I groaned but smiled, unable to contain my pleasure. I wanted a place to hang my art pieces too, but if Asher had it his way, they’d be displayed front and center—in the living room or foyer, for all of our guests to see. I liked that he was proud of my work, but it also embarrassed me.

“Don’t you dare. Wait until I come back at least,” I said, taking one last longing glance toward the pasture. The horses were gone now, as though they’d never been there to begin with. My eyes drifted over to the gazebo next to the farmhouse; bright blue with tiny white pockets of flowers on its beams, it was one of my favorite features of the property.

I had suggested, casually, that perhaps we should hold the wedding here, in the gazebo. A simple ceremony on our lovely new patch of land…

Of course, Asher’s mother nearly choked on her biscuit when I said that. “She’s teasing Mom. Relax,” Asher had said, rubbing smooth circles over his mother Elizabeth’s back until her throat cleared.

“Well, I sure hope so. I’ve paid a fortune for Merribelle Gardens and already paid countless deposits on the flowers and caterers,” she had huffed, refusing to meet my eye as she dabbed her lips with a fancy white linen napkin. That day, we had met for lunch at her favorite restaurant—a snobby, upscale place that charged a hundred dollars for a dab of meat with a smear of potatoes and a lettuce leaf on it.

I’d been horrified by it, even if she was the one paying the tab.

Ah yes—the grand Merribelle Gardens, the destination for our wedding this October.

Merribelle Gardens, and all the money my future mother-in-law had so generously put forth for our wedding. The whole grand plan had been her idea—a tradition, since she and Asher’s late father had been married there in 1972.

I’d seen the glamorous pictures of their wedding day countless times. Elizabeth in her big ballgown with its floaty A-line and mother-of-pearl buttons… She had looked like a movie star. And Asher’s father—tall and demure in his fancy black waistcoat with its classic pocket square.

There was no way Asher and I could live up to his mother’s ideal wedding tradition.

It wasn’t that I was opposed to getting married there. I just couldn’t shake off the feeling that it was being held over my head, a constant reminder that I should feel grateful, indebted to the Beake family for simply letting me be a part of it.

My own parents weren’t around to help pay for the wedding, and even if they had been, they were never as well off as Asher’s family.