Two years later . . .
The Last Chance Inn stood proudly in the distance while Alice watched Lauren attempting to get up out of a wooden chair, unable to help from laughing. They were in the yard off to the side of the barn on the saloon set, which was now used almost exclusively for weddings, and also, since they’d found a stash of Wild West wardrobe in boxes in the barn, family photo shoots.
They were booked nearly a year out, and felt successful beyond their wildest dreams. Alice had just put a deposit down on a small warehouse just outside of town for what would eventually become Woman Auto Know, her mechanic shop.
Who’d seen that coming? Not Alice, that was for sure.
Lauren gave up fighting her way out of the chair and sat back with a heaving sigh.
Taking mercy on her, Alice offered both hands and dug her feet in, bracing herself.
“Seriously?” Lauren asked breathlessly. “I’m not that big.”
But Alice couldn’t talk because hoisting Lauren out of the chair took all of her concentration and every ounce of strength.
“Okay,” Lauren huffed, finally on her feet. “So I’m as big as a house.”
“You’re eight months pregnant, you’re allowed.” Oh shit, Alice thought as Lauren’s eyes went suspiciously shiny. When would she learn to keep her trap shut?
“So I am big as a house?” she cried. “Why didn’t you tell me to stop eating?”
“Uh, because I like breathing? Please don’t cry. You got all dehydrated the last time you cried, which was just this morning when your husband suggested you might want to slightly cool it with the two inches of cream cheese you were layering on your bagel.”
“Ben thinks I’m fat too!” Lauren wailed.
“You’re supposedly vegan, and you’ve got a dairy intolerance, remember?” Alice was frantically searching for the tissues she’d taken to keeping in her pockets at all times and shoved them at the pregnant sobbing chick. “And Ben thinks you’re perfect. That’s why he married you. That’s why he knocked you up.”
“It’s true.”
At Ben’s voice, Lauren stopped sobbing to whip around and face her husband of a year and a half.
Smiling with love and laughter in his eyes, Ben pulled her in close, nuzzling her temple. “How’s my baby?”
“She’s sitting on my bladder and kicking the air out of my lungs.”
He huffed out a sympathetic laugh. “I meant you.”
“Oh.” Lauren smiled up at him. “I’m good. Where’s Hope?”
“Right here!” Hope came skipping across the yard, Pickle right on her heels. “When’s the wedding?”
“That’s the thing.” Ben looked at Lauren. “It’s canceled.”
Lauren’s mouth fell open. “Today’s bride and groom . . . canceled? But they paid us a small fortune up front for everything, including the food, and Alice and I are almost all set up. I was going to marry them in . . .” She pulled out her phone. “Three hours.”
“They eloped.” Ben shrugged. “They called as they were boarding a flight for Fiji. Something about meddling mothers and irritating friends not RSVPing, and the bride not being able to fit into her dress because she’s three months into a surprise pregnancy.”
Alice chuckled, then received a dirty look from Lauren because her pregnancy had been a surprise too. A happy one. And it looked great on her.
Alice heard Knox’s truck pull up. The Tahoe branch of his eco-building company had taken off. But the pro bono work was his favorite. He’d renovated his childhood home and given it to one of the families in the area who’d lost theirs in a fire. He’d then purchased as many in that same trailer park as he could and had done the same for each one. And somehow, he’d also managed to build a house for the two of them.
They lived in relative harmony. Relative, because Alice wasn’t all that good at harmony, and every once in a while, her contrary side liked to buy into her anxiety. This consisted of her having a freak-out about being too happy, so therefore something must be wrong.
Calm, unflappable Knox had been able to talk her through each one so that they came out even stronger on the other side. It was a miracle.
He was her miracle.
As was this new life of hers, one she knew she’d never take for granted.
“Heard the wedding got called off,” Knox said as he came close, stopping to pull Alice into him for a hello kiss.
“How did you hear that already?” she asked, holding on to him because he was warm, smelled amazing, and was looking good enough to eat. “We just found out.”
“Ben called me a few minutes ago.”
Alice and Lauren went brows up at Ben.
Ben just smiled. “Knox had an idea.”
Everyone turned back to Knox, who just held on to Alice and smiled down into her face.
“What?” she asked self-consciously, running a hand over her mouth since she’d been noshing on a bag of M&M’s while working with Lauren. “Am I wearing chocolate?”
“Nope.”
She stared up into his face, his eyes warm with love and affection and something else. A question. She blinked, then looked at Lauren to see if she had a clue.
Given the way Lauren gasped suddenly and put a hand to her mouth, she absolutely did have a clue.
“I’d like to buy a vowel,” Alice said.
“Maybe you’d do better to buy a dress,” Ben said.
“Dress not required,” Knox said, never taking his eyes off Alice.
“Oh please, please, please say yes!” Lauren said, jumping up and down.
Well, not exactly jumping. She was too unwieldy for that. But she did bounce a few times. “Crap,” she said. “Now I have to pee. Hurry up, Alice, say yes!”
Alice finally got that clue, and stared up in shock at Knox. “You want to marry me? Today? Here?”
“Well, we’re already all set up with flowers and food and everything,” Lauren said. “And because the bride said she didn’t know what kind of food she wanted, you helped her pick, remember? You picked all your favorites. You’ve even got pigs in a blanket. How perfect is that?”
Alice couldn’t take her eyes off Knox. He’d asked her to marry him a year ago. She’d agreed. She even wore a ridiculously gorgeous engagement ring, the nicest thing she’d ever owned, and she loved it. But every time they’d tried to figure out a wedding date, something had come up and taken them off track.
Maybe . . . Maybe because she had subconsciously been waiting for something just like this. “Are you sure?” she whispered.
Knox cupped her face. “I’ve never been more sure.”
Which was how she ended up getting married on an old Wild West TV saloon set, complete with a pregnant officiant in a Little House on the Prairie dress the size of a tent, Pickle as the ring bearer, Hope—also in a Little House on the Prairie dress—as a flower girl, and a groom in his best jeans and an old cowboy hat they’d found on the set.
As for the bride, she’d picked a simple sundress she had in her closet but had never worn, and cowgirl boots, because hell, why not lean into the theme and her new life, the one that wasn’t perfect, but was perfect for her.