Page 72 of Forever Then

MY EYES ON HER

Gretchen

three years later

“We’ve officially seen them all, Gretch.” Connor peers at me with bright eyes matching the clear, blue sky above us. “Was it everything you’ve dreamed it would be?”

“And more,” I tease. “Now, when do we see the wild horses?”

He promised me a visit to Carova beach this trip. We’ve been out to see his family a handful of times over the years, but never for more than a few days at a time, making it hard to block out an entire day for the excursion to the northernmost tip of the island.

In the meantime, we’ve worked to check off all five of the Outer Banks lighthouses. Aboard the ferry on the way back to Hatteras from our day trip to Ocracoke, we can officially say that number five is in the books.

“Next week, Fish. I promise.”

We’re here for ten full days this visit. Patrick and Andrea proposed the idea several months ago to get all of their kids and their families on board. For the first time in several years, they have all three of their boys, their significant others and their grandchildren under one roof.

All the couples split off for alone time when Connor’s parents volunteered to take all the grandkids up to Kitty Hawk today. Connor and I don’t have any grandchildren skin in the game yet, but we embraced a day to ourselves, nonetheless.

The week after Labor Day, the tourist crowds have dissipated, leaving mostly just the locals. Beaches are quiet, morning runs to the coffee shop, slow and un-rushed. It’s idyllic.

I rest my head on Connor’s shoulder as Hatteras comes into view in the distance. “I could retire here someday.”

He looks wistfully out over the water. “Yeah, me too.”

“Mr. Chief Marketing Officer means we could probably retire early,” I say with a finger to his ribs.

The sports magazine that Connor began working for three years ago, exploded almost overnight.

They’ve been in a constant state of hiring and expansion.

Six months ago, they offered him the position and he accepted without hesitation.

The men he works for—along with their families—have become some of our dearest friends.

“I don’t know,” he says, all coy. “I think it might be Saks’ newest Assistant Buyer that could make that happen.”

He lies. Not about the Assistant Buyer part, that’s true, but the part about my promotion putting us on the early retirement path.

Not even close, but it’s a step in the right direction up the corporate ladder.

Plus, the new position puts me back alongside Monica who’s become a best friend to me over the past few years.

Obviously, we’re nowhere near retirement, but dreaming up our future is a fun game we like to play.

And we’ve dreamed of it all: travel, marriage, a river-front penthouse in Jersey, three or four babies (adopted and biological), moving to a suburb if city-life doesn’t feel right once kids are in the picture, and now, retiring to the beach.

Someday, we’ve always said.

On the drive back, we stop at a quiet beach to watch the sunset, neither of us in a rush to get back to a house full of beautifully rambunctious nieces and nephews .

There’s not another soul to be found within shouting distance in either direction.

The steady rhythm of waves crashing the shore is the only sound other than thump of Connor’s heartbeat at my back as I lean against him.

His arms wrapped loosely over my shoulders, our fingers twirl and play together.

“You know what my favorite thing is about you?” he asks.

“Hmmm,” I say, gaze cast over the ocean. “I’m gonna say boobs.”

He chortles, sweet and rough in my ear. “Those, too. But not what I was thinking.”

“Do tell, then.”

His chest rises and falls at my back. “Everything about you is…easy.”

“You calling me easy, old man?”

“Okay, that didn’t sound right.” He sighs. “What I meant was, you’re…effortless. Falling for you was easy. Loving you is even easier. Even when life is hard, loving you isn’t.”

He exhales a shaky breath and my heart thrums a little faster in my chest.

“I love that you’re not showy or fancy. Without a stitch of makeup, I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

And I know you think it’s a character flaw, but I love that you hate being the center of attention.

” I smile. “You don’t care about all the celebratory fuss.

You don’t want big grand gestures or to be under the spotlight. ”

He kisses my temple and, if I know this man as well as he knows me, I don’t have to turn around to know his eyes are glassy with tears. His right hand pulls away, but I cling to his left, pulse racing now.

“It’s why I can give you this.” He holds up a ring in front of me. No velvet box, no pomp and circumstance. “And I don’t have to get down on one knee or paint the words across the sky to tell you everything you already know.”

A tear falls down my cheek.

“That you’re my favorite person. That you’re my best friend.” He leans in closer. “Don’t tell your brother that part. ”

I laugh through a sob.

“That I love you,” he continues. “That I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” His voice thickens like the words come from the deepest part of him. “That I want to be your husband. And I want you to be my wife.”

He tilts the ring between his fingers and I’m beside myself with how perfect it is. The modest princess cut stone on a simple platinum band shimmers in the early evening light—it’s exactly what I would have chosen for myself.

Cheek pressed against mine, he slides the ring on my finger. His voice, barely a whisper, finally utters the words, “Will you marry me?”

I nod like a jittery fool and choke out a teary “Yes” as I flip over and collapse into him. We fall to the sand wrapped in each other’s arms.

When we arrive back to his parents’ beach house sometime later, our faces a little worse from wear from all the crying—and kissing—Connor stops me before I reach the front door.

“I have another surprise,” he says. Before I can ask a single question, he swings the door open and we hit a wall of cheers. Connor’s family hoots and hollers as we step inside, shouting their congratulations. I scan the living room and my breath catches in my throat.

My family.

Mom and Dad. Drew and Reagan—and the twin boys growing healthy and strong in her belly, the result of the embryos they adopted earlier this year. Cheyenne, Miguel, MJ, Rosie, Tally and Kai. My entire family—they’re all here. I can’t stop the beautiful ache that seizes my heart.

My hands come to my face. “W-what? How? I don’t understand.” I turn to Connor who looks guilty as sin.

“I have a plan,” he says .

The impatient eyes of the twenty people gathered across the room bear down as they wait for Connor to catch me up.

“You once told me that you didn’t want a big wedding. Just family, an impromptu ceremony and some burgers on the grill.”

Something soft and warm flickers to life inside me as our conversation at Drew’s rehearsal dinner unfolds like a worn, well-loved piece of paper in my memory.

“I can’t believe you remember that?”

He cocks his head, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I remember it all.”

Andrea’s voice booms through the room, bored of my hushed conversation with her son. “We have a beach outside.”

“I grill a mean burger,” Patrick offers.

“Dibs on officiating.” That’s my brother.

“The girls and I took a cake-decorating class this summer. We’ll make a cake.” Everett’s wife, Emily, adds as she tugs her two daughters close, her youngest boy asleep on his dad’s shoulder beside them.

“Cheyenne and I can drive you inland tomorrow to shop for a dress,” Mom supplies, reaching for my birth mom’s hand at her side.

The three of us share a smile over what was once not much more than a tiny flicker of hope I carried inside me that has turned into a reality none of us could have imagined—my adoptive mother and my biological mother becoming the best of friends.

Owen’s wife, Grace, chimes in next, their two-year-old son propped on her hip. “I don’t know anything about flowers, but how hard can it be. I’ll make a bouquet.”

“Rosie and I brought our guitars. We can do the music,” Miguel says with Rosie grinning sheepishly beside him. She’s thirteen now, but forever a daddy’s girl.

MJ throws his hat in the ring, hand raised like an obedient student, a true paradox with his massive fifteen-year-old frame that towers over Miguel. “I brought my video camera.”

One by one, every member of our respective families volunteers to take something on to help us pull off a beach wedding in three days .

When I think everyone’s finished, Reagan declares, “And I’ll make sure all these fools are doing what they’re supposed to do.”

“Oh, thank God,” I say, clutching my chest. Really, though—five months pregnant or not, she’ll keep this whole circus in line.

With a proud smile, she says, “I got you, babe.”

The next three days are a blur. Everybody committed to their self-assigned tasks, all Connor and I have to worry about is what we’ll wear, our wedding bands, and a marriage license.

Saturday afternoon comes, sun high in the sky, air warm.

We sit around a table with our families, eating burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, and chips.

Me in my off-the-rack wedding dress made of simple white satin that grazes the floor and Connor in his khaki pants and white linen shirt, we share a piece of the perfectly imperfect two-tier cake made by Connor’s— our —nieces.

At his insistence that we leave for our honeymoon—the plans of which he won’t tell me—right after the sun goes down, we went unconventional with the order of festivities.

Thirty minutes before sunset, we toss our paper plates in the trash, and wipe cake frosting from each other’s faces before we all head down the stairs on the back of the house that lead to the beach. Bare feet in the sand, I hike up my dress as Connor takes my free hand and we run toward the shore.