“Oh my God,” he said, momentarily stunned. “You’re going to be working a celebrity wedding?”
I nodded vigorously. “I start next week. I already put in my two-week notice here. Hollin asked me to stay on and help while we onboard new employees or even run my own company out of the vineyard, but I could do that in LA, too.”
“You…quit your job.”
“Yes. The fee for that one wedding is most of my salary here. And it’ll give me a year to see if this is the right move for me. Maybe even a year in LA to find a new job.”
“You’re serious.” His eyes were wide with shock. “You want to come to LA with me?”
I took a deep breath. “Can we bring the plants?”
He burst into laughter, swinging me in his arms and twirling me in place. “We can bring all the plants. I’ll get you as many beautiful plants as you want. Everything and more.”
I giggled and clung to him. “You know, in LA, I can grow citrus trees.”
“I’ll get you a whole grove,” he told me.
He set me carefully back onto my high heels and pressed another deep kiss against my lips. The rest of the world disappeared in that embrace. Weston Wright loved me. He’d come back for me. Been willing to make it work while I stayed in Lubbock. I might not have forgiven him any other way, but this was exactly how it always should have been.
So, I put the past behind me and gave myself over to this man.
“I love you, West.”
“And I love you, Nora.”
We’d started out as roommates, tried it out as a fling, and ended up forever. What more could a girl ask for?
Epilogue
Three Years Later
The enormous trifold mirror in the bridal suite showed me from multiple angles. All revealing the sweeping lace and princess skirt of my wedding dress, the delicate twist to my medium-blonde hair, and the half-dozen bridesmaids I’d chosen for this momentous day. Eve was closing the several dozen buttons along the back of my dress as the rest of the girls oohed and aahed at my appearance.
“You’re a vision,” Blaire announced.
“Thank you.”
Eve grunted. “Whoever invented this many buttons was a masochist.”
Annie chuckled and nudged her out of the way. “I know it’s a maid-of-honor duty, but if I can sew perfect stitches, I can button her into a dress.”
Eve’s eyes rounded as Annie made quick work of the buttons. “How?”
“You get used to Annie’s incredible competence,” Piper said, holding up a glass of the new Abbey sparkling vintage.
“I like a girl with deft fingers,” Viv said, popping a bubblegum bubble. Her hair was a striking hot pink for the occasion. She’d asked me if I wanted her to dye it a “normal” color, and I’d looked at her as if she were absurd. Three years on tour with Viv, and she had never once had a “normal” hair color. I couldn’t imagine her any other way.
Annie winked at her. “If I wasn’t already married with a kid, I’d consider that offer.”
“Aww, and Rush is so cute,” Jennifer said, snapping pictures of the lot of us. She was in a bridesmaid dress, but she wasn’t an official bridesmaid. It had been hard enough, narrowing it down to six, but she’d insisted she preferred to be behind the camera anyway.
“The cutest,” Blaire agreed.
“I don’t know,” I said. “June and Oliver are pretty adorable.”
Blaire beamed. “They are.”
Right before the album release, Blaire and Campbell had gotten pregnant with June, who was almost-three-year-old now. Baby Oliver had followed shortly afterward, and she’d already confessed to me that she was pregnant for a third time. Though it was too new for anyone to see yet. I was hoping for another niece!
“You’re just biased because they’re your niece and nephew,” Piper said.
“Fair.”
Jennifer touched her pregnant belly. “I wonder if I’ll have a boy or another girl. Violet wants a sister, but Julian wants a boy.”
“I can’t believe you don’t want to know!” Eve gushed.
She shook her head. “I know it’s crazy, but we both want to be surprised. Jordan and Annie know, but we don’t.”
We all whipped around to look at Annie. She held her hands up. “We’re the godparents! It’s not my fault. Don’t try to get it out of me.”
“All this baby talk,” Harley said, gagging.
All of us laughed at her. She might be twenty-two and freshly graduated from Texas Tech and on her way to law school, but she was still that little teenager to me. I was glad she wasn’t thinking about babies. There was plenty of time left in her life before that.
“Babies are overrated,” Piper said, passing Harley a glass of sparkling and dropping down next to her. They hit knuckles.
Piper and Hollin had moved in together, but there were no impending nuptials or babies in their near future. I wasn’t surprised, nor did I care, as long as they were happy. That was all that really mattered. And truly, they were happier than I’d ever seen them. Especially with the vineyard breaking monetary goals year after year, and the wine far exceeding expectations.
“Are we almost ready?” Tessi asked, stepping into the bridal suite.
I nodded, smiling at my friend. “All set.”
Tears came to Tessi’s eyes as she caught sight of me. “Oh my God, Nora. Look at you!”
I did a twirl in my dress, the material swirling in little eddies at my feet as I moved. It was a one-of-a-kind dress. It had been made personally for me by Harmony Cunningham. I’d planned her wedding, and she’d insisted when my time came, she would fit me like a princess. And she had.
Planning English’s wedding had changed my life. I’d told myself one year to figure out what I was going to do if I never booked another celebrity wedding. But the day after English’s wedding I’d had a dozen weddings lined up for the next year. My salary was through the roof. And every wedding after that brought in more and more incredible offers, that I’d had to hire an assistant to screen who I would work with.
A year later I had my own wedding firm in LA with a half dozen planners working underneath me. Abbey Weddings had taken off like I’d never imagined in my wildest dreams. And with more people working for me, I had all the time I needed to join West on tour while the ship ran itself. But when West had proposed to me at White Sands on a dune all alone, I’d known the only place that I would want to get married was right here at Wright Vineyard.
“Let’s go get you married,” Tessi said.
My bridesmaids all filed out in front of me. I took one last fortifying sip of the sparkling wine and then followed them to the door.
I’d always dreamed about my wedding. What girl who wanted to become a wedding planner didn’t dream of her wedding? But even if I’d imagined it, I’d never thought it would be as big or as beautiful as it was. All of my friends and family from Lubbock were in attendance, of course, but people from all over the country had flown in for the occasion. Couples that I’d worked with who had become friends over the years, our friends from LA, and West’s friends from Seattle filled the outdoor space.