The team was in Nashville. Claire briefly debated driving there, but after realizing it would be at least a ten-hour drive, she opted to buy herself a plane ticket.
Fifteen hours later, she was in her seat, on the runway, heading to Tennessee.
She hadn’t told Callum she was coming. She felt it would be best to just show up. Part of her wanted to surprise him, but most of her felt she needed the time it would take to get to Nashville to gather her thoughts and decide what she was going to say and the way in which she planned to apologize. And how she was going to beg him to take her back, despite how she’d treated him.
His emails had pleaded with her to give their relationship another chance. She knew he wanted her. But what if he’d reached the end of his rope? No one, not even Callum, could keep up that desire forever. What if, after the last email he sent her, he’d decided he was done. Wouldn’t that serve her right?
She couldn’t let herself dwell on that thought for long, though. She had too much else on her mind. She was so nervous as the plane reached its cruising altitude, she found her palms were sweating and she had to wipe them on her pants, numerous times.
The only person she’d contacted last night had been Wyatt. She hadn’t even called Gia, for no other reason than she didn’t need an “I told you so” at the moment. Gia would have plenty of time to gloat later and Claire would have to let her.
Wyatt had answered the phone on the first ring.
“Yello!” he’d said, his drawl as thick as molasses.
“Wyatt, listen to me. It’s Claire, and if you’re anywhere near Callum, don’t let on it’s me.”
“Well, howdy there, Helen,” Wyatt said, enunciating very carefully. “You missing me, baby doll? Didn’t get enough of good ole’ Wyatt last time I was in Tejas?”
“Oh, brother,” Claire said.
“I ain’t got a brother, my little lamp-chop. My mama knew she hit pay dirt the moment she gave birth to me.”
“Okay, get over yourself,” Claire said. “Can you please go somewhere so we can talk privately? I made a big mistake and I need your help fixing it.”
• • •
The crowd was slowly making their ways to their cars when Claire reached the auditorium in Nashville. Wyatt was waiting for her at the door. She’d texted him from the taxi and told him when she’d be arriving.
“How long is the line?” she asked him, after a quick hug.
“Long,” Wyatt said, drawing on the word. “He’s going to be busy for a bit.”
“We really need to find a way to limit that,” Claire said. “It takes too much out of him.”
“We?” Wyatt said, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, we,” Claire said. “At least, I hope it’s ‘we.’ ”
“I do, too, darlin’,” Wyatt said, putting his hand on Claire’s arm and steering her in the direction that would take her away from Callum and all the people waiting to see him. Wyatt and the others hadn’t been happy with her decision to leave—not just Callum, but the team. They’d become a family and they’d all deserved better. She’d hurt those she loved. She hoped that she could make it up to the rest of them, too.
“You can wait in here,” Wyatt said, opening the door to a small conference area. “I’ll bring him to you as soon as he’s done.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll go get you something to eat, too, and some water.”
“Oh, no. Don’t bother. I’m not hungry,” Claire said, waving him off.
“I said, I’m going to get you some food and some water,” Wyatt said sternly. “As I told you, he’s going to be a while. I can’t have you passing out from weakness before he gets here. Plus, you’re gonna be bored. Eating will give you something to do.”
“I’ll be fine,” Claire said. “But food would be nice.” She realized, she hadn’t eaten much of anything since the cheese and crackers yesterday.
Was that only yesterday? It seemed like years ago since she’d read Callum’s emails.
“Are you sure I can’t tell Alison you’re here? I know she’d love to keep you company. She’s really missed you.”
“No, not yet,” Claire said, though she’d missed Alison terribly, too. “I don’t want to see anyone until I see Callum, okay?”
“Whatever you want, darlin’,” Wyatt said with a grin as he left to get her food.
• • •
When Wyatt said Callum would be a while, he hadn’t been exaggerating. An hour and a half later, Claire was done with the hot dog, fries and cotton candy he’d brought her. “Auditorium food,” Wyatt had said with a shrug as he put it in front of her. She was literally twiddling her thumbs, wondering what to do while she waited.
How much longer? she asked, texting Wyatt.
Not much now. About twenty more people, he wrote back.
Claire nearly moaned. Twenty more people? Even if they only took one minute apiece, which was unlikely, Callum wouldn’t be here for almost half an hour.
She picked up her phone, which was nearly dead from all the time she’d been spending surfing the Internet and scrolled through her Facebook newsfeed again.
Forty-five minutes later, the door opened. Claire could hear Wyatt whispering to Callum, “Just one more person. This lady has been hounding me to see you. Driving me nuts, actually. Clinging to me like cellophane.”
“Okay,” she heard Callum say. “I get the picture.”
Wyatt opened the door wide so Callum could roll inside. Claire stood as he entered.
If Claire could have bottled the expression on Callum’s face when he saw her, she would have and then saved the bottle so she could open it whenever she was feeling blue.
The surprise, the joy, the love, the tremendous and overwhelming love, was unmistakable on his face. His beautiful, handsome, glorious face.
Claire barely noticed Wyatt closing the door behind Callum as he left.
Claire felt the tears well up in her eyes. She’d cried so often over the past few years, she was surprised to realize she had any fluid left in there. But these tears were of joy—and some sadness over how stupid she’d been.
“Is it too late to take it all back?” she asked Callum, her voice softer and meeker than she’d intended.
Claire saw the tears begin to fill Callum’s eyes, too.
“No, love,” he said, with a shake of his head.
That was all it took for Claire to rush to him and drop to her knees in front of his chair. He took her into his embrace, and she rested her head against his chest, as she began to sob.
“I’m so sorry. I am so sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he said, running his lips along her hair. “It’s okay. I’m just so glad you came back. You are back, aren’t you? I’m not dreaming?”
“I should’ve never left. I was so stupid. You were right. I’m so sorry.”
She pulled away from him to see his face. From her knees, she had to look up at him, ever so slightly. He wasn’t crying as she was. His smile was as bright as the sun.
“I love you,” Claire said. “I love you so much. Nothing was right when we weren’t together. I tried so hard to make it okay, but it wasn’t.”
“Are you kidding?” Callum asked. “How could anything be right if we aren’t together? We’re meant to be together.”
Claire nodded. She felt exactly the same way.
“I still can’t have children,” she said sadly.
“And that still doesn’t matter to me,” Callum said. “Listen to me. When I did that interview, I hadn’t met you. That was the biggest dream I could dream at the time. I didn’t know you’d come into my life and bring a bigger dream than I’d ever imagined.”
“No,” Claire said. “You said it ’cause you meant it. I want to give you a family, but I can’t do that.”
“If we decide, together, we want a family, we can adopt. And, if we decide, together, we don’t, that’s okay, too,” Callum said, running his hand down Claire’s hair. “What is not okay…will never be okay…is spending one more day without you.”
Callum laid his hand on Claire’s cheek and gently pulled her toward him. Leaning down to her, he kissed her, ever so gently.
When Callum pulled away, much sooner than Claire would’ve liked, he looked into her eyes with a love she’d never before seen, not even in the eyes of Jack.
“Claire Elizabeth Matthews, will you marry me?”
“Yes!” Claire cried out, without hesitation. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I will most certainly marry you!”
She couldn’t believe he hadn’t moved on—that he’d waited for her. Still loved her. Still wanted her. Not just wanted her, but wanted to marry her.
What had she ever done to deserve so many blessings?
She kissed his face a dozen times, all over his cheeks and his lips and his eyes.
“Hey, hey!” Callum said, laughing. “Back away, lady. I’m not done here.”
Claire sat back down on her haunches. “I love you with all my heart.”
“I’m beginning to gather that,” Callum said with a smile. He reached into the bag he kept on the side of his chair and then, after a little bit of digging around, he pulled out a small, black box. With his thumb, he flicked open the lid.
Inside was the most beautiful diamond ring Claire had ever seen.
“We need to make this official,” Callum said.
Claire put out her left hand to Callum, her fingers slightly spread. He rested the box on the arm of his chair as he lifted the ring out and slipped it on her hand.
“You have an engagement ring with you?” Claire asked, staring down at the gorgeous stone that now adorned her ring finger. “Just rattling around in your bag? How did you know I was coming? Did Wyatt tell you?” Claire looked up at Callum with an expression that said she was going to kill Wyatt if he had.
“Wyatt didn’t say a word. I promise!” Callum said, laughing. “I’d already planned to give you the ring before you left. I had it all planned out. I couldn’t wait to propose. And then you dumped me.”
Claire sighed. “Yeah, that was a poor decision on my part.”
“That is was,” Callum said with a grin. “I kept the ring in my bag all that time. Having it close to me made me feel closer to you. And, it gave me hope that someday you’d agree to be my wife.”
“It’s beautiful,” Claire said, holding out her hand for both of them to see. “But now you won’t need the ring to feel close to me.”
“Good,” Callum said, leaning over to kiss her once more. “Because if you ever left me again, love, I’d come find you.”
“You promise?”
The door opened then and Wyatt and Frank and Mitch practically fell into the room. When they saw the ring on Claire’s hand, which she was still holding in the air, the men all high-fived each other and Wyatt let out a whooping sound only a cowboy could make.
“I love me a good wedding,” Wyatt said. “I sure do love me a good wedding.”
Callum and Claire looked at each other and laughed.
“Then I guess we’d better get moving on planning that wedding,” Callum said. “We can’t have Wyatt disappointed, now can we? He’s such a baby when he doesn’t get his way.”
Wyatt grumbled at Callum’s teasing, but instead of punching Callum in the arm, he lifted his hand to high-five him.
“We did it, boss,” Wyatt said. “We did it.”
“We did,” Callum said, looking at Claire. “We most certainly did.”
No one even asked what it was, exactly, Wyatt had done. But it didn’t matter. They were a team. Callum and Claire, as a couple, and the others as part of their family.
And now that Claire was back, they had no intention of letting that team fall apart, ever again.
• • •
The wedding was perfect. For Claire’s first wedding, to Jack, she’d had the big extravaganza. The big venue, the big crowd, the even bigger dress.
Her parents hadn’t been there—they were both gone by then—but her mom and dad had set aside money they’d been saving, ever since Claire was a little girl, for her special day. The fact that they’d scrimped and saved their hard-earned money to ensure their daughter would experience the perfect wedding touched Claire’s heart and made it feel as if her parents were that much closer to her as she walked down the aisle.
There were no parents to pay for the wedding this time, but of course, that didn’t matter. Both Callum and Claire were fully capable of paying for their own event. And neither of them had the desire for a large and showy wedding. They were both private people, Claire even more so since the accident. They only had a small number of friends and some family they wished to invite.
Callum’s mother had begged them to have the wedding in Ireland. Callum and Claire had considered it, but briefly. They knew most of their friends wouldn’t be able to take the time off work or have the money to afford such a trip. So, in the end, they settled on an ideal location just outside of Atlanta. It was a small, wooden, whitewashed church with ten simple pews on either side. The chapel was situated on fifteen acres of lush, green land and as soon as Callum and Claire saw it, they knew it was the perfect spot to begin their union. Alison served as wedding planner, at her insistence, and by the time Claire arrived at the church on her wedding day, a large white tent had been set up on the lawn to the right of the chapel where the guests would be treated to an old-fashioned Southern feast that included ham, cornbread, pecan pie and peach cobbler.
No matter how much Callum begged both Claire and Alison, black pudding did not make the menu.
Claire was certain she’d cry as she walked down the aisle toward Callum, but found she could do nothing but smile. She was so happy—deliriously happy—and everyone could see it.
“Knock it off,” she whispered to Callum, whose eyes were misty, as she reached him at the front of the chapel. “Haven’t you heard? Weddings are happy occasions.”
That had brought a smile to Callum’s face and the two of them never stopped grinning from that point forward.
“You look stunning,” Callum said.
Claire was delighted he thought so. She hadn’t wanted to wear an elaborate, long gown for this wedding. Instead, she selected a tea-length, ivory dress with a jeweled illusion neckline. The waist was fitted, but it flared out, ever so slightly, at her hips. The look was flattering and elegant and fit Claire perfectly.
Claire had worried she’d forget the vows she wrote and decided, as a safeguard, to write them down.
“My bride will not be reading to me from a piece of paper,” Callum had said to her when she’d told him her plan.
“But what if I forget?”
“How much you love me? How handsome I am? How thankful you are that I agreed to become your husband?”
Claire had laughed. “Yes. What if I forget those things?”
“You look in my eyes, love, and you’ll remember it all once again.”
Callum had been right. Claire’s voice shook as she began to speak her vows, but the moment she saw his sparkling baby blues, the church, with its guests and flowers, all fell away. Nothing existed except Claire and Callum.
“When I met you,” Claire said softly. “I had no idea how my life was about to change. How could I possibly know? My world was full of such sadness and despair. I could see no way out of the darkness, until you came along, held my hand, and pulled me through. Because of you, I laugh and smile and dare to dream again. Thank you for being the miracle you are, the miracle I needed. Today, I give myself to you in marriage. When you lose your way, I promise to remind you where you were going. And, when you get there, I promise to have a whole lot of sightseeing planned.”
There was a chuckle from the crowd, as everyone who knew Claire knew she’d never found a tourist attraction she didn’t love.
“I promise to be your rock, your legs and your left arm and to remind you that, despite a few missing limbs, you were the only person on earth who was able to make me whole again.
“I love you,” Claire mouthed to Callum when she finished.
“From the moment I met you,” Callum began. “You surprised me, distracted me, captivated me, and challenged me in a way no one else ever has. I have fallen in love with you, over and over again, countless times, and I fall more in love with you every day. I promise to be true to you, to uplift you and support you, to frustrate you.”
Callum turned to the crowd and said, “I’m already really great at that one.”
Turning back to Claire, he gave her his now-familiar wink. “I want to share with you all the beautiful, quirky moments of life and, maybe someday, if the stars align, I might even let you win an argument.”
Claire slitted her eyes at him, giving him the dirtiest look she could muster.
“Though, of course, you’re always right,” Callum teased, before turning serious again. “No matter what trials we encounter or what hardships we endure together or how much time has passed, I know our love will never fade, that we’ll always find strength in one another, that we’ll continue to grow, side by side. You are my partner in crime, and I will love you, always, with every beat of my heart.”
Claire leaned over to Callum as the crowd sighed at the beauty of his words. “You found that online, didn’t you?” Claire whispered.
Callum winked at her again and whispered back, “I shall never tell, love.”
Before Claire knew it, she and Callum had said their “I do’s” and exchanged their rings. Callum had told Claire, prior to their wedding, that in countries such as Germany, Greece, Russia and Spain, it’s common to wear one’s wedding ring on the right hand.
“Your point being?” Claire had asked.
“Just that when we visit those countries, I’ll fit in quite nicely,” Callum had said with a grin.
Once Callum’s ring was safely on his right ring finger and Claire’s securely on her left, all that was left was the kiss. They made sure to make it a memorable one.
Callum wore his legs to the ceremony. Not his arm, because he found it to be too annoying, but he insisted on wearing his legs.
“I never turn down a chance to walk beside a beautiful woman,” he reminded Claire, as they walked back up the aisle, hand in hand, as husband and wife.
• • •
Claire hadn’t enjoyed dancing this much since the night at the pool party, except this time, she did it sober and knew this evening was going to have a much better ending.
Callum did his best to dance while wearing his legs. They managed one slow dance together and then he tried a couple of the faster tempo numbers, but before long, Claire was whispering in his ear, “Go get your chair,” and he was grateful to oblige.
Claire found enormous delight in watching their family and friends enjoy themselves. Nearly all of those she loved were there. Nora and Patrick, Callum’s brother and his family, Alison and Mitch, Frank and a middle-aged widow he’d recently begun seeing—even some of Claire’s “Mom Friends” were there with their husbands. None of them had brought their kids, though. It wasn’t that Claire had asked them not to, but they’d all recognized it might not be the right occasion for Claire to have to face her children’s friends. The only people who didn’t attend were Bill and Nancy. They had, of course, been invited and Claire had called them, personally, to tell them how much she wanted them there.
“You’re my family,” she’d insisted.
They’d told her they felt the same about her, and though they were truly happy for her—they loved Callum to pieces—it would be too difficult for them to watch Claire say “I do” to a man who wasn’t their son.
“We promise to come visit you once you’re back from your honeymoon,” Nancy had said, and Claire told her she planned to hold them to it.
The most entertaining part of the whole night, though, for both Callum and Claire, was the dance that was going on between Gia and Wyatt.
“You have got to be kidding me,” was all Callum said when Claire had first mentioned the idea.
But, upon further discussion, they’d both come to the conclusion that, in fact, their two good friends, Gia and Wyatt, might actually be the perfect match.
Callum and Claire had schemed, in advance, finding numerous wedding preparations, during the days leading up to the ceremony, where both Gia and Wyatt would be needed. That was all it took. By the time the reception rolled around, Wyatt was holding Gia close around the waist and she was staring up at him with eyes as big as a Texas sky.
“Perhaps now,” Claire said to Callum, as they sat at their table under the reception tent, “I’ll no longer have to hear about the endless parade of losers.”
“Nope. Now you’ll only have to hear about one loser,” Callum said, taking a bite of his cobbler.
“Callum!” Claire said, swatting him in the chest. “Wyatt is not a loser.”
“Of course not!” Callum asked incredulously. “Watch what you say about my best man, will you?”
Claire shook her head as Callum grinned at her. Picking up his spoon, he tapped it against his water glass a number of times. The band slowed and lowered their music and the crowd turned their attention to the groom.
“Can I have your attention, please? For just one moment.” Callum reached to the armrest of his chair and raised his seat as high as it would go. “I know it’s customary to stand when you give a toast, but I hope this will do. I’ve been looking forward to this day all my life. And, if we’re to be honest here, I think we all know I wasn’t always sure it would come. I might talk a good game, but there was always a part of me—the little-boy-inside part of me—that wondered if I’d ever truly find a woman who not only challenged and intrigued me, but someone who was able to look past all of this,” Callum waved across his body, “to see the real me.” Callum turned to Claire. “Claire Fitzgerald, you enchant me. I am moved each and every time you walk into a room. Will you all raise a glass?” Callum asked, turning back to the crowd, as he reached for his wineglass. “To Claire. My love. My life. The mate of my soul.”
As the guests raised their own glasses to toast, and Callum took a sip of his wine, Claire’s heart overflowed with happiness. Callum gave her more joy than she’d thought possible. She was so incredibly blessed to not only have him in her life, but to have him love her so.
Callum had called her the “mate of his soul.” She smiled at the phrase. She’d never before been certain such things existed, but at this moment, on this beautiful starry night, with her groom by her side, she knew they did. She was the “mate of his soul.” And he was the mate of hers.