than to say that it was love. And over the next week, I fell deeper in love. So what is love to me?”
A montage of photos of me that I’d never seen before began playing on the screen. There was one of my first night on the farm with Duchess, one of me at the well in the town center, and candid shots that Jackson must’ve taken during Sunday dinner and during our trip, including the dockmaster from Firefly Island, the riverbank in Harper’s Crossing, me getting a manicure at his cousin’s house in Whisper Lake, and me speaking to reporters in Hope Falls.
“Love is caring about a diva horse and a tiny snail equally. Love is connecting with a curmudgeonly old fisherman and a shy six-year-old by listening to them and genuinely caring about the person that they are. Love is being brave in the face of a painful past. To me love is one thing. It’s Josie Clarke.” The final photo was of me arriving at the screening tonight wearing my grandmother’s red, vintage, floor-length body-hugging Dior dress. “She is love to me.”
My phone vibrated and I looked down to see that it was a text from Jackson that read: I’m horny.
I laughed but then realized what that meant. When I looked up, he was walking toward me. Not caring that I was in a dress so tight I ran like a penguin, I shuffled as fast as my legs would carry me to meet him and threw my arms around his neck. I could hear a swell of applause as my feet left the ground as he picked me up.
It wasn’t until his arms were around me that tears began to fall down my face. All the months of missing him, of missing his smell, his touch, his smile, his kiss flooded through me.
“I missed you so much! I love you so much!” I cried into his shoulder.
His arms tightened around me before he set me down. As soon as my feet hit the floor, I went up on my toes to kiss him, but I missed because he was getting down on one knee.
I heard a collective gasp from the audience and my hand flew over my mouth.
“Josie Clarke, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want you to be my wife and the mother of my children. I love you. I didn’t know what love was before I met you and now I don’t know how I could ever live without you. Will you make me the happiest man in the world and be my wife?”
He lifted up a ring that I thought I recognized as my grandmother’s from her first husband, the one that had been killed in the war. She’d always maintained that he was her first love, and only true love. I’d asked her once if I could have it when I got married, and she’d told me only if the man I chose deserved it.
“Is that?” I pointed at it.
“Yes, darling, it is.” My grandmother said from behind me. “Now answer the man.”
“Yes!” I nodded. “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
He slid the ring on my finger as I bent down and kissed him. The moment his lips touched mine, the rest of the world disappeared. For a split second we were the only two people that existed. He picked me up as the cheers grew even louder around us.
When he finally broke our kiss and set me down, people were offering us congratulations, but I heard my grandmother and Dolly running interference and accepting them to give us a moment of privacy.
“I can’t believe you’re really here.” I reached up and touched his face. “What about the movie?”
“It wrapped.”
“Really?” The last I’d heard, things weren’t going well.
“Sort of. Lancaster walked off the set and quit, and I followed him before they found a replacement.”
“How long have you been planning this?”
“For a month.”
“A month?!” I swatted his shoulder. “Why didn’t you say something?”
I couldn’t believe he’d known he wanted to do this for a month and he hadn’t even given me a clue that’s how he felt.
His lips turned up in a half-grin that sent a flutter down my spine. “I had to make sure you’d say yes.”
I laughed and hugged him again. I never wanted to let him go. He swayed back and forth as he whispered, “I love you so much.”
The motion reminded me of something. I lifted my head off his shoulder and looked in his