Epilogue

“Open it,” I say, sliding onto my stool in front of Brittany. I can feel my pulse speeding up as she studies the little package, her mouth twisting to one side. She has her hair down tonight, long and soft down her back, and the amethyst seems to wink up at me from her chest.

“Well, hello to you too,” Midge says as she nudges my shoulder. She’s already sitting at the bar, and the Bingo buddies are down the way. It’s a Wednesday, but we’re Brittany’s usual Wednesday crowd. While Midge doesn’t like beer any better than she did six months ago, the expanded liquor license for the bar went through. My girl put together the cocktail menu all by herself and practically doubled Cole’s business. Wednesdays are half-price cocktail nights—her night—when Cole is off.

I’m proud as hell. And I really want her to open the present, even more so than when I gave her the amethyst necklace that’s hanging around her neck.

“Looks like a book.” Brittany’s suspicious gaze lifts to Midge. “Do you know what this is?”

“He didn’t get it at my store,” Midge says, but she already knows what’s in the package, so she winks at me.

“Don’t think I didn’t see that,” Brittany says.

“Don’t think you weren’t supposed to. You know…I have a sudden burning desire to play Bingo. Y’all have room for me?” She calls down the bar.

Christopher lifts his glass. “Why don’t you sit down next to me?” he says, moving so quickly he nearly trips and falls. I can’t help but grin, my mood bubbling with excitement and nerves. Because it’s one of those important moments in life, and I’m man enough to know it. I have also formed a fondness for the Bingo buddies. They’ve pulled me into one or two games, and I’m man enough to admit they’re better than me at a game that’s supposed to only be one of chance. What can I say? It’s damn hard to pay attention to anything else when Brittany’s behind the bar.

“Y’all are acting strange,” Brittany says, watching as Midge makes her move. I capture her hand and squeeze it.

“Open the book, honey.”

“So you’re admitting it’s a book?” she asks, lifting her eyebrows in amusement, her lips tipping up for me. “I’m surprised. I’ve never seen you read one. Didn’t know you knew how.”

“You sure know how to build me up.”

She unwraps it, glancing up at me before she finishes taking the paper off, then gasps and laughs. “She really did it. It’s our book!”

Beauty and the Barby Ivy Anders.

Ivy told us all about the book she wrote, inspired by our story and Ziggy Brewery. She asked for our blessing. We both gave it freely, after all the help she’d given us, and I had an idea…

“The first copy,” I say, leaning in a little. “She sent it to me special.”

Ivy gave Lou a shot, just like she’d pledged she would, and the two of them are still getting along like a house on fire. Which is to say they’re very into each other—and Ivy’s still entirely herself: out of control, crazy, and fun as hell. They spend part of their time in Highland Hills, but they like to travel. So the package arrived in the mail, along with a note asking me to take a video for her Instagram.

Respectfully, no.

“Why don’t you open it up?” I ask, clearing my throat. “Ivy signed it for you. I think she wrote some kind of message.”

She glances up at me, so I guess I”m not doing a good job of acting easygoing. Then again, maybe she’ll assume that I’m flustered because one of our close personal friends wrote a book inspired by our imagined sex life.

Of course, no book could be that good.

“What are you hiding?” Brittany asks, narrowing her eyes at me.

I lift my hands, palms outward. “Hiding? I know better than to hide anything from you.”

My phone buzzes in my pocket, next to the little box nestled there. It’s probably my brother. Cole’s been texting me all afternoon, asking if I’ve done it yet, and whether he, Holly, and Jane can come crack open the champagne with us.

“You should know better,” Brittany says, wagging a finger at me. “But it doesn’t stop you from trying.”

She glances down at the book as if it might bite her, then opens the cover. Her eyes immediately fly up to me. “Logan…”

That’s my cue. I bend one knee onto the metal rod at the bottom of the bar and take the square case out of my pocket, flipping it open. “What do you say, Brittany? Will you make an honest man out of me?”

I already know what it says on the dedication page:

Will you marry him,Brittany?

“Oh my God,”she says, her eyes wide as she studies the ring.

My heart threatens to stop, because there are tears in her eyes, and I haven’t yet decided if that’s a good “Oh my God” or a Logan, you’re such an idiot, and you just made a scene out of yourself that people are going to be talking about in Highland Hills for a century “Oh my God.”

Then she reaches down and tugs me up, and I go to her, since my knee is probably bruised to high hell, and I hope this means…

When I’m standing, leaning over the bar, she leans in toward me and whispers against my lips. “Yes, yes.” Then, loud enough for our friends, “Yes!”

Cheers go up from the Bingo buddies, and Midge hoists her drink into the air, and all I can really register is that she said yes. I set the ring box on the bar and pull her to me, kissing her across the bar where I made her mine.

And the book lies there beneath us. It’s both the story of us and the beginning of our story.

Brittany pulls back, beaming at me. “I can’t believe you convinced Ivy to write it into her book. Only you. You could charm a woman to do anything.”

“Well, I did charm you into agreeing to marry me.”

There are a couple more happy exclamations from the Bingo buddies, and someone whistles. My money’s on Midge. “The second marriage was the most fun,” she calls out, and I good-naturedly give her the finger as I circle around the bar so I can kiss my fiancée properly.

“Have you read the book yet?” Brittany asks me as I pull her close.

“We’ll read it to each other,” I say, leaning down to her. “But nothing could come close to the real thing.”

She bites her lip. “I just wish…” Her gaze goes to Midge and the Bingo buddies. “Midge has been so wonderful to me. I wish she could find this kind of happiness too.”

You ask me, Midge seems more than capable of asking for what she wants, when she wants it. But I nod and lean in to her ear.

“There’s my brother Don…”

He’s sworn himself blue he’ll live and die single. In fact, he laughed when I told him that I was—if all went well—getting engaged, and he’d be the last single Garrison standing. Then again, I’d have said the same a year ago. Stranger things have happened. Magical things, like cutting down a pine tree on Christmas Eve, and asking the woman you love to marry you in a dedication to a book written by another person.

Brittany leans back and grins at me, slow and large. “Why, Logan Garrison, those Mayberry women are going to make a matchmaker of you yet.”

Then I kiss her again, and again, until I hear the door creak open and my brother swear. “Not again, for God’s sake.”

And everything is exactly as it should be. Finally.

I may have been a player, but today’s the day I won big.