And that, in its own quiet way, might be the start of everything.
"I wouldn't know where to start," he says finally.
"Start with showing up," Mrs. Russell suggests from her front-row seat to the conversation, her voice carrying the practical wisdom of someone who's been building community for seventy years. "Start with helping instead of taking. Start with asking what people need instead of telling them what they should want."
"The Morrison Center could use a board of directors," Henry adds. "People who understand both business and heart. People who know how to build things that last."
"And we could use advice that comes from someone who wants to protect what we're building instead of tearing it down," I hear myself say, surprising everyone, including myself.
Richard looks at me with what might be the first trace of hope. "You'd trust me with that?"
"I'd trust you to earn it," I reply. "The same way I had to earn it. The same way anyone earns a place in a family like this."
Ivy claps her hands together with satisfaction. "See? Families. They fight, they forgive, they figure it out. Different from corporate acquisitions."
"Much messier," Richard observes, but there's a quality in his voice that suggests the mess might not be unwelcome anymore.
"The best things are," Savvy adds, appearing at Henry's side with a smile that includes everyone in its warmth. "Trust me, I'm a professional at turning complicated situations into happily ever afters."
"Speaking of which," I say, looking at Maddy and feeling my heart do that thing it's been doing since our first kiss, "I've been waiting for the right moment to ask you a question."
The remaining crowd goes quiet, sensing a shift in the evening's energy.
Maddy's eyes widen as I reach into my jacket pocket, feeling the small velvet box I've been carrying for weeks.
"Right here?" she whispers. "In front of everyone?"
"Right here," I confirm, dropping to one knee on the barn floor that's witnessed so much of our relationship's evolution. "I know it's soon, but when you know it's right, you know. And I want to do this in front of our family." Because that's what they are, all of them, Richard included, maybe, if he chooses to be. The family we've built through choice and stubbornness and the radical belief that love can be stronger than litigation.
"How do you propose to a proposal planner?" I ask, looking up at her with a smile that feels like it might split my face in half. "I don't have fog machines and fairy lights, but I have love. So much love."
"You do it like this," she whispers, tears streaming down her face. "With your heart, in front of our family, without needing anything but the truth."
"Maddy," I say, opening the ring box and watching her face transform with joy, "will you marry me?"
Her answer comes without hesitation, bright and certain as sunrise. "Yes."
As I slide the ring onto her finger, a perfect fit, like everything else about us, the barn erupts in applause, cheers, and that rare, electric joy that happens when a whole community celebrates as one.
From somewhere in the crowd, Gloria's voice cuts through the revelry with perfect maternal timing. "Okay, okay! If you take her tonight, I'll give you three goats and my dumpling recipe!"
The laughter that follows is warm and genuine, the kind that comes from people who've claimed you as family. Even Maddy is laughing through her tears, shaking her head at her mother's incorrigible matchmaking.
"Mom!" she calls out, but she's grinning.
"What? I'm upgrading the dowry! That dumpling recipe is a family secret!"
In the back, I catch sight of Richard Kingston applauding along with the rest, his expression caught between disbelief and awe as he watches a corporate lawyer propose to an event planner on the floor of a converted barn, while a fake bear rug stares on in what might almost pass for approval.
Tomorrow there will be new challenges, new opportunities, new ways to build and protect and grow what we've started here. But tonight, surrounded by fairy lights and the taste of victory and the promise of forever, we rest in the knowledge that some things, the most important things, are worth any fight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
MADDY
The morning after the most successful "private party" in River Bend history, the barn feels different. It's not empty, equipment still needs to be returned, decorations carefully packed away, but there's a deep, contented quiet that feels like a long exhale after a race well-run. The fairy lights still twinkle overhead, though half of them will need to come down today, and the lingering scent of Mrs. Russell's "victory pie" mingles with the faint traces of fog machine mist that somehow made it through the entire evening without a single malfunction.
The four of us, me, Mason, Savvy, and Henry, are sprawled around the consultation area, which is currently serving as a makeshift command center for post-party cleanup and the kind of exhausted debriefing that follows any successful impossible mission.
