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“What is this?” I asked her.
She shrugged. “I didn’t read it. I was just supposed to give it to you.”
“Said who?” I asked her.
The little rascal just shrugged again.
Zara and Beckett had emerged from the chapel, and I took a moment to hug them each, ignoring the confusing little note in my hand and doing my best not to feel a burning gaze on my back. Sly stood just to one side of the steps, watching us.
I waved at him, not trusting myself to actually talk to him without breaking down. I wasn’t going to waste any more tears on Sly Remington, though. So I took a deep breath and moved away.
“Mom!” Katie’s little voice was insistent now, and she was tugging my free hand. “What does it say?”
I showed it to her.
“So let’s go.” She pulled me toward the lake. I let her, afraid to take too many mental guesses about what this was. I’d seen too many romantic movies for sure, and the last thing I needed was to let my heart carry me away. But what else could this be?
Sly’s face had given nothing away. In fact, when I’d glanced his way, he’d looked almost angry. So this note...could it be from him?
We followed the path toward the edge of the lake, and found two chairs set up on a deck just at the water’s edge. They faced back toward the resort, and as we approached, Katie dropped my hand and scooped fresh petals out of the basket that still dangled from her arm.
“Wait,” she commanded, and then she sprinkled them between me and the biggest chair on the shore.
“Katie, what is this?”
She shook her little head and took the smaller chair. “Sit down.”
I headed toward her, my heart accelerating inside me uncomfortably. And just as I sat, Stephano Mizzoni stepped out from behind a tree, nearly giving me a heart attack. I was about to speak, but he opened his mouth, and the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard emerged.
He was singing?
The lyrics to “A Thousand Years” were familiar to me—it was one of the most romantic songs I knew. About someone who’d known they loved someone else as long as they’d lived. About how they’d loved them for a thousand years, and would go on loving for a thousand more.
But hearing Stephano sing the first few lines, a serious look on his face as I sat here on the side of a lake? It was surreal.
And then another of Sly’s teammates—Deck Gillespie, maybe? Carried a little table out from behind the cabin closest to us and set it before me, placing a puck on the table top.
I was about to ask what it was all about when his mouth opened and he sang the next verse. Katie cackled aloud in her excitement as Stephano’s voice joined Deck’s, and he stepped closer and deposited a second puck on top of the first one.
What the hell was going on?
Other men were emerging from between the trees now, and the wedding crowd started to follow the sounds of singing. I realized the guys had lapel mics and the string quartet had actually picked up the melody and moved close by on one side.
Tears were pressing against the backs of my eyes, but I still wasn’t sure why this was happening. And where was Sly? His whole team was here, stacking pucks on this little table in front of me and singing...Who knew the Wilcox Wombats could sing like this?
INTERLUDE
JULIUS
It was common knowledge the Wombats had won the All-League Acapella competition a few years in a row now, though the entire competition had been recently abandoned due to lack of interest.
It seemed hockey fans were not necessarily the same folks who’d sent my favorite movie,Pitch Perfect, to fame.
Still, the competition had been fierce (more fights broke out than in the movies, that was for sure). And the Wombats had been on top.
CHAPTER26
CLARA
