canines might attack if she did, though, so she held very still while he pulled out the papers she’d printed and put inside.
Ames frowned as he read, his expression changing every second. His eyes widened, and he held up the paper. “Is this real?”
“One hundred percent,” she said, raising her chin.
“What is it?” Gray practically growled.
Sophia stepped next to Ames and faced most of the Hammond family. “I quit my job at Whiskey Mountain Lodge, and I’ve rented a house in North Carolina. See, I love him, too, and I hate being apart from him, and I want to be with you.” She turned toward him at the end, the shock on his face almost sending her into a fit of giggles.
“I was going to apologize to—”
“Don’t you dare,” he said. “You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“He’s right,” Colton said, clapping his hand on Ames’s shoulder. “And he’s already apologized, and there’s a very important question on the table.”
“Yeah,” Wes said, stepping next to Ames as well. “Ames has always been a little slower than the rest of us.”
“Will you marry him?” Gray asked, joining the Hammond brothers.
“You’d make him the happiest man in the world, even if he only smiles for five seconds before complaining about the consistency of the gravy.” Cy grinned at Sophia, and she looked at the five of them standing there.
She looked down at the ring and back at Ames. “Yes.”
Everyone except Ames burst into cheers and applause, and Rosco and Flo joined their barks to the noise.
Sophia smiled, and Ames did too. It lasted longer than five seconds though, and then he took her into his arms and kissed her.
This reunion was much more the type she’d envisioned in her fantasies, and while it hadn’t gone exactly the way she’d thought it would, the outcome was far more than she could’ve hoped for.
She kissed him back—her fiancé—while his brothers catcalled, and when the cheering started to fade, Ames pulled away.
“I love you,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“I am too.”
“No,’ he said. “Don’t apologize to me. I’m the one who’s messed up almost from the moment I met you. But I’m not going to do that again, okay? I’m not.” He set his jaw and shook his head.
“We’re going to pray,” Cy said loudly, and Ames tucked her into his side as they faced the dining room table. Sophia basked in the warm family feeling the Hammonds brought with them, and she realized that it wasn’t Whiskey Mountain Lodge that had healed her heart and provided a safe place for her. It was the people she’d chosen to surround herself with.
She could have this feeling anywhere—if she was with Ames.
The prayer ended, and Sophia turned quickly to Ames. “Can we talk in private for two minutes, do you think?”
He glanced at the surge of people lining up along the island in the kitchen. “I think we have five at least.”
“The master bedroom is just down the hall,” Patsy said with a smile. “Don’t hurry back.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Ames pulled away from kissing Sophia, because he was pretty sure she hadn’t asked him to do only that when she’d asked him to “talk.”
“I can’t believe you quit your job,” he whispered.
“I can’t believe you showed up with a diamond ring—and trained the dogs to stage the proposal.”
He grinned at her, warmth moving through him. “We worked on that for a long time.”
“I bet you did. Rosco didn’t move a muscle for the whole speech.” She giggled, and Ames sure had missed the sound of it.
“Did you really rent that house?” he asked. For some reason, he couldn’t believe it.
“Yes,” she said. “Tell me you didn’t quit your program.”
“I may have an email drafted,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d say yes or no.”
“And yet, you asked me in front of everyone.”
“They’re all mad at me,” he said. “Especially Cy and my mother.”
“Why?”
Ames shrugged and stepped away from her. He had a hard time thinking with her so close. “They think I’ve been fighting against myself, and well, they’re not wrong. My mother has been lecturing me for weeks to stop fighting against what’s right, and let God direct me.”
Sophia said nothing, and Ames turned back to her. “Soph, it’s you. Every road leads back to you, and I really am really sorry for acting like such an idiot.”
“You just don’t know how to pause,” she said.
“Not even a little bit,” he said. “I guess I’m a little obsessive. What’s in front of me, I focus on. And it’s