Summer of Two Wishes Read Free

at the memory. There was nothing quite as sexy as a cowboy.
    The dance floor was partially covered and partially exposed to the elements. Outdoor lights were strung through the trees, and little lanterns hung every six feet. Finn and Macy had danced outside with the hope they’d be cooled by a breeze that never came until Macy had begged for a beer.
    But before they’d walked off the dance floor, the band had struck up a slow waltz. “One more,” Finn had said, and had taken her in his arms, had begun to move languidly, humming in her ear. He’d whispered, “You know I love you.”
    “Mmm…I love you, too,” Macy had said, and dropped her head back to look at the lights as Finn spun her around.
    Finn had pressed his mouth to the hollow of her throat and said, “Macy…come to the ranch with me.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Tonight and every night. Come to the ranch and be my wife.”
    Macy had jerked her head up, surprised he’d said it, fearful he was teasing her. “What did you say?”
    He’d grinned in that charmingly lopsided way he had. “I said, marry me, baby.”
    Macy was speechless. She hadn’t expected it. They’d dated eight months, and he’d never given her any hint…but this was the one thing she’d hoped for, the one thing she wanted above all else. She loved him so much, more than she’d ever loved anything or anyone.
    Her silence caused Finn to stop in the middle of the dance floor. “I don’t have all the right words,” he’d said, his smile fading. “But I love you. I want to be with you now and forever, and I hope like hell you want the same thing. Macy Harper…” He’d stepped back, bent down on one knee, and put his hand in his pocket. “Will you marry me?” he’d asked, and produced a ring.
    As they sped past the Rooster, Macy closed her eyes. He was alive . That beautiful, sexy cowboy who had proposed to her right in the middle of the dance floor was alive , and her heart soared with jubilation.
    “Macy, did you hear what I said?” her mother asked, poking her and nudging her back to the present.
    “What?”
    “We’ll need to review this with Wyatt.”
    Macy closed her eyes again. Wyatt. Oh God, poor Wyatt . Wyatt was her husband, her rock. He was the one who had lifted her up from the darkness after Finn was gone. She’d been drifting aimlessly for over a year when she met Wyatt, and he’d infused light into her life again. She loved him.
    She loved two men. She loved two husbands.

3
     
    Macy had always wanted to go to Washington, D.C., but she didn’t even notice the Washington monument as they descended to Ronald Reagan Airport three days later. Her sister Emma had to remind her twice to look out the window.
    She and her family were greeted by a pair of servicemen who put them into cars and escorted them to a hotel in Washington, via Constitution Avenue. They drove past a monument. The Lincoln Memorial, Macy thought, but she was too scattered to really look. She couldn’t stop thinking about Finn, about what he’d endured.
    The next morning, they were driven out to Andrews Air Force Base to greet Finn’s plane.
    The room in which they were asked to wait was the color of putty—the walls, the floor, the caulking around the three windows that overlooked a parking lot. It seemed to Macy to be too drab for an occasion as glorious and stupendous as this. It was the only thought that seemed to register in her fogged brain. That, and the panicky sensation of not being able to breathe.
    Can’t breathe. Can’t breathe.
    She and her family sat at a long, highly polished table in faux-leather chairs. Macy focused on the portraits on the wall. There was the president in the middle, flanked by military personnel she did not recognize. She shifted her gaze to the window, wishing someone would open it, but no one else seemed to notice the lack of air. They were all too excited, too happy, too nervous. None of them could contain their impatience.
    Finn’s parents, Rick and