Hank stood at the end of the hallway waiting for Macie. Her cousin, Tyson, had offered up the use of his house for Amanda and Brandi’s wedding ceremony. It was going to be a fairly small affair, with only about forty family members and close friends in attendance.
Tyson and Caleb had set up several rows of chairs by the lake with a rose-covered arbor at the front, serving as an altar of sorts. Meanwhile, Macie and her cousins had spent the better part of the morning decorating the tent and tables they’d rented for the reception with flowers and white tulle. As far as the weather went, it was a perfect day for a wedding. Not a cloud in the sky. Macie had been grinning from ear to ear all day, delighted for her friends.
And, he hoped, still reveling in their happiness. It had been two weeks since they’d said their vows and as far as Hank was concerned, the honeymoon could last forever. He was floating on cloud nine and had no plans to jump off the thing. Ever.
The wedding was set to begin in less than an hour. Macie had gone back to one of the bedrooms to check on the brides with Adele.
He was surprised when Adele came back to the living room without Macie.
“Where’s Mace?” he asked.
Adele jerked her thumb behind her. “She must be more nervous than I thought. Either that or she’s overly excited. She just darted into a bathroom. I think she’s throwing up.”
Hank frowned. Macie hadn’t been nervous this morning. And being overly excited wasn’t exactly a new thing for her. Which meant it was something else. “I’ll go check on her.”
Adele, clearly distracted with wedding prep, just nodded and darted toward the kitchen. “Cool.”
Hank walked toward the bathroom, trying to get a handle on his sudden surge of emotions.
Two seconds ago, he’d thought himself the happiest man on the planet. That didn’t even compare to what he was feeling right now.
He knocked on the door. “Macie.”
He heard a muttered, “shit,” and a brief, quiet cough.
“Just a minute, Hank,” Macie called out.
Thirty seconds passed and he knocked again.
“Open the door, Whiskey.”
He heard the toilet flush and the sound of running water. Finally, she unlocked the door. “Damn, Coop. Can’t a girl take a minute or two alone to get pretty?”
He stepped inside, studying her face, his suspicions confirmed in the way she looked anywhere but at his eyes. “How far along are you?”
That caught her attention.
Her gaze connected with his, and she gave him an innocent look that didn’t fool him for a minute. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Did you take a test yet?” he persisted.
Macie narrowed her eyes. “You realize you’re ruining everything.”
He grinned, her words the admission he needed. “What was your plan?”
“I was going to put a pacifier around Sally’s collar and see how long it took you to notice.”
“Holy shit.” A wave of pure joy crashed over him. He drew her into his arms, hugging her tightly. “You can do that next time.”
She snorted. “There won’t be a next time. I feel like dog crap. I’m not doing this again.”
Hank kissed the top of her head. “Mmmhmmm,” he said, knowing he’d convince her otherwise.
“I mean it, Hank.”
“I know you do.”
“You’re happy, right? I mean, you said you wanted this. But damn, talk about a honeymoon baby. Or, more likely, a pre-honeymoon baby. Cause this probably happened before Vegas, now that I think about it.” She was rambling.
He released her, surprised to find her nervous. “Macie. My God, baby. I can’t even begin to tell you how happy I am right now. I never—” He had to clear his throat as his emotions started to clog it. The reality of what she’d just told him was truly setting in. “I never thought I’d get the chance to be a father.”
Macie, astute as ever, noticed the impact her news had on him. She cupped his cheek and smiled softly. “You’re going to be a great one.”
Hank forced himself to take a couple deep breaths. Jesus. He was on the verge of blubbering like a fool. He needed to get his shit together.
“I love you, Macie.” The words were simple. Words he’d said to her several times a day, every day, since the wedding. They weren’t enough to cover what he felt right now, but they were all he had.
She reached up on tiptoe and kissed him. “I love you too.”
“Are you’re okay with this? Happy? I know I’ve been going on about it a lot. It’s what you wanted too, right?
Macie rolled her eyes as if he’d just said something utterly ridiculous. “I know how to stop a pregnancy, Hank. When I realized I was late on my shot, I wasn’t freaked out. Not even a little. I was actually sort of excited to think…well…you say you’re not getting any younger, but neither am I. There’s that clock-ticking thing.”
Hank snorted. “You’re only thirty-one, Whiskey. I’m pretty sure nothing’s ticking yet.”
“Maybe not, but I purposely didn’t call Tyson to get another shot or the Pill. So really, when you think about it, I trapped you.”
He laughed. “We trapped each other.”
“Besides, if we’re serious about a big family, we need to get started.”
“Thought you weren’t having another one?”
She lifted one shoulder casually. “I talk shit all the time. You know that.”
“So you weren’t kidding about wanting a big family?”
She nodded. “I’d love that more than I can say. Although I’m not sure what kind of mother I’d make. In addition to learning how to cook, I’m going to have to practice curbing my foul mouth. And God help us all when we’re buried in dirty diapers and soiled bibs.”
“I’ll start looking for a housekeeper now. And we can get a swear jar. My language could do with a bit of cleaning up too. We got this, Mace. It’ll be okay.”
Macie wrapped her hands around his neck and he gave her a kiss on the cheek.
“I know,” she said. “Feels like there’s nothing I can’t do now that we’re together.”
Leave it to Macie to find the right words. She’d hit the nail right on the head. With her, he felt invincible, powerful, ready to take on the world.
“You ready to go marry those girlfriends of yours?” he asked.
Macie glanced at her watch, then the open bathroom door. “You know we still have about half an hour, maybe more.”
“You feel okay?”
“Comes and goes in waves. It just went.”
Hank kicked the door closed with his foot, then reached out to throw the lock. “What’s my time limit?”
She giggled. “Ten minutes. It’ll take me twenty to put myself back to rights and stop blushing before I have to get up in front of my family.”
“Ten minutes. Got it. Turn around, bend over that sink and pull that dress up. I’ll do my best not to mess up that pretty hair and makeup too much.”
Forty minutes later, Macie stood up in front of the people gathered and knew she hadn’t made much headway on controlling her blush. Or her breathing.
With any luck, everyone would mistake her slowly fading arousal for nervousness. Adele had already perpetuated that idea by telling everyone and their uncle she’d thrown up earlier.
Macie brushed it off by lying about overindulging in wine last night. In truth, she hadn’t had a drink since her suspicions about being pregnant were confirmed.
Only Tyson seemed to question the reason for the sickness. Which made sense, considering he was a doctor. She caught his eye and her dear cousin gave her a quick wink—either of support or as a gotcha. She had no idea which, but she was certain he’d pull her aside before the night was over and let her know.
When Harley, Tyson’s girlfriend, began playing and singing the wedding song, Macie relaxed.
She’d been a nervous wreck about this for months, but now that the day was here, every anxiety disappeared and all she felt was happiness for her friends. The same joy they’d felt for her just two weeks earlier.
Harley sang “Sailboats,” a Brooke Fraser number that was absolutely perfect for the moment. Her crisp, clear voice carried beautifully, accompanied by the gentle lapping of the lake as a soft breeze blew.
Though she was a terrible singer, Macie loved music and was always affected by it deeply. Amanda and Brandi couldn’t have chosen a better song to walk down the aisle to.
The brides had had a rough go of it; after all, theirs wasn’t a conventional relationship. For every person who embraced their love, there were three others who felt compelled to tell them why it was wrong.
Surrounded by so many people, Macie could see how touched the brides were by the obvious outpouring of support as they walked toward her. Amanda’s face shone with pure love—an emotion Macie had only just recently come to understand herself.
She had been surprised when her friends asked her to serve as officiant nearly a year earlier. Part of her thought perhaps they were joking. But when they didn’t crack a smile, when they began to list sincere reasons why they wanted her to do it, she knew the request was real. And because she loved them, because she admired their courage when it came to standing up to the naysayers and saying, “this is what I want, what I deserve,” Macie knew she wanted to be the one standing there with them.
The music ended as Amanda and Brandi took their places in front of her and she took a deep breath. Writing the ceremony had been harder than she would have thought, and she actually hadn’t finished putting the whole thing all together until she’d returned from her own wedding.
That was when she realized what her problem had been at the beginning. At the time, she’d been single. What did she know about love? What made her qualified to speak about forever?
Then Hank had asked her out and over the course of the last few months, the words she’d been struggling to find fell out. The rest of the ceremony came to her clearly the day after her own wedding in Vegas.
She glanced out at the crowd and found Hank staring at her. He gave her the thumbs-up and she smiled.
“Today is a celebration of love, friendship, commitment and family—those we were born into as well as those we’ve created on our own.”
She looked out at the people assembled, quite a few of them members of her own family. She saw all the couples she’d watched fall in love and watched struggle to hold on, to overcome all those things that conspire to keep lovers apart.
“All of us here have our own love stories.”
She saw Evan and Annie and recalled how hard they had tried to get pregnant, how it had almost destroyed their marriage. Then she caught a glimpse of Sydney and Chas holding hands in the third row, newlyweds themselves. The two of them had fought to stay together as Chas suffered PTSD upon returning from the Middle East. They sat next to Logan and Lacy, who were whispering and quietly chuckling at some private joke meant just for them.
“There’s a quote that says, ‘I saw that you were perfect, and so I loved you. Then I saw that you were not perfect, and I loved you even more.’”
Macie smiled when Tyson grinned at her. He was sitting with Harley—who’d taken her seat next to him—and Caleb, while her cousin, Jeannette, sat with her lovers Luc and Diego.
Tyson and Jeannette had faced down the folks in town who said three people couldn’t love each other. They’d heard “it’s not natural” far too many times and yet they hadn’t given up, hadn’t turned their backs on love and happiness.
Macie was proud to be a Sparks, proud to be a part of such an amazing family.
Amanda and Brandi held hands, looking at each other with such love, such happiness. Macie’s heart was so full, she feared it would burst.
“Sure, there will be happy times, making dinner together, playing with your kitten,
binge-watching Netflix, game nights with friends. But maybe life won’t always be great. If you can make it through the sad times, the mad times, the ‘we’re so freaking broke’ times, at the other end, you’re going to find yourselves sitting in matching recliners watching repeats of Friends for the millionth time and realizing there is no one else on the planet you’d rather do a whole lot of nothing with.”
The brides laughed, as did the crowd. Their love of the old sitcom was well-known as they quoted lines from it constantly.
“You’ve chosen to be with someone who makes you think, makes you laugh, makes you better. Amanda and Brandi have written their own vows, which they’d like to exchange now.”
As the brides shared their own promises and words of love, Macie lifted her gaze to Hank. He was looking at her as if the sun rose and set on her shoulders.
He made her think and laugh everyday. And he made her want to be a better a person.
Macie listened as her friends spoke and felt the tears she’d been struggling to hold in stream down her face. When the brides finished and looked at her, spotting her tears, the three of them laughed quietly at what sappy, happy idiots they were being. They exchanged the rings, all three of them constantly wiping their eyes and grinning their fool heads off.
Amanda had insisted on a champagne toast at the end of the ceremony, so Macie reached for the brides’ glasses, handing them each one before claiming her own—she’d replaced her champagne with ginger ale. The guests had been given a glass of the bubbly before taking their seats.
Macie raised her glass. “Nikki Giovanni once said, ‘We love because it’s the only true adventure.’ Brandi, Amanda, let the adventure begin. To you.”
Everyone took a sip of champagne and then Macie said, “You may kiss your bride.”
Harley, Caleb and Tyson had snuck to the back at some point and, at her cue, began playing “When the Right One Comes Along,” by Nashville as the brides made their way back down the aisle hand in hand.
They were followed by the guests as they all headed to the large tent set up next to Tyson’s house for the reception. Macie’s mom and aunts had laid out one heck of a spread, the delicious smells of fried chicken and barbeque filling the air. It wasn’t a Sparks’ event without barbeque.
Macie’s dad was hugging the brides, giving them both a kiss on the cheek, when Macie stepped under the tent. While Brandi’s parents had come to the wedding, Amanda’s family had refused. As such, Macie’s dad was doing the first dance with Amanda, declaring she was “his girl” anyway. While Dad drove her crazy on most days, she loved him to the moon and back, and always would.
“That was incredible, Whiskey.” Hank stepped up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. His hands gently stroked her stomach, and she knew he was imagining their baby growing inside. “You nailed it.”
She twisted to face him. “I couldn’t have written any of that without you. I’ve learned so much about love in the last couple of months.”
“So have I.”
Ty’s Collective had already set up a small stage on one side of the tent, so once they plugged their instruments into the amps, the music began.
When Tyson and Harley started singing “Tenerife Sea,” Hank took her hand and pulled her to the dance floor.
“When can we start telling people?” he murmured in her ear.
She laughed. “It’s too soon.”
Hank gave her a hesitant nod that set off her Spidey senses.
“Who did you tell?”
He gave her a grin that didn’t look as guilty as it should. “Porter.”
“Oh, thank God. I was afraid you were going to say my dad.”
Hank snorted. “Give me a little credit. TJ is not someone I’d trust with a secret.”
“But Porter is?” Then Macie rolled her eyes. “You know, I was only away from you for the twenty minutes it took for the ceremony. That’s pretty fast work. And you accuse me of being a shameless gossip.”
“Couldn’t help it. Sort of forgot to put my shields up. Sat down next to him, grinning from ear to ear, and he asked me what happened. It slipped out. But don’t worry, I told him to keep it to himself. I just… Macie.” He said her name with such wonder, such love, she had to hug him.
She couldn’t be mad at him. Not for this. She was in the same boat, dying to scream the news to the world. And she knew what being a father meant to Hank, how much he wanted it, how he’d resigned himself for years to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen.
But she knew it was smarter to wait until more time had passed. It was far too early in the pregnancy. Plus, it was Amanda and Brandi’s day.
“No one else,” she said. “Promise?”
He nodded. “I promise. But I’m pretty sure Tyson suspects something.”
“I think he does too. I’ll corner him later and swear him to secrecy.”
They continued to dance as Macie chatted about the ceremony, what everyone was wearing, possible baby names, and wondering aloud if Porter would ask Adele to dance. So far, her sister and his ranch hand had avoided any discussion of each other, always dodging the subject whenever it was broached. The standard answer from both of them was the other was an annoyance and that was that.
Through it all, Hank simply listened, nodded and added the occasional yes or no answer.
She’d filled most of the next three songs with conversation before she caught herself. Grinning sheepishly, she murmured a quick, “Sorry.”
Hank frowned. “For what?”
“Talking your ear off.”
Hank gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Whiskey?”
“Yeah?”
“Keep talking.”
Are you new to Sparks in Texas? If so, be sure to check out other books in the series.
If you’ve read all of the series and want to read more stories by Mari Carr, the wildly popular Wilder Irish series is a great one to pick up. The first book, Wild Passion, is available now.
Click to the next page for chapter one of Wild Passion. It’s a hot one!