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“Yup. You brought us into this life,” Louisa giggles.
“And we wouldn’t want it any other way,” Austen gushes.
Eliza snorts. “Once you find a hockey man, there is no going back to normal men.”
Against my lips, Clara says, “Because a hockey man loves you fully.”
“And forever,” I add, kissing her top lip.
I then drop to one knee.
Her eyes widen.
While I know it’s tacky to propose at a wedding, it’s also tacky to go into labor, so Louisa can hate both me and Elliot. I don’t care. Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the faded green ring box that my da used when he proposed to my ma. Clara covers her mouth, tears spilling down her cheeks as she holds my gaze. I open the box to my ma’s platinum thistle-leaf, two-carat diamond ring. It had been given to my da by his ma, and so on back through the family. I hadn’t given it to Peppa because I couldn’t find it when I decided to propose to her, but even when I did locate it, I didn’t give it to her. I think I always knew it was meant for another hand.
Clara’s.
“If you thought I wasn’t going to go get this ring because of a fight?—”
“I knew you would,” she says softly, cutting me off. “I knew if I went, I’d give in and say yes, when I needed you to realize your mistake.”
“Love, I knew the mistake the moment the words came out of my mouth,” I insist, gazing up into her eyes. “But it’ll never happen again. Everyone will know how much I love you. Howmuch you complete me and how my life is not worth living without you. I will love you fully for the rest of my existence.” I grab her hand, squeezing her fingers with mine. “I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but I want the good with the bad, but only with you. I want to make a life with you that we’ll leave behind for the world to be in awe of. I want you to drive me insane daily and love only me. As long as you love me, everything else will fall into place. I just need you. Say you’ll be my wife, Clara.”
She leans down, cupping my face. She runs her thumbs along my cheeks, catching the tears I hadn’t even realized were falling before she presses her nose into mine. “And you say you have to be drunk to be romantic.”
I grin up at her. “Since I’m an eejit when I’m drunk and the hangover is rough at my old age, I have to be romantic sober.”
She curves up her lips in a smile that if I didn’t need to hold on to her, would knock me on my ass. She wraps her arms around my neck, and I do the same to her waist as our lips almost touch. “Okay, Grandpa, I’ll marry you, with one promise.” Her eyes dance with mischief, and I shouldn’t expect anything less from my little minx.
“You name it.”
“Never let me forget how important I am to you.”
“Done.”
As our lips meet, I realize that promise was the easiest one I’ve ever made. I hear everyone clapping and cheering us on, but all I can think is that, for the longest time, I thought fate was a moody little cunt. But she isn’t. She had a plan.
She had to drag me through the storm so that I could truly feel the sunshine that is Clara.
My lass.
My baby girl.
My love.
My wife.
EPILOGUE
Clara
Ten years later….
It was a real pain in the ass to get twenty-six people to Scotland, but somehow Riggs made it happen.
Not that I’m surprised. That’s Riggs.
Whatever I want, he gives it to me with a grin on his face.
