Page 91 of The Wisteria Tree Cottage

‘Come on, get into bed, we have a few hours of sleep before we need to get up,’ Bear said.

She looked up at him and smiled. ‘I really wasn’t thinking of going to sleep right now.’

He grinned. ‘As much as I would love to take you to bed and make love to you for the rest of the night, I haven’t got a condom with me. It’s not the kind of thing you take with you when you’re searching the woods for your niece at four o’clock in the morning.’

‘Fortunately, I do. I bought some the day of the kiss speed dating.’ She pulled away and grabbed one from the packet in her drawers.

‘Because you were hoping one of those kisses would turn into something more?’ he asked.

‘Because I knew once I started kissing you, I wouldn’t want to stop.’

He grinned and then climbed into bed, holding up the covers so she could get in too. They lay on their sides facing each other.

She kissed him, pressing herself close against him, and his hands caressed her everywhere making her desperate with need for him. His touch was gentle but confident and her orgasm was just there, bubbling beneath the surface. As the kiss continued, he moved his hand between her legs. She clung to his shoulders as that feeling exploded through her. He held her close, kissing her hard.

‘I’ve figured out why you love those sparkly vampire films and stories so much,’ Bear said.

‘Why is that?’ Meadow said, her breath heavy.

‘It’s about eternal love. But we have that, we have that kind of love that will last a lifetime. I have no doubt about that.’

‘Me neither, I know what we have is forever.’

‘Then marry me.’

She let out a little laugh. ‘What?’

‘Marry me. I’ve waited eight years for you and I don’t want to wait a moment longer. We can buy that wedding dress we saw at Dwelling, we can get married in the little chapel in the woods just like you dreamt of. I want to make your dreams come true. Marry me and I will spend the rest of my life trying to make you as happy as you make me.’

Her heart soared with happiness. ‘The dream wasn’t really to get married in the woods, as lovely as that would be, it was to marry you. As far back as I can remember, when I thought about marriage, I always knew it would be to you.’

He smiled. ‘So is that a yes?’

She stared at him. It should be ridiculous and silly but nothing in the world felt as right as when she nodded. He was her love story, her beginning, the middle and her gloriously happy ending, she knew that. ‘Yes, I will marry you.’

He grabbed the condom, ripped it open and after a moment he was hooking her leg over his hip and sliding carefully inside her. They moved together slowly, with no rush, no desperation because they both knew that what they had was forever. His touches were gentle, treasuring her body with his own. He kissed her shoulder, her throat and when he kissed her on the mouth he slid his hand down to her bum, holding her tighter against him. That feeling started to build and she pulled back to look at him.

‘I love you so much, I always have, always will,’ she said.

His face lit up in the biggest smile and he kissed her again, rolling her underneath him as he started moving against her. That feeling suddenly exploded through her like a thousand fireworks sparkling through her body and she knew she had never felt so completely happy as she did right then.

EPILOGUE

Meadow pulled on her sparkly cream dress and looked at herself in the mirror. It had taken weeks to make but she couldn’t have been happier with how it had turned out. The dress itself was quite a simple style, gathered around the bust and then loose to the knee, but the embroidery and sequins had been the things that had taken so long. Tiny little flowers and jewel-coloured leaves danced around the fabric like they were caught in an autumn breeze.

Fortunately, she’d had plenty of time to get it right while Heath and River finished the wedding chapel treehouse and they’d waited for the wedding venue licence to be approved. They’d had their first wedding in there the week before, when River and Indigo got married. Today was the second one. Although autumn was well under way, the colour of the leaves in beautiful tones of scarlet and gold, they were experiencing a hot spell, the sun streaming through the windows and sparkling off the emerald sea. The day couldn’t have been more perfect to marry the love of her life.

Bear stepped out of the bathroom, fixing his tie. Seeing him in a suit made her catch her breath. He was so handsome.

He spotted her in her wedding dress and stopped, his face filling with complete love for her.

He’d seen the dress before. When Star was in bed or at Heath’s, on the nights they weren’t tearing each other’s clothes off, they would sit in the spare room together where she made her dresses, including the one she was wearing, and he sat and wrote his stories. He hadn’t seen her wear it before though.

‘You look incredible,’ Bear said, softly.

‘Thank you. You’re looking sexy as hell in that suit.’

He laughed. ‘Thank you.’

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