“You’re not getting cold feet, are you?” Dressed in a canary yellow bridesmaid gown that suited her to a tee, Olivia Lewis set aside her second glass of champagne with a hard clink. “I can get you out of here.”

Briar rubbed her lips together. The warm light of humor made her want to smile at her first cousin and maid of honor. Still, she folded her hands together in front of her and kept a straight face. “I’m not getting cold feet,” she explained. “My toes are plenty warm, as a matter of fact. I just need you to do me this one favor.”

“If it’s his feet you’re worried about, I can ply him with hard liquor,” Olivia offered. “Say the word and it’s done.”

“Liv,” Briar said, lowering her head and shooting Olivia a solemn look. “Please.”

Olivia combed Briar’s expression before giving in. “All right. But if Roxie gets wind of this, we’re all up a creek.”

“It’ll be quick,” Briar promised. She carefully stopped one of her hands from squeezing the other. Her wedding planner, Roxie Honeycutt, had worked hard to schedule a mani/pedi session for her that morning. It hadn’t been easy with Briar’s duties as innkeeper at her second-generation bed-and-breakfast, Hanna’s Inn. Not with all the last minute wedding details that had to be seen to. She smoothed her palms down the front of the empire-waist gown. There was no veil to contend with. Her hair had been carefully braided down her back and strewn with small, white blossoms. She had been instructed not to sit in order to avoid a second steaming for the gown’s linen train.

As Olivia left her alone in the grand dining room of the inn, Briar walked carefully to the window, keeping herself hidden behind the drape. Her heart rapped when she saw how many guests were milling around the garden where the ceremony would take place. She took a deep breath to tamp down on her nerves when she thought how soon she would be walking down the  aisle to the jasmine arbor.

Briar closed her eyes for a moment and pictured the view from the front of the inn – the one she couldn’t see from this vantage. It was out there beyond the garden sanctuary.

It would be sunset she spoke her vows. Roxie had timed it down to the wire so that the kiss would take place just as the sun was sinking toward the horizon. Residents of the small bayside town called it “God’s hour.” It was a feast for the eyes.

Footsteps broke her out of her reverie. Briar turned to find the man standing at the door and sucked in a breath.

Another feast for the eyes, she found. The dark suit accentuated Cole’s lean, trim physique. It widened his already straight, broad shoulders.   

Her heart rapped again, but not with nerves. All semblance of bridal jitters sailed away. She chuckled when she saw the blindfold over his eyes. “Oh, Liv,” she muttered.

“She made me,” Cole confirmed, lips curving at the corners as his head tilted in the direction of her voice. A moment’s silence passed before he said, “Hi.”

“Hi,” she replied. She tried to tamp down on her high-cresting emotions and couldn’t manage it. Here was her man all spruced up – to join his life with hers. The sun might be setting, but it felt like dawn inside her. “You look wonderful.”

“I’m sure you’d knock me flat if they’d let me see you.” His smile tapered off. “Is everything okay? Liv said you had something to tell me.”

Briar’s smile eddied. She had called him here for a reason, not just for this glimpse of him in black tie. She cleared her throat. “It’s fine. I’m fine. We are getting married today, Cole,” she assured him.

“I know,” he said. His faith in her – in them and what they had built together since last summer – eclipsed everything. “I know we are.”

She crossed to him, her heels clacking across the hardwood floor, unable to stand the distance any longer. “Before we do get married, though, there’s something…” She lost her breath, nerves beating their way back to the forefront. “There’s something I wanted to…” When she faltered once more, she scoffed. “Take off the blindfold, please.”

His lips parted. “Are you sure? Roxie will tan my hide if she finds out I saw the bride before the wedding.”

“I need to see you,” she insisted. “All of you. And you’re probably going to need to see me, too.”

“All right.” Reaching up, he loosened the knot on the back of his head. The blindfold lowered.

She blinked as his dark eyes found hers. In them she saw all the love he felt. There were a few nerves hidden there, she noticed. They melted as his gaze seized on her face. It ranged over her hair, the flowers, the bodice of her dress, the skirt, the train…. He took a step back. “Wow,” he said. “I was right. You look…incredible.”

Wordlessly, she reached out with both hands.

He took them, wrapping his around hers in a knot that fit. They fit together in every way, she’d grown to understand. In him, at last, she’d found everything she’d ever wanted in a partner. His voice went soft and low. “What is it you needed to say?” 

She struggled to clear her head. “Before we speak our vows, there is something you need to know.”

Concern broke and his hands squeezed hers. “You’re all right? I thought you looked pale yesterday. And you’ve been tired.” When she began to protest, he shook his head. “You have. I just assumed it was the wedding on top of everything else. All the responsibilities around the inn…” 

Briar lowered her eyes to the lapel of his suit jacket—finely pressed with a daisy boutonniere pinned to it. “I have been tired.” She hated admitting weaknesses. “But it’s not because of the wedding.”

When she paused, she saw his Adam’s apple dip. “Briar,” he said. “Tell me what’s going on. Are you sick?”

His concern had mounted into fear. She closed the small bit of space between them, lifting her hands to his face. She raised her mouth to his for a brushing kiss meant to comfort and keep. “No,” she said and found herself laughing a little as the tense line of his body slackened against hers. “I told you I was fine. I am fine.”

“Thank God,” he said. His hands found her waist, bringing her up against the line of him. “For a moment, you made me think—”

He’d thought she was gravely ill, as her mother had been. She shook her head. “No, nothing like that. I swear.”

“You’re fine,” he said to reiterate the fact.

“Yes. Do you believe me?”

“I do now,” he replied.

Briar found that she could smile again. “Since we’ve been planning the wedding, I’ve let the fact that I’ve been more tired than usual go unnoticed. Earlier this week, I dozed off while I was folding sheets. They were hot from the dryer and I couldn’t seem to help laying down in them and closing my eyes. When I woke up a half hour later, I realized that I needed to talk to someone. I went to Liv and…she said that maybe I should take a test.”

“A test?”

She beamed when it didn’t click for him automatically. “A pregnancy test, Cole.”

Again, his lips parted in surprise. “A pregnancy test,” he repeated. 

“Yes,” she confirmed. “We’re pregnant. Nine weeks pregnant. I should’ve realized sooner, but—”

“This is real?” he asked, dumbstruck. “This isn’t some wedding day prank Liv’s trying to pull on me at the last minute? I’ve already caught trying to spike my drink.”

“No.” Briar laughed. “We’re going to have a baby.”

Cole made an unintelligible noise in the back of his throat. He wrapped her close against him and pressed his face against the column of her neck.

She closed her eyes as they swayed together, side to side, in the slanted pool of light from the garden.

“Ten months ago,” he murmured, “when I came to Hanna’s as your guest, I thought I’d lost what family I had. But if I’ve learned anything since last summer, it’s that you are my family. And nothing is going to change that.” He trailed off as he touched his brow to hers. “I don’t have the words to tell you how lucky I am.”

Her eyes had grown damp. If she cried, she would ruin her makeup. And then they’d be up a creek, as Liv had said, with Roxie holding their paddles back onshore. “I’m sorry I didn’t wait for the honeymoon. It felt right…to tell you now.”

“I’m glad you did.” His lips lowered to hers again. And again. They lingered the second time as he inhaled, seeming to inflate in her arms. “When I see you coming down the aisle, I’ll know I’m looking at both of you.”

“Okay, you have to stop now,” she told him, raising a hand to her cheek when a tear slipped past her guard. “Roxie really is going to kill me.”

“Not a chance.” He chased the tear with the pad of his thumb. The faint sound of a string quartet and “Canon in D” wafted through the walls from outside. “I’ve got to sneak back upstairs and check on Gavin. He’s already taken off his tie twice.”

She laughed, picturing her soon to be stepson in suspenders and bowtie. “Tell him I’ll bake him something special if he keeps it on until after the ceremony.”

 Cole smirked. “Is it any wonder he loves you more than me already?”

 “He worships you,” she reminded him. “I’ll miss him while we’re away.”

 “Me, too,” Cole noted. Then he seemed to console himself with, “It’s only for a few days. Then we’ll take him camping on the beach…”

Briar felt comforted by the thought of the familymoon they had planned with Gavin after the honeymoon. She would have a week off from her innkeeping duties. The bed and breakfast had never closed for that long before.

 She’d worked her entire adult life. She’d nearly lost her mother’s business. Just thinking about how close she’d come to losing it to developers made a knot form in the pit of her stomach.

 She would enjoy this time with Cole and then Gavin. She needed it. Finally, she had a family. Cole liked to tell her he’d found a home at Hanna’s, but it was her, too, who had found everything she’d ever wanted.

“Go,” she said reluctantly.

He obeyed. Then he stopped at the door to look back. He drink her with those deep, dark eyes.

He wasn’t just her man. He and his baby were the start of the journey she’d dreamt of for so long. “I’ll see you soon,” she whispered. 

He nodded. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she murmured.

The sound of Roxie’s voice made them both snap to attention. Cole dodged through the swinging door into the kitchen and disappeared. Briar covered her mouth to keep from laughing when she heard Olivia shrieking at him on the other side for taking too long.

Roxie entered the dining room through the opposing door, looking brisk and only slightly harried. “Are you ready?” she asked, handing Briar her bouquet. “The procession’s starting.”

“I’m ready,” Briar said, clutching the flowers. Her hands were steady. 

Roxie grinned as she escorted her to the garden door. “Everything’s as it should be.” 

“Yes,” Briar said as she saw the garden in all its wedding glory. “It is.” 

© Amber Leigh Williams