Sheltered(53)

I hold up my hand, showing her my ring. She screams happily and engulfs me in a giant hug. “Don’t let him steal you off to the courthouse,” she says as she pulls back and shoots Ryker a hard look. He goes to open his mouth, probably to say that is what we are doing, but I cut him off.

“I think we can plan something small pretty quick.” Ryker closes his mouth. I’m sure he wants to say something else, but I shoot him a look of my own. Kathleen is excited about this, and if spending the next few weeks planning a quickie wedding keeps her mind off of other things, then that what we are going to do.

“All right.” Ryker sighs. “Go get your book, Mom. I know you want to.” Kathleen winks at me as she runs back to the car, and Jackie pulls me into a hug.

“Welcome to the family,” he says in my ear before kissing me on the cheek. “Thank you. You not only made my wife and me happy, but you’ve brought Ryker back to life. Haven’t seen him this laidback in years.”

My eyes brim with tears once again. I finally feel like part of a family for once in my life. Kathleen comes rushing back with a big scrapbook-looking thing in her hand with Ryker and Blair's Wedding emblazoned on the cover. “It looks like you’ve been working on it for a while.”

“Since Ryker told me about you.” She smiles. I can’t help but laugh. “Come, there is so much to be done and we know Ryker isn’t going to give us much time.” She pulls me into the house and back into the kitchen area, where Jackie makes her a cup of coffee and Ryker gets me a tea. She opens the book and starts showing me everything.

Ryker sets the tea down in front of me and a moment later picks me up and places me back on his lap. I blush a little, but Kathleen carries on talking a mile a minute, showing me a ton of different ideas.

I let myself melt into Ryker as he wraps his arm around me and listens to his mom go on as well. Jackie rests his arm on the back of his wife’s chair, smiling softly at her. Ryker kisses me below my ear, whispering that he loves me, and I know that Ryker will give me the happily ever after every girl dreams about.





Epilogue





Blair





Two years later…





I roll over onto my back and stretch my arms and legs. I must have fallen asleep for a second, and I squint in the sunshine as I look around.

Ryker and our daughter Chloe are walking hand in hand across the orchard over to where I’m at. We came out here earlier for a picnic and I must have dozed off after we ate. I reach a hand down and rub my growing belly, thinking how this baby is sucking all my energy lately.

“Looks like Mommy is awake,” Ryker says as he sits down on the blanket beside me. He kisses me on the lips first then kisses my belly. “You tired?”

“Yeah, but I can’t think of a time when I’m not, so maybe this is just my new state of being,” I say dramatically and then laugh.

Chloe comes over and sits in my lap to show me the flowers she picked for me. She’s so sweet as I tell her the colors and she says them back to me. She’s got Ryker’s bright eyes and my lips, and she’s the center of our world.

“Baby,” she says as she pats my belly, and I nod.

We’ve been doing our best to get her ready for her new brother or sister, but she’s still so little she thinks I’m having a doll for her to play with.

“It’s a boy,” Ryker whispers as he kisses my neck.

“You’re so sure,” I retort, rolling my eyes and teasing him. “You said Chloe was going to be a boy, too.”

“And I’ve never been happier to have been wrong,” he says, tickling her feet.

She bursts into a fit of giggles, and my heart is so full I can feel a lump in my throat. I know it’s just hormones, but I really am so thankful every day for the life I’ve been given.

It still amazes me after all this time that things have worked out so perfectly. Ryker still runs his family business from a distance, since we’ve got more money than our children could burn through in a lifetime. Every once in a while, he’ll take a meeting or sit in on a conference call. But for the most part, he just wants to spend time with his family and work on the land.

He’s been my true southern hero, my knight in shining armor. He’s given me everything I could have ever dreamed possible and so much more. One day I made an offhand comment about how I ate ramen noodles almost every day in college, but I still miss their taste. The next day I had a case of them sitting in my pantry. He often does small, sweet things to remind me he’s paying attention, even when I don’t think he is. He always goes above and beyond to make sure I never want for anything. And he’s even worse with our daughter. I worried at first that he was going to spoil her, but then I realized that his kind of love is never too much. Sure, it’s intense, and over the top, but it’s also the purest and most honest form of love I’ve ever seen. Any child would be lucky to have a father like Ryker, and I’m thankful every day that I’ve got him as my husband.

Once all the drama settled down, he got a ring on my finger and had me running down the aisle two seconds later. If it wasn’t for Kathleen and Jackie, I don’t think we would have even had a wedding. It was small and quickly thrown together, but we got married at sunset in the orchard and it was the most beautiful day of my life.