He Ditched Our Wedding, I Married His Wealthy Uncle novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Pine Hollow Wedding

"Yes," I said. "Get up. Yes."

He didn't get up.

He took my left hand and slid the new ring on above the old one, where they clicked together.

Then Bunny reached over her gate and took the cap off his head.

He stayed on his knee in the wet straw, bareheaded, laughing up at me.

"Every time," he said.

"She likes you."

"She likes hats."

I pulled him up by the coat and kissed him with snow melting down both our necks, and Mabel rumbled at us the whole time.

We did it the Saturday before Christmas, in the pasture.

The snow had stopped in the night.

Everything was white and blue and very still, the creek steaming at the bottom of the field.

The whole town came.

The sheriff and his little girl, in a new knit hat she'd been told to guard.

The feed store owner and his wife, with eight pies.

The man from Vermont, who'd driven down a load of hay bales for people to sit on and wouldn't take a dime.

The Little League team, in snow pants.

The retired schoolteacher from Albany, who'd started her twenty dollars a month again and sent a card on every elephant's birthday.

The cameraman, filming it with his hood down.

Pine Hollow paid him now, by the week, on time.

Darlene came alone in her camel coat.

She sat on a hay bale near the back with her pearls under a scarf.

She'd brought white peonies.

In December.

I had no idea where she'd found them.

She handed them to me at the gate without a word and went to sit down.

I wore a plain white dress with long sleeves that I'd bought in Kingston, and Ramsey's old barn coat over it, and my barn boots.

My braid had a sprig of pine tucked in it.

Clyde was waiting for me at the farmhouse porch in his brown suit.

No tie.

He held out his arm.

"I didn't ask you," I said.

"I'm not asking either, kid." He hooked my hand through his elbow. "I've been walking you places for six years. I'm not stopping at the important one."

I couldn't say anything after that.

So we walked.

Down the porch steps and across the yard and out through the paddock gate, slow, because of his knee and because of the snow.

The town turned around on the hay bales.

At the bottom of the pasture, by the old painted fence post, stood the town justice with a book in his hands.

← Chapter 22 · All chapters · Chapter 24 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend