Chapter 23

Link could hold Misty in his arms forever and never tire of it. The world seemed to sway slightly left, then back to the right, with the two of them, and he never wanted to let go. Around them, others danced too, some light conversation floating on the air with the hint of the breeze here in the gardens outside the church.

They'd eaten with his family. Laughed and talked and watched the skits the junior Sunday School children had put together. As the afternoon had started to become evening, the food had been switched out to desserts, and the dance floor had gotten marked off with electric lampposts and strings of lights.

If Link's obsessive studying of fireflies the past few days had taught him anything, the glowing insects should be coming out soon. Please, please, dear Lord, he thought. He couldn't make the fireflies appear, but he believed God could—and Link really needed the fireflies to make tonight absolutely perfect.

For Misty, but maybe a little bit for himself too. Maybe his parents really did exist in the glow of a firefly, and maybe they were watching as he fell in love with Misty Granger.

The song ended, but Misty didn't make any minute moves to step out of his arms. Another frilly, music-only song came on, and while others around them shuffled on and off the floor, Link and Misty simply stayed.

He closed his eyes and lost himself in the scent of her skin, her hair, her very presence in his life. A more magical day probably hadn't existed, despite her initial frustration when she'd learned Janie had a date and hadn't told her.

Link allowed himself to sink all the way into love with Misty, though it did send a string of fear threading through him. He'd never been in love before, and he didn't want to have to figure out how to recover from having loved and lost.

But being in love felt absolutely amazing, and Link wanted to bask in this feeling for as long as he possibly could.

He opened his eyes, and the flitting of tiny specks of light in the twilight made his breath stick against the back of his tongue. Something like electric emotion zipped through him.

He felt the love of so many then, including the parents he hadn't ever truly known, and he sat with it for a few moments.

"Hey, sweetheart," he then murmured, easing Misty out of his embrace. "Look."

She fell to his side as the fireflies continued to drift and lilt through the air, more and more arriving with every passing second.

"Wow." Misty breathed the word out of her mouth as she tilted her head back to look up into the sky. Link did the same thing, basking in the glory of dozens and dozens of pinpricks of light filling the navy space around them.

Link smiled, because God had answered his prayers. And because his childhood memories of Momma telling him his parents' love existed in the light of a firefly, and he could feel it now as strongly as he had back then.

And because the beauty of this slow, summer Texas evening—filled with fireflies—reminded Link of how amazing life could be. Alarms might sound early. The sun might burn the land and crops and a cowboy's skin. Not everything went his way all the time.

But that didn't mean life wasn't grand. It didn't mean God hadn't touched every particle of this earth, or that He wasn't in control of what happened in a small town in the Texas Panhandle. In Link's life, personally.

Looking up into the sky, he felt the vastness of the universe above him, around him. It seemed impossible that God could know him, this simple, singular man in such a remote place. But Link knew without a doubt that he'd been engraved in the palms of the Lord's hands.

He'd texted Mitch only yesterday that God loved him, and Link knew it as clearly as he knew his own name.

"This is the best night of my life," Misty murmured.

"It's gorgeous," Link said. They weren't the only people admiring the fireflies, but because they weren't dancing any longer, Link gently guided Misty out of the way. He grabbed a couple of treats for them from the dessert table and led her away from the crowds, from the lights.

They found a bench further into the darkness, where the fireflies continued to dance around them. He sighed and put his arm around Misty. "Cookie dough brownie or coconut rice crispy square?"

"Brownie," Misty said, and Link silently rejoiced. He handed her the treat of her choice and took a bite of the toasted coconut, marshmallow, and cereal.

"These are my favorite thing," he said. "My momma and aunts make a whole bunch of different kinds, and I love the toasted coconut."

"I probably could've guessed that," she said. "Seems like you ordered that mango cheesecake on one of our dates, and it has that coconut macaroon crust."

"From Beyond Elegance," he said. "I'd go there again just for that cheesecake." He grinned at her, and Misty turned toward him and leaned closer.

He took the opportunity to capture her lips with his in a gentle yet firm declaration that he wanted to kiss her every day too. Over and over again. He slid one hand along her neck and cupped her ear in his palm to keep her there, so he could continue to kiss her.

"Will you come to dinner at my parents'?" he asked. "Just us and them—and my younger siblings, of course."

"Yes," Misty said.

"I mean, I know you've met them, but this is—it would be—" Link cleared his throat. "My parents want to start to get to know you too is all."

"Link." Misty leaned into his chest and smiled up at him. "I already said yes."

"Okay," he said. "Great. I don't know when yet. I'll talk to my momma."

Misty put her feet up on the bench and leaned her back into his chest while they finished their treats.

"One more dance?" he asked after she'd eaten her last bite of brownie. "Then I'm feeling a little beat, and I have to check on the horses in one of the stables tonight still." Work on a ranch never stopped, after all. Even in perfect summer weather, with a glow of fireflies, and the most beautiful woman in the world.

"One more dance." Misty stood and extended her hand to him. Link grabbed onto her and pulled her down onto his lap instead of joining her on his feet.

"Maybe one more kiss first," he whispered. And then he kissed the woman he was most certainly in love with—just one more time.

Link set down a perfectly white plate on his side of the table, which he normally only shared with Smiles. But this made the third place setting on the ten-foot table, which his father had asked Uncle Bishop to custom make just for their family, for the space they had in their dining room.

"Smiles, there's still no ice in these cups," Momma said.

Smiles had collapsed onto the couch with his phone, and he looked up to their mother.

"Link, silverware is on the counter."

"Got it," he told his mother.

"Heather, are you done with the napkins?" Momma worked in the kitchen, stirring something vigorously in a pot.

"I hope when I bring a boy home, things aren't this tense," Heather said from where she sat at the counter, folding cloth napkins into animals.

Link glanced over to her, a smile lifting a corner of his mouth. "If you bring a boy home before you turn twenty, Daddy will flip his lid."

Heather grinned at him. "Trust me, I know."

"Look at these butter sculptures I did." Sunnie put a plate of butter shaped like a rose on the table near where Link set down the last plate.

He took in the petals, shaped and molded out of butter. "Wow, Sunnie," he said. "That's amazing. Thank you so much."

"You said Misty likes to cook," his youngest sister said. "Momma said not to talk too much, but do you think I could ask her about her favorite recipe?"

"Of course you can," Link said. "There's no rules for dinner tonight, Sunnie. It's just a normal dinner."

"Momma's lectured all of us relentlessly," Smiles said as he dropped a few ice cubes into Daddy's cup at the head of the table. "So it's not normal, Link."

Link looked over to his mother in the kitchen. "She has?"

"You know how she is," Heather said. "If she's breathing, she's thinking of a lecture."

"That's not fair," Link said, though his mother did like to lecture.

"What's not fair?" Daddy appeared at the end of the table with him and Smiles, and Heather went on her way, putting an elephant on her place, and then a swan on Sunnie's.

"Nothing," Smiles said. "Unless you count all of us out here working on setting the table while Rock naps."

"Rock has a cold," Link said at the same time as his father. "Smiles, it's fine."

Daddy looked at both of them. "I just woke him up. He's showering and coming down. I'm sure Momma has a job for him."

"I'm sure," Smiles said with his sunny smile, which somehow made it seem like he wasn't being sassy. Link—or Rock himself—likely would've gotten his mouth washed out with soap had he said the exact same thing Smiles just had.

Daddy frowned and met Link's gaze. "What's going on?"

"Momma's lectured everyone about tonight?" Link murmured, though the silverware waited for him. "Sunnie wants to know what she can and can't talk about. Like…this is just supposed to be a normal dinner where y'all can get to know her a little better."

"I know," Daddy said. "That's what this is."

"Bear," Momma snapped over her shoulder. "There you are. This turkey isn't going to carve itself."

Link's eyebrows went up in sync with his father's. "Oh, boy."

"I see what you mean." Daddy started down the length of the table and toward the kitchen. "I'll talk to her."

"Misty will be here in like, two minutes," Link reminded him.

Daddy just waved his hand, and Link sighed as he went to get the silverware off the counter. He turned back and faced his siblings, all of them doing something to make the dining room table beautiful and ready for dinner.

"Hey, guys," he said as Rock came into the room. "Rock, c'mere." He waited for his younger brother to join the others. "It's—don't worry about Momma, okay? She's just nervous, because I've never brought anyone home for dinner, but it's not that big of a deal. Right? You've all met Misty before."

"Are you going to marry her?" Sunnie asked.

"I don't know," Link said honestly. "Maybe. Yeah, maybe. I sure do like her, and I want her to feel like she knows everyone before anything like that."

"I like her," Heather said.

"I'll thank God for that in my prayers tonight," Link said dryly. He opened his arms and gathered his four younger siblings into his chest. "I love you guys," he whispered. "This is for me, mostly. For Misty too, but mostly me. You can still be you. You can talk to her about anything, and you just have to act normal, all right?"

"All right," Smiles said, speaking for everyone. "You don't worry either, Link."

He stepped back as something crashed in the kitchen. The five of them faced their parents as a plume of steam rose from the sink. "Sure," Link said. "I'm not worried about anything."

"I got it," Daddy said at the exact moment the doorbell rang.

"That's me," Link said. "Smiles, Sunnie, could you go see if Momma needs anything?"

"On it," Sunnie said, already dashing toward the kitchen.

Link turned his back on the chaos, and took in a deep lungful of air. "Lord, it's just dinner. Can I not just get a couple of hours of non-Glover…ness?" He pulled open the door and crowded out onto the porch with Misty.

"Oh." She backed up, her hands sliding up his chest. "What's?—?"

When the door clicked closed behind him, Link released his breath. "There's a little bit of tension in the house is all," he said.

"I can smell something delicious all the way out here," she said with a smile.

Link drank in her dark skinny jeans with her hair falling down over a dark green shirt. Her makeup sat flawlessly on her face, along with her smile, and the easy way she seemed immune to the stress pouring out of the house.

Honor stood behind her, and Link smiled at the pair of them. "You bring me so much happiness," he said.

Misty wrapped her arms up around the back of his neck. "Same, Link."

"My momma made a mini version of Thanksgiving dinner." Link wrapped her in his arms and danced with her, the way he had a couple of weeks ago at the End of Summer picnic. "She's apparently been lecturing my siblings about what they can talk about with you. My brother is sick. And when I came out here, my daddy had just dropped the potatoes in the sink. So."

He grinned at her, and she smiled back. He let his eyes drift closed as he brought her closer, and when he kissed her, Link suddenly didn't care about whatever happened tonight. He didn't carry on, because Daddy had a security camera pointed at the front porch, and he didn't need Momma ripping open the front door and demanding to know what they were doing.

"Come on," he said. "Welcome to the Glover family." He gave her a wry smile and stepped into the house ahead of her. With his hand in hers, he led her inside, calling, "Everyone, Misty's here."

"She's here," Daddy said.

"I heard she's here," Momma bickered back. "Kids, leave that. Just leave it. Misty's here."

The six of them spilled out of the kitchen and lined up at the end of the table, and Link started laughing and shaking his head as he walked toward them. He stopped at the edge of the couch while Daddy fixed his collar and Momma smoothed down her apron.

"Misty," he said. "You've met everyone before, but apparently we're going to make this a formal affair." He raised his eyebrows.

"Of course we're not," Momma said. "Come on in, Misty." She stepped out of line and over to Misty. Link let go of her hand and Momma took it. "You remember Smiles and Rock, Heather and Sunnie."

"Definitely," Misty said. "Sunnie, you're the chef, right?"

Sunnie's chest and shoulders expanded as she glowed with pride. "Yes, ma'am. I helped with the rolls and the green beans tonight."

"I can't wait to have them." Misty hugged Heather and said something about her hair, and then she properly shook Smiles's and Rock's hands. When she arrived in front of Daddy, Link simply watched as she took his tall, broad-shouldered, sometimes grumpy father into her arms.

"Good to see you again, Bear."

"You too," he said easily, his eyes coming up and finding Link's. Link grinned, because Daddy could be tamed pretty easily. "Come sit down. Sammy put you by Link, of course." He stepped back and looked down the row of his children. "Everyone, sit."

And there was a bit of the grizzly Link knew and loved.

Link moved forward and glided his hand along Misty's lower back. "We're over here, sweetheart." He took her around the table and pulled her chair out for her. She glanced up at him as she sat, and Link took his place beside her while everyone else went back into the kitchen.

Momma talked in hushed, hurried tones, and then they all brought over a bowl or a tray or a serving utensil. The food got placed down the length of the table, and everyone sat.

All eyes, including Link's, moved to their daddy, and he brought his hands up and clasped them in front of him. "I love having dinner with my family." He smiled with all the force of a loving, caring father—which was exactly who Bear Glover was.

Link grinned at him. "Thanks for having me and Misty." Out of sight, he took her hand in his, and she beamed over to him.

"You two are welcome here anytime," Momma said.

"Okay, Rock, you feelin' well enough to pray?" Daddy looked at Rock, whose expression didn't move. His nickname was so apt, because he never really let much bother him, and he remained stoic through stressful situations.

"Yes, sir," he said, his eyes flicking over to Misty. "I'm not contagious anymore."

"Link told me," she said with a nod and a smile.

Rock nodded once and bowed his head. Link had grown up with Rock, so he knew the boy didn't waste any breath or any time when it was his turn to pray. So he quickly bowed his head, but Misty was a little slower.

Link grinned as Rock said, "Dear Lord, we're real glad to be together for dinner tonight as a family. Thank You for giving us families, and bless those that feel alone that Thou will send someone to them. Someone to remind them that they don't have to be alone, that Thou is aware of them, that we all have a place to belong."

He paused for only long enough to take a quick breath. "We're grateful for the food, for good parents, for this life in Texas, and for each other. Bind our hearts, and bless us to forgive each other. Amen."

"Amen," Link murmured while a few other of his family members said it much louder. He'd barely released Misty's hand, and Smiles had barely dove for the platter with the turkey on it before Sunnie said, "Misty, do you have a favorite recipe?"

Link hid his smile and reached for the bacony green beans, which had been placed in front of him. He didn't mind the questions, and he didn't mind if Daddy was a little polar-bear tonight, or grizzly, or teddy.

If Misty stayed around for much longer, she'd see all of his daddy's personalities. She'd realize that Momma sometimes snapped at the kids, and sometimes overcooked their poultry, and sometimes did everything exactly, exactly right.

She'd become Heather's and Sunnie's best friends, and Smiles would charm her with his positivity and optimism. Even Rock would claim her as part of the family by quietly confiding in her when he needed help with something and didn't want anyone else to know.

Link looked across the table to his brother, and their eyes met. He nodded at him, saying he sure was glad to see him, and Rock nodded back, saying, I'm glad you're here, Link.

Dishes moved around the table while Misty talked about a stuffed hamburger recipe she used to make in Dallas. Once the green beans made it back to him, Link picked up his freshly baked roll and started slathering on butter and jam. "You got everything, baby?" he asked, looking over to Misty.

She'd heaped food on her plate, and her eyes shone like stars and diamonds combined. Link couldn't help thinking of fireflies when he looked at her, and he grinned at her. "Looks like it."

She nudged him with her shoulder. "Don't make fun of me. I'm hungry."

"I can see that." He chuckled and looked to his momma. She smiled at him, but she didn't start asking questions the way Link expected her to. "Thanks for dinner, Momma."

"Yes, thank you," Misty said, switching her smile over to Momma. "I've never seen anything like this."

"Oh, surely you have," Momma said.

"No, really," Misty said. "My mother didn't cook."

Link ducked his head, glancing at her as he went back to his food.

"But for special occasions, surely you had something like this."

"Momma." Link shook his head, and Misty looked over to him.

"It's okay, Link," she said.

He gestured with his fork, hoping this wouldn't be a disaster.

Misty took a moment, wherein everyone at the table didn't make a peep. Shockingly. "Uh, when I say my mother didn't cook, I mean it. Not even for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter." She cleared her throat. "We didn't exactly have special occasions." She glanced at Link's siblings sitting across from them, and both Sunnie and Heather seemed completely stunned.

"In fact," Misty said. "It was a special occasion when we had food in the house."

Link wanted to jump in front of her to shield her from all the stares of his family members. They simply had never experienced such a thing, and yes, it was horrible and not something Link liked thinking about.

"It's okay," Misty finally said into the stretching silence. "I didn't mean to kill the mood."