Page 82 of Endlessly Yours
Cameron beamed. “I don’t know, Cameron Wilder does sound like a good name.”
Rory snorted and then looked down at the diamond ring on her finger, the one that I had given her only a week ago.
It might have been too soon for some, but with all we had gone through, neither one of us wanted to wait.
And after all, it had been Cameron and Alice who had helped me find the ring and make sure that the proposal worked exactly how we wanted it.
“You do not have to change your name if you don’t want to,” Rory said after a moment, worry in her gaze.
“I want to be Alice Wilder, and then we can keep Mommy and Daddy’s name as a middle name like we promised.” I met Rory’s watery gaze and nodded solemnly.
“Don’t worry, we’ll make that happen. Do you want me to add another name to mine?” I asked out of the blue, and Cameron frowned.
“No, it’s okay that we don’t match completely. But I do like Wilder. It’s a pretty name.”
“I agree,” Rory said. “Though Rory Wilder is kind of hard to say,” she said dryly.
“I’m sure we can make it work,” I added just as dry.
“And I get to be a flower girl with Faith, and Cameron gets to walk with Aunt Ava, and it’s going to be a beautiful wedding.”
“Of course it will be. The Wilders do good weddings. And good reunions. I guess we should finish up breakfast and head over there because there are way too many Wilders waiting on us at this point.”
“And they’re really going to help us move into your place?” Cameron asked, and I reached forward and messed with her hair. She scowled at me, straightening it again, and I couldn’t help but snort. She was going to be a teenager any day now, and messing with her was just fun.
“Yes, my place is a little bigger, and you’ll have enough space to move around and spread out. Is that okay with you?”
“We already said it was,” Cameron said as she nudged Rory. Rory beamed up at me.
“Yes. And you let me pick out my own room.”
“And this house will be just next door for whoever needs to rent it. And we’ll make sure that it’s a good family.”
“And maybe they’ll have kids to play with,” Rory said with a smile.
“My friend Matt is looking for a new house,” Cameron said shyly, and I narrowed my gaze.
“No boys. Sorry, that’s just not going to happen. I know teenage boys.”
“But Brooks,” Cameron pouted, and I snorted before serving the rest of our breakfast.
“Nope, don’t even think about it. You’re stuck with me now, kid.”
Cameron just beamed as if I had said the best thing in the world, and my heart grew two sizes at the thought. Because we were a family. Maybe not exactly how we could have been in other people’s worlds, but we were exactly who we needed to be now.
The Wilder retreat and reunion was just as insane as we knew it would be.
Thanks to the immense size of our family, we took up nearly every space with just family members and a few friends along the way.
Our innkeeper, Naomi, and her husband Amos, our vineyard manager, helped organize everything, and now stood on the dance floor, dancing with one another, with Amos’s large hand on the small swell of Naomi’s belly.
Jay and his husband, our wine specialists, were dancing next to them, both of them laughing about something the other had said.
Sandy, our sous chef and now partner with Kendall in one of the restaurants, danced with her wife, both of them trading places with Jay and his husband just for fun.
Each member of the team that had helped bring the Wilders to where they were was out there, no longer working, just enjoying their time with us.
And after such a long few years, it was nice to see them enjoying themselves. Mom and Dad sat at one of the head tables, all of their grandchildren around them. My cousin Eliza had come down from Colorado with her husband and a few of her in-laws, so the Montgomerys were in full force as well. Her two children, now older and in school, were laughing at something my mother had said, looked happy. Silas was now in preschool, while Lexington, the eldest of the next generation, held court over the others.
