Page 47 of Choosing Happily Ever After

There really were a million potential ways it could go wrong. Now that the wheels were in motion, he couldn’t stop obsessing about each and every one of those potential pitfalls. The biggest one being that Hope wouldn’t show up. What if, despite her certainty, Faith couldn’t get her there?

Levi paced in the grass, keeping his eyes focused on his feet in an effort to calm himself down.

Faith would get her there. She knew her sister better than anyone. Even better than he did in many ways.

But what if she rejected his grand gesture once she got there?

He turned and paced in the opposite direction as he contemplated yet another pitfall.

“You need to stop that.” Logan put his hand on Levi’s shoulder in an attempt to stop his pacing.

“I can’t.”

“You have to, Levi.” Something in Logan’s voice made Levi pause. “She’s here.”

Levi spun around to see that Logan hadn’t been lying.

She was there.

Hope was there. And she looked beautiful.

He had no idea how she’d pulled it off, but Faith had not only delivered her sister to him, but she was dressed as the most beautiful bride in the perfect spot. They’d pulled up in the golf cart that Hope used to whip around the property. She wasn’t looking in his direction, but was instead saying something to her sister. Levi watched, and waited while Hope turned to step out of the cart and for the first time noticed what he’d set up.

Levi took a step toward her, and he saw the moment that Hope realized that whatever Faith had told her to get her there had been a lie. Her beautiful smile was gone, replaced by a frown. She shook her head and turned around, but Faith was right there to stop her if she thought she was going to leave. She took her arm and whispered something into her ear.

Hope nodded and looked down at her feet for a moment. When she looked up, she looked past the small crowd of people sitting in the chairs waiting for her; she looked past the beautiful arch he’d set up in her favorite place on the riverbank, and past the wildflowers that had been arranged by Katie in galvanized buckets down the aisle.

She looked past all of it and instead focused completely on him.

Levi smiled and moved quickly toward her, closing the distance between them in only a few strides. He noticed vaguely that Faith stepped back to give them privacy, but he only had eyes for the woman he loved.

“You look gorgeous.”

“Levi? What’s this all about?” Unshed tears shone in her eyes, but something else was there, too. Love.

Emboldened, he took her hands in his. “Hope, I love you. I always have.”

She shook her head a little, but he wasn’t deterred. “And I know you love me, too.” She squeezed her eyes shut and a tear slipped down her cheek. “No.” He brushed her tear away. “Don’t cry. Because it’s not a bad thing.”

She looked up then, confusion in her eyes.

“It’s not,” he said again. “Love can never be a bad thing, Hope, and I know that you have some sort of crazy idea that we can’t be together because you’re sick.”

“It’s not that, Levi.” She finally spoke. “I can’t let you give up your life and everything you want because of me. I would never be able to live with myself if I knew that you gave up—”

“You?” He interrupted her. “You’d never be able to live with yourself if I gaveyouup?”

“No.” She shook her head. “If you gave up everything you wanted out of life because I made the decision to do this…to have a…you don’t understand.”

He laughed a little then; he couldn’t help it. “No,” he said. “It’s you who doesn’t understand, Hope. Because the only thing I want out of my life is you.” She blinked hard and tilted her head. “It’s always been you, Hope.” He squeezed her hands. “I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Whatever it looks like.”

“You have a whole life.”

“I want you.”

“But you want to travel.”

He shook his head. “I want you.”

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