Page 73 of For Always
“Change isn’t always a bad thing. Dessie would say it’s necessary and I agree with her. You and Jagger have a new chance at a meaningful adult relationship. Both of you have business experience that George and Verna never possessed. This is your time here at Westwind. I hope you don’t waste it,” Clyde said.
“I won’t,” Tyler told him. “I plan to carry on the family name with the sense of pride and loyalty that my parents instilled in me. Thanks for being their friend and for helping us through this, Clyde.”
Tyler extended his hand to the man who had always been like an uncle to him. Clyde shook his hand but then pulled Tyler in for a hug.
“You’re a good man, Tyler. I always knew you would be and I’m glad to have you home.”
Home.
Tyler was home and that finally meant everything to him.
The minute that front door closed Alex gave a sigh of relief. It had been a grueling five hours. And it had reminded him of another time—two other times to be exact. Third time was the charm.
He walked into the living room where everyone had convened just as they had last night. They all sat in similar locations, but Monica stayed close to Gabriella, sitting on the loveseat with her while Tyler had stood to fix them a drink. Alex did not stop, but walked right across the room and grabbed Monica’s arm. When he had her standing directly in front of him, her face affixed with shock, mouth open ready to ask what the hell was wrong with him, Alex kissed her.
He touched his lips to familiar ones and closed his eyes as he poured his heart and soul into a kiss that was going to change his life. There’d been a time when Roland Summerfield and his daughter were so focused on revenge that they’d been willing to kill anyone in the Bennett family to get it. Shots were fired, but Alex’s family had remained safe and alive. Alex had been truly grateful for that fact. A couple years later, he found himself in a parking garage facing another lunatic who was hell bent on killing the woman Alex loved because she was no longer in love with him. Alex had stood staring at the gun Yates Hinton had pointed at him and then watched Yates crumple to the ground when Monica stabbed him in the neck. More death and grief had struck around his family and his friends in the years following and in the world in general. Mass shootings, police brutality, government corruption, racially charged protests and more, seemed to be getting out of hand. The country they lived in seemed to be burning down around them and Alex felt the need to grab whatever happiness he could in the time he had.
He broke the kiss and stared into Monica’s still surprised face.
“I want to marry you Monica Lakefield. Not later, now,” he told her earnestly. “You proposed to me five years ago and then asked me to wait until you were one hundred percent sure you could be a wife and a mother. Well, you’ve been the best fiancé I could have ever hoped for in those five years and while I love you with every breath in my body, I am not willing to wait another five years, or even five months. I want to marry you now, Monica. I want you to be my wife as soon as we can possibly make it happen. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
Alex hadn’t realized until that moment that everyone in the room was quiet and staring expectantly at them. And he didn’t care. All that mattered was Monica and the words that would come out of her mouth next.
“I love you, Alex,” she started. “You’ve been my strength for these past five years. And anybody who knows me, knows that I don’t lean on anybody else, ever. But you, you’ve been everything I’ve needed at every moment I needed it. For these past years I kept telling myself I wasn’t ready, that we were fine with our relationship the way it was, and that may have been true yesterday and all the years before. But I hear you, Alex. I hear what you’re not saying and I agree. Our time is now. It’s right now.”
He cupped a hand to her face, letting his thumb run over her smooth skin. “Say it,” he told her. “Say the word and we’ll do it.”
She was nodding rapidly, her eyes filling with tears. And if Monica Lakefield crying wasn’t a sight for all to see, the words she spoke next were what Alex and so many others had been waiting so long to hear. “Yes, Alex. Let’s do it. Let’s get married!”
Applause erupted around them and Alex pulled Monica into his arms once again. He spun her around, closing his eyes and recalling all the time he’d been with her and all the nights he’d wondered when or if they would ever really get married. Well, he had his answer. They were getting married and he couldn’t be happier.
“Beautiful!” Dessie cheered. “Just beautiful! Now, I know you city slickers won’t be getting married here in Hobbs Creek but I’d love for you to send me pictures of the big day. I know it’s going to be a spectacular event.”
“What are you talking about Ms. Dessie,” Monica said when Alex finally released her. “You and Mr. Clyde are definitely on the guest list. So you’ll just have to come on up to the big city and celebrate with us.”
“That’s right, Ms. Dessie,” Alex said. “We’ll even show you and Mr. Clyde around town when you get there.”
“No,” Jagger intervened. “I’ll show Clyde and Dessie around New York when they come. And you’re both staying in my condo while you’re there.”
“Well,” Dessie said with a big grin. “Then I think I’ll get on into this kitchen and start fixing us a celebratory breakfast. Come on Naomi, you can help me while Stephen checks on the ranch hands and the morning work around here.”
“I call waffles, Dessie. And those buttermilk biscuits you make,” Jagger chimed in.
“Then you’d better get your butt in this kitchen and help,” Dessie said.
Alex chuckled at Jagger’s mock frown. They reminded him a lot of his family, the way love still shined through in the end, despite their differences. Monica had taken Alex’s hand and was leading him into the kitchen, but he told her to wait a second as he turned to see Gabriella still sitting on the couch and Tyler still standing by the bar. They looked so far a part, not just in the space of the room, but in their relationship and even though she was his little sister and he’d never planned to watch another man steal her heart, Alex wanted happiness for her.
“No,” Monica said when he’d started to go to her. “Let her be. She’s going to find her own way, in her own time.”
“But will her way make her happy?” Alex asked as he continued to watch Gabriella staring down at her hands folded in her lap.
“Gabriella knows what she wants and she knows what she needs to do to get it,” Monica told him. “Her happiness will come, you just have to let it come when she’s ready for it.”
Alex hoped Monica was right.
“Well,” Tyler said when they had been alone for a few minutes.
The silence had instantly become deafening causing Gabriella’s thoughts to echo loudly in her head. She’d been thinking for hours now, since the moment Noah had pulled her off that bed.
