Page 13 of Mixed Up with the Mountain Man
"Having second thoughts?" I ask when she pauses, holding a photo of her and her Vancouver friends.
"No." She sets the photo in a box marked 'keep.' "Just realizing how little of this stuff actually matters to me. Most of it was about maintaining an image. The right apartment, the right clothes, the right life." She looks at the camera. "None of it was really mine."
"And Silver Ridge?"
"Feels more like home than this place ever did."
Day twelve, she ships her boxes. Day thirteen, she cleans the apartment and drops off her keys. Day fourteen morning, she texts: "Loading the car. See you in six hours."
I spend those hours like a caged animal—showering twice, changing shirts three times, checking the ring box hidden in my sock drawer a dozen times. The jewelry store in town had limited options, but the moment I saw this one—a simple solitaire with smaller stones that reminded me of stars around the mountain—I knew it was hers.
Finally, finally, I hear her car coming up the drive.
She's barely out of the vehicle before I'm there, pulling her into my arms, kissing her like my life depends on it. She melts against me, her hands fisting in my flannel.
"Missed you," I growl against her mouth.
"Never again," she says. "Never leaving you again."
"Good. Because I bought something while you were gone."
Her eyes widen. "Leo..."
I drop to one knee right there in the driveway, pulling out the ring box. "Emma Hartley, you crashed into my life two and a half weeks ago and turned everything upside down. You make me laugh, you make me crazy, you make me believe in forever. I know it's fast, I know it's insane, but I also know I want to wake up next to you every morning for the rest of my life. Will you marry me?"
She's crying and laughing at the same time. "You actually looked at ring designs."
"Woman, answer the damn question."
"Yes!" She launches herself at me, nearly knocking me over. "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!"
I slide the ring onto her finger—perfect fit, because of course it is. Everything about us has been perfect fit from the start.
"When?" she asks, admiring how the diamond catches the mountain sunlight.
"Tomorrow if you want. Or we can wait, have a proper wedding—"
"Spring," she decides. "A spring wedding in Silver Ridge, with wildflowers and mountains and everyone we love watching us promise forever."
"Spring it is." I kiss her again, long and deep. "Welcome home, future Mrs. MacKenzie."
"Best scam ever," she murmurs against my lips.
I laugh, lifting her up and spinning her around. "Damn right it was."
Emma
Thepregnancytestshowstwo pink lines.
I stare at it in the bookstore's tiny bathroom, hands shaking as the reality sinks in. Pregnant. We're going to have a baby.
My legs suddenly feel unsteady, so I lower the toilet seat and sit down heavily, still clutching the plastic stick. Two lines. Clear as day. No ambiguity, no maybe-if-you-squint-and-hope uncertainty. Just two definitive pink lines that are about to change everything.
Leo and I had talked about children, of course. Someday, we'd said. When the bookstore is established, when we've been married longer than six months, when we feel ready. We'd painted vague pictures of a future with little feet running through the aisles, children's story time in the reading corner, a nursery in the cabin where morning light would stream through windows overlooking the mountains.
Apparently, our baby has other plans.
"Emma?" Leo's voice carries through the door, warm with concern. "Everything okay in there?"
