Rescued in a Wedding Dress (14 page)

She walked toward it, her hand in Houston’s, ready for this adventure. Eager to embrace it. She let Houston help her into the basket.

As the pilot unleashed the ropes and they floated upward to join the sky, she leaned back into Houston.

“I have waited all my life for this,” Molly whispered.

“For a ride in a hot air balloon?”

“No, Houston,” she said softly.

For this feeling—of being whole and alive. In fact, it had nothing to do with the balloon ride and everything to do with love. Over the last few days, it had seeped into her with every breath she took that held Houston’s scent.

The hot air heater roared, and the balloon surged upward. The balloon lifted higher as the sun began to rise and drench the vineyards and hillsides in liquid
gold. They floated through a pure sky, the world soaked in misty pinks and corals below them.

“Houston, look,” she breathed of the view. “It’s wonderful. It is better than any dream I ever dreamed.”

She glanced at him when he didn’t respond. “Is something wrong?”

“I was wondering—” he said, and then he stopped and looked away. He cleared his throat, uncharacteristically awkward.

“What?” she asked, growing concerned.

“Would you like some cheese?”

He produced a basket with an amazing array of cheese, croissants warm from the oven.

“Thank you,” she said. “Um, this is good. Aren’t you going to have some?”

He was working on uncorking a bottle of wine.

It was way too early for wine. She didn’t care. She took a glass from him, sipped it, met his eyes.

“Houston, what is wrong with you?”

“Um, look, I was wondering—” he stopped, took a sudden interest in the scenery. “What’s that?” he demanded of the pilot.

The pilot named the winery.

“Are you afraid of heights?” she breathed. This man, nervous, uptight, was not her Houston!

“No, just afraid.”

Only a few days ago he wouldn’t have admitted fear to her if he’d been dropped into a bear den covered in honey. She eyed him, amazed at his awkwardness. He was now staring at his feet. He glanced up at her.

“I told you,” she reminded him gently, “that there is a place where you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“What if I told you I wanted to be in that place, with you, forever?”

His eyes met hers, and suddenly he wasn’t fumbling at all.

In a voice as steady as his eyes, he said, “I was wondering if you would consider spending the rest of your life with me.”

Her mouth fell open, and tears gathered behind her eyes. “Houston,” she breathed.

“Damn. I forgot. Hang on.” He let go of her hand, fished through the pocket of the windbreaker he had worn, fell to one knee. He held a ring out to her. The diamonds turned to fire as the rays of the rising sun caught on their facets.

“Molly Michaels, I love you. Desperately. Completely. With every beat of my heart and with every breath that I take. I love you,” he said, his voice suddenly his own, strong and sure, a man who had always known exactly what he wanted. “Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” she said. Simply. Softly. No one word had ever felt so right in her entire life.

It was yes to him, but also yes to herself. It was
yes
to life, in all its uncertainty. It was
yes
to disappointments being healed,
yes
to taking a chance,
yes
to being fully alive,
yes
to coming awake after sleeping.

And then they were in each other’s arms. Houston’s lips welcomed her.

Their kiss celebrated, not the miracle of a balloon rising hundreds of feet above the earth, defying gravity, but the absolute miracle of love.

He kissed her again with tenderness that
knew
her. And just like that they were both home.

At long last, after being lost for so long, and alone for so long, they had both found their way home.

H
OUSTON
W
HITFORD
sat on the bench in Central Park feeling the spring sunshine warm him, his face lifted to it.

The park was quiet.

Peripherally he was aware of Molly and his father coming back down the park path toward him. They had wandered off together to admire the beds of tulips that his father, the gardener, loved so much.

Houston focused on them, his father so changed, becoming more shrunken and frail every day. Molly’s arm and his father’s were linked, her head bent toward her beloved “Hughie” as she listened to something he was telling her.

Houston saw her smile, saw his father glance at her, the older man’s gaze astounded and filled with wonder as if he could not believe how his daughter-in-law had accepted him into her life.

This is what Houston had learned about love: it could not heal all things.

For instance, it could not heal the cancer that ate at his father. It could not heal the fact that he woke
from his frequent sleeps with tears of regret sliding down his face.

Love, powerful as it was, could not change the scar left on a nose broken by a father’s fury, or the other scars not quite as visible.

No, love could not heal all things.

But it could heal some things. And most days, that was enough. More than enough.

Once, his father had looked at Molly, and said sadly, “That’s the woman your mother could have been had I been a better man.”

“Maybe,” Houston had said gently, feeling that wondrous thing that was called forgiveness. “Or maybe I’m the man you could have been if she had been a better woman.”

Now, the baby carriage that Houston had taken charge of while Molly took his father to look at the tulips vibrated beneath where his fingertips rested on the handle, prewail warning. Then his daughter was fully awake, screaming, the carriage rattling as her legs and arms began to flail with fury.

Like her mother in so many ways, he thought with tender amusement, redheaded and bad-tempered.

At the sound of the cry, Houston’s father quickened his steps on the path, breaking free of Molly’s arm in his hurry to get to the baby.

He arrived, panting alarmingly from the small exertion. He peered at the baby and every hard crease his life and prison had put in his face seemed to melt. He put his finger in the carriage, and the baby latched on to it with her surprisingly strong little fist.

“There, there,” his father crooned, “Pappy’s here.”

The baby went silent, and then cooed, suddenly all charm.

For a suspended moment, it seemed all of them—his father, Molly, the baby, Houston himself—were caught in a radiance of light that was dazzling.

“I lived long enough to see this,” his father said, his voice hoarse with astonishment and gratitude, his finger held completely captive by the baby.

“A good thing,” Houston said quietly.

“No. More. A miracle,” his father, a man who had probably never known the inside of a church, and who had likely shaken his fist at God nearly every waking moment of every day of his life, whispered.

Houston felt Molly settle on the bench beside him, rest her head on his shoulder, nestle into him with the comfort of a woman who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was loved and cherished above all things.

“How’s my Woman-of-the-Year?” he asked.

“Oh, stop,” she said, but kissed his cheek.

She had taken Second Chances to the next level, beyond what anyone had ever seen for it, or dreamed for it. He liked to think his love helped her juggle so many different roles, all of them with seeming effortlessness, all of them infused with her great joy and enthusiasm for life.

Houston put his arm around her, pulled her in closer to him, touched his lips to her forehead.

His father was watching him, his eyes went back to Molly and then rested on Houston, satisfied, content,
full.

“A miracle,” he said again.

“Yes, it is,” Houston, a man who had once doubted miracles, agreed.

All of it. Life. Love. The power of forgiveness. A
place to call home. All of it was a miracle, so sacred a man could not even contemplate it without his heart nearly bursting inside his chest.

“Yes,” he repeated quietly. “It is.”