the swell of my belly.
I slid my hand over the bump growing larger every day. February was coming like a freight train and so here I was…getting married on the first of October.
I peeked around the gazebo to the long pier I had to walk down.
Alone.
“I’m here, I’m here.” A little voice carried on the wind.
I glanced behind me to see Laurie coming around the corner in her pink tulle and ribbons. “What are you doing down here? You’re supposed to be next to your dad.”
“Nuh-uh. I walking you down the aisle, silly.”
My eyes burned. “Oh, sweetie.”
She held out her hand to me. Such a big girl these days. Four going on forty sometimes. Her nightmares had faded away with family reading time every night. We’d all settled into a crazy sort of normal. “It’s okay, Mommy. I’m a big girl, I can do it.”
“Oh, I know that you can. I just thought you had to be brave for Daddy.”
She shrugged and stepped next to me. “Nah. He has Unca Ollie.”
“Are you ready?” Sage rushed down the hill to fuss with my train. “What did you do? I told you to stay still.”
