“Thanks!” she said and leaped off the chair. “Now let’s get there already.”
They said goodbye to Ben and Linda. Yes, they’d encouraged him to start dating, but it didn’t make it feel any less weird to see them right before meeting someone who was not their daughter. It wouldn’t be too much longer, though, before he would be finished with the renovations at the new house and he and Holly could move in.
They pulled up to the address that Rachel had given him, which was apparently the bride’s parents’ house. Strings of Christmas lights lined the house and lit up all the trees and shrubs. Santa’s village and a manger scene decorated the lawn,and a couple of dozen people milled about all the decorations, kids chasing each other around everything. A truck with two flat-bed trailers loaded with bales of hay covered in blankets sat parked in front of the house.
Holly put her hands on her cheeks. “It’s just so magical!”
They got out of the car, and Holly ran ahead, her golden dress bouncing below her blue winter coat, and Nick scanned the crowd for Rachel. He found her talking with a small group of people and started walking toward her. She was wearing a plum-colored dress coat and tall boots, the bottom of her dark green dress visible below the coat, and her dark hair pulled up all fancy. She looked stunning standing there in the middle of the snow and the Christmas decorations.
It took a moment before she glanced in his direction. The moment her eyes landed on him, her expression—the one that spontaneously appeared before she even would’ve had a chance to choose it—looked a lot like elated happiness. Something washed through him at seeing it. He wouldn’t have been able to describe it, but it made his chest swell to know he evoked that reaction in her.
She was still smiling when he reached her and she said, “I’m so glad you two came. We are going to be loading up soon. Should we get some hot chocolate, first?”
Holly and Aiden both seemed to materialize at their side just then, almost like they knew the hot chocolate was coming. Rachel led them to a table filled with different hot chocolate mix-ins where Noelle’s dad was pouring hot chocolate into cups with a ladle and handing them out.
As they were choosing their mix-ins, Holly asked, “Are these all the people that are coming to the wedding?”
Rachel glanced out at the crowd. “No—the hay ride can’t fit everyone at once. This group is just us and Noelle’s parents, siblings, and their kids. Extended family will be arriving in a bit,and they’ll ride over in the second group. Everyone else will just meet us at the chapel.”
Holly’s eyes grew as Rachel listed off who was coming, but all Nick could think was that they were in the wrong place. Everyone there was only close family. They were a last-minute addition, and it wasn’t even a real date.
Not long after they got their hot chocolates, he heard a ringing and everyone’s attention went to the bride and groom—Rachel’s brother, Jack, and his soon-to-be wife, Noelle, whom they’d met three days ago. They stood at the top of the sloping yard, near the house. Jack was dressed in a fine-looking tux, and Noelle wore a white wedding dress with a white fur-lined coat that looked kind of like a cape and went all the way to the ground. They were both grinning and holding champagne glasses filled with hot chocolate.
“We want to thank you all for coming,” Jack said. “It means a lot to us.”
Noelle smiled. “This is not the most traditional start to a wedding, we know, but we wanted to celebrate with you in a way that we most love celebrating.”
Jack said, “Noelle was my employee a year ago when we last had this hot chocolate and hay ride activity, and I had some pretty high walls up. It was sitting on that second trailer right over there when I first let those walls come down for a minute. It felt appropriate to have this lead to our wedding.”
“Cheers!” Noelle said, holding her hot chocolate up high.
Everyone else held theirs up and shouted “Cheers!” right back.
They all took their hot chocolates with them and climbed onto the trailers, the bride and groom sitting on hay bales stacked two high on the first trailer, facing everyone.
Aiden initially sat down next to Rachel, but in true six-year-old fashion, only stayed there for about five seconds before hejumped up to sit next to the woman Nick had figured out was Noelle’s mom. So Nick took the opportunity to sit right next to Rachel. The story Jack told about this hay ride was pretty sweet. It surprised him that he was suddenly wanting the same thing to happen to him.
Someone started Christmas music playing, and Rachel motioned to a woman who was videoing everything with her phone and leaned in close to him to say, “That’s Noelle’s sister, Katie. She interviews the family at the Christmas activities and makes a video to show on Christmas Eve.”
She continued, telling him who all the people were on both trailers, but there were so many names and he was so distracted by her nearness. The peppermint scent of her hair. The feel of her warm breath against his cheek.
Holly had been right when they pulled up. There was a sort of magic here.
His attention, right along with Rachel’s, went to Aiden as the boy said to Noelle’s mom, “So what do I call you after Uncle Jack gets married?”
Mrs. Allred cocked her head. “Call me?”
“I’ll get to start calling Noelle ‘Aunt Noelle,’ but I don’t know what I’m supposed to call you.”
“Well, technically, we still won’t be related.”
Aiden frowned, his eyebrows pulling together. “No, we have to be related. Won’t you be my grandma-in-law or something?”
The woman chuckled as she put an arm around Aiden and pulled him into her side. Then she told him a story about how where she grew up, they referred to found or adopted family as hanai and said that they were hanai now. “So, as hanai, what would you like to call me?”
Aiden pointed at the boy on her other side, who looked about his age. “Tommy calls you Grandma. Can I call you that, too?”
“You sure can.”
