“Tess, I want to tell the whole world how much I love you, and this seems as good a medium as any.”

And she laughed up at me as long as she could before I kissed her.

26

Make a Wish

TESS

The day was a whirlwind.

The Bennets rallied, taking care of the shop while the photographer followed Luke and me around as we toured a typical day in the life of Longbourne. Luke and I clipped flowers, buckets and armfuls. I made a few arrangements as the shutter clicked. We went to storage and pretended to work on things, which mostly consisted of Luke using power tools without purpose and the two of us fiddling with some of the old installations like they were new. While we stuffed our faces with pizza, the photographer shot the rest of the Bennets in their natural habitats—Mr. Bennet and Kash in the greenhouse, Mrs. Bennet in the front with Jett, Laney taking pictures with her phone and ribbing Marcus, who looked both wildly out of place and perfectly himself in a suit black as midnight.

Everyone seemed equally pleased and exhausted by the time we were finished in the early afternoon. Mrs. Bennet retired to rest, and the rest of the brood dispersed. I jumped into work with Ivy, and I thought Luke would leave to run deliveries. But he didn’t seem to want to be parted from me, and for that, I was ecstatic.

Four days without him had been too long.

We closed the shop at dusk, said goodbye to everyone, the last ones there, as we always were.

And when we were alone, it was as if no time had passed, as if nothing had changed. Except everything had, and in the best way.

I sighed blissfully as he locked the grate and the front door. The possession I felt for him ran bone deep as I measured the breadth of his back, marked the flashes of his jaw. The care he took, the love he gave to this shop, to his family, to me. In this man was a heart too big to contain, with patience and love beyond the bounds of comprehension. And he was mine.

Never had I felt so fortunate. Not in my entire life.

When he stood, he turned to me with that smile on his face, the one that had once infuriated me simply because I thought it could never be mine. The one that now lit me up like a pyre, dedicated to my love for him.

He took my hand and stepped into me. My chin rose so I could hold his eyes.

“I love you,” I said.

“Good, because I love you too.”

The brush of his lips against mine were too tender, too achingly adoring.

“Come on,” he said, towing me toward the back.

I chuckled, trotting to keep up. “We can go to my place, you know.”

“I know. But this … this is our place.”

The simplicity of the words didn’t undermine their weight. And I followed him through the moonlit greenhouse, carried on a cloud of perfume and hopes and starlight.