He tipped his head to me as I inched closer to the door. “Lukas is a lucky man,” he said.
I smiled. “Yes, he is.”
Rodney patted my hand before letting it go. It had been a full year since he’d given me one of those a-little-too-personal hugs. A full year since he draped an arm over my shoulders and teased me for being short. A full year since he so much as flirted with me.
I had a lot of respect for him.
On the other side of the doors, music started to play. My breath hitched in my throat as I realized I was going to be Mrs. Holt in less than twenty minutes.
Lisa stepped up beside me and looped her arm through mine. “Ready, babe?”
I nodded. “Ready.”
“Let’s get married.”
We pushed through the doors, and as we walked, Rodney fanned my dress out so it fell dramatically behind me. The train flowed out beautifully and grazed the red carpet that had been laid down for me as my aisle. All the soup kitchen chairs formed neat rows facing an archway of white roses under which Lukas stood.
We locked eyes.
Emotion I’d never felt before rushed through me. I knew it was probably all just the usual emotions of the day, but there was something else that probably made it more intense. The hormones, of course.
I was six weeks along in my pregnancy. Nobody knew but me and Lukas. It had been an incredible early wedding gift to tell Lukas that I was pregnant. I’d never seen him cry before, but he’d cried that day. He’d gone to his knees in front of me, wrapped his arms around me, and held his cheek to my stomach while I ran my fingers through his hair. He’d talked to the baby every day since. In fact, I couldn’t get him to shut up sometimes.
I resisted the urge to put my hand on my stomach as I walked down the aisle to meet my future husband. For now, the little baby was our special secret.
Lukas smiled and tugged at the sleeves of his suit jacket as I came to him. We walked slowly and I felt the eyes of every person in the room land on me. Some people waved. Others sniffled and dabbed their eyes with tissues. Up in the front row, Ally, Lukas’ mother, turned and smiled at me. She wore a shimmering light blue dress and bolero jacket, and she had a fresh perm. She looked beautiful and healthy. Her cheeks were rosy and full and her lips were pink and glossy. She’d been lucky enough to qualify for an experimental treatment for patients with dementia, and she’d been lucid for the last couple of months. Sure, sometimes her memory still slipped away from her, but most of her days were good ones, not bad ones.
Like today.
Today was a good day.
Today, she got to see her son get married.
I met Lukas at the end of the aisle. His eyes were glassy, and when Lisa passed me off to him, he stood back and looked me up and down.
“You look incredible.” His voice was hoarse with emotion.
“You clean up real good yourself,” I said.
The music slowed to a gentle tempo and the crowd fell into a hush. Our officiant stepped up between us, a leatherbound book resting open in the palm of his hand, and he addressed the room. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the union of two remarkable people. Kayla Goodfellow and Lukas Holt.”
As the officiant performed the ceremony, I gazed into the eyes of the man I loved more than anything else in the world. I thought about our future together, our upcoming honeymoon to Belize, the baby in my belly who was already so loved, and the people sitting in the rows of chairs who had come to celebrate our special day with us.
I was the luckiest woman alive.
Later, after the vows were exchanged and our pictures were taken, everyone gathered back in the kitchen, which had been transformed from the ceremony setup to a banquet hall with dining tables and a head table for Lukas and me.
It was a full-service meal and waiters brought everyone their plates of food. Pitchers of gravy steamed on tables next to crystal bowls of cranberry sauce. Dinner rolls overflowed from wicker baskets lined with floral linens, and sunflowers poked out of vases. It was simple but perfect.
After we ate, we received our guests, who came up to the head table and thanked us for inviting them. Some offered me special words, thanking me for everything I’d done for them with Good Fellow’s. To say I was a basket case during the whole thing would have been an understatement.
Finally, the gratitudes were over and I was left to recover. I dabbed under my eyes to try and wipe the tears away and Lukas leaned in close. “I have a gift for you,” he said softly.
“I thought we said no presents?”
“It’s not a traditional present,” he said. He reached under the table and pulled out a stack of paperwork. Every third or fourth page in the stack was marked with a sticky tab. There had to be at least forty tabs. He slid it toward me. “Here.”
“What is this?”
“Read it.”
I watched him out of the corner of my eye suspiciously before turning over the first page and reading what was marked beneath. My eyes widened. “This is a contract. A developer’s contract.”
Lukas nodded. “I bought the condos. Our condos. I bought all of them.”
My eyes slid up to meet his. “You did?”
“Yes.” He pulled his chair closer to mine and flipped a couple more pages over. “Some were abandoned. Others had renters, and a select few had owners living in them. We’re going to invest in the neighborhood, repair it, and build things up. We’re going to save it from zoning. The city wanted to tear it
