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“We’re not.” He shrugged. “But what we can do is get married with Marissa and Colin as our witnesses, and then have a full wedding when I get back.”

It was all so much to take in. Nate was crazy.
This
was crazy. “We just can’t run and get married this weekend.”

It was Nate’s turn to get up, stepping into my path to stop me in my tracks. He placed his hands on my shoulders and waited until I was looking at him. “Yes, we can. I want you to be my wife before we deploy.”

The pounding of my heart increased. Could we really do this? With almost every fiber of my being I wanted to jump into his arms and scream “yes” at the top of my lungs, but a small part of me feared the reaction of our families if they ever found out what we’d done without them being there. “But—”

“No buts, Danielle. I called and made arrangements with the base chaplain. Marissa and Colin will meet us at noon tomorrow.” He watched me for another second before continuing. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re worried that our parents will be pissed if they find out that we got married without them, but I thought about it and I actually think they will be happy for us. If I
wasn’t
getting deployed, that would be a whole new discussion.”

That’s when I realized that we could do it. There was no one to stop us. This was something we needed, and with the thought of Nate being gone for the next three months, I wanted to do something for us. He was right—we could have the formal wedding later and no one would be any the wiser. It would also give us the next two weeks to enjoy being husband and wife.

“Okay.” I beamed.

“Okay?” His voice rose in excitement.

I nodded. “Okay. What do we need to do?”

He picked me up around the waist and swung me around the living room. “You’ve made me the happiest man on the planet.”

My legs wrapped around him at the same time as his lips came up to lightly brush mine. Attempting to deepen the kiss I slid my tongue across his bottom lip, but before he opened his mouth to let me in, he pulled back.

“What is it?”

He let me slide down his body until my feet hit the floor. “We need to get to the jewelry store before it closes for the night.”

My gaze dropped to the floor and I began to fidget. “Um…no we don’t.”

“What do you mean? We’ll needs rings for tomorrow.”

The blood rushed to my face, staining my cheeks pink. “I kinda already took care of that part.” Stepping away I headed to the bedroom and pulled two boxes out of the nightstand next to my side of the bed. I placed a box in each of his waiting hands. “I saw these one day and I knew that they would be perfect.” While I waited for his reaction, I sunk my teeth into my lower lip.

The lid creaked and Nate looked at the two beautiful rings waiting inside. He sighed. “They’re perfect. I can’t believe you got these, but I’m so glad you did. It saves us a trip.” Without another word, I watched as Nate moved to the closet to pull out a duffel bag. He filled the bag with a change of clothes and grabbed the garment bag with his uniform in it.

“Where are you going?” It seemed a little odd that he’d just convinced me to marry him this weekend, but now he was leaving.

“I’m staying at Colin’s tonight. I’m not supposed to see the bride until the wedding,” he said picking up his duffel bag.

“Well, that makes sense.” I laughed.

I followed him to the door, watching as he grabbed his keys and turned to face me.

“I love you more than anything, and I can’t wait to make you my wife tomorrow. Until then, dream of me.” He bent down and placed the sweetest kiss on my lips. It was obvious he was trying to keep me from taking it too far, to the point we’d end up in bed together.

“I love you, too.” With that Nate made his way out the door.

In less than twenty-four hours I would be Mrs. Nate Lewis. I couldn’t contain my excitement as I called for Marissa to come over so that she could help me get ready tomorrow. I sat my phone down and started to daydream.

Mrs. Nate Lewis…

I was starting to believe that dreams really did come true.

It isn’t only in fairytales where dreams come true.

After Nate left and I got off the phone with Marissa, who promised to be there first thing in the morning, I tried to go to sleep. It should have been easy considering the emotional turmoil of the last few hours—It’d left me completely exhausted—but unfortunately the harder I tried, the harder it became. My stomach continued to flutter, though I wasn’t sure if it was from nerves or excitement. In the morning, Nate and I would finally become husband and wife. Besides the deployment, life was pretty perfect. Thankfully his regiment’s deployments were short. Three months? It could be worse and we’d survived the time apart before. For now, I was going to look forward to the wedding and enjoy the next two weeks. I knew we’d both have to work during the day, but our nights would be our own. With thoughts of Nate, I finally drifted off to sleep.

It seemed like I’d only been asleep for about an hour when there was a loud banging on the front door. Rolling over, I forced my eyes open to see that it was almost eight thirty. Damn, I needed to get moving and even though I was pretty quick getting out of bed, the banging continued. Only one person would do that. I opened the door and there was Marissa, two coffees in her hand. I stepped back to let her in and she handed me one of the cups.

“Exactly what I needed,” I said with a smile.

“I figured as much. Now get your butt in the bedroom and get dressed. We have a ton of stuff to do before we need to be on base.”

“Like what?” I took a sip of the coffee, letting the caffeine do its job.

“Well, while your pretty little self has been sleeping, I’ve been making hair and nail appointments.”

“Really?” Marissa was always good at working under pressure.

“You can thank me later. Now get dressed so we can get started.” I turned to head back down the hallway. “Plus we need to pick up your dress.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “Dress, what dress?” I figured I would be wearing something from my closet since I hadn’t had the time to go out and get one.

“Nate took care of it last night after he left here. He didn’t tell me anything except where and when to pick it up.”

That brought an even bigger smile to my face. It was just like Nate to think of doing that. “I shouldn’t really be surprised.”

“No, you shouldn’t. Now chop, chop.”

The day seemed even brighter as I got ready to leave. Wasting as little time as possible, I ran into the bathroom and took one of the fastest showers of my life. I threw on a tank top and shorts with a pair of flip-flops and met Marissa back in the living room. She was standing by the door, keys in her hand waiting for me.

“Ready?”

“Yep, let’s go.” Locking the door behind us, I made my way over to Marissa’s car where she was already waiting in the driver’s seat. The town seemed almost too quiet for a Saturday, but there was a nice breeze taking an edge off of the heat.

Before she started the car, Marissa turned to me and took my hand. “Okay, since I finally got you in the car, can I just say how happy I am you decided to do this? When Nate called last night and said you wouldn’t come out of the bathroom I was afraid you might say no to his idea. I know it hurts that he’s leaving again, but at least you’ll get to be married before he does.”

“At first I did say no. I was nervous about what our parents might say if they found out. Then I realized that it didn’t matter. I don’t want to wait any longer, or push the date until he gets back.”

Facing forward again, she started the car and backed out of the space. Over the next two hours we got our hair and nails done. At the salon, I had them add big, light curls to my long chestnut tresses—wanting to keep things simple.

By the time we stopped at a small little boutique in town, I was a little nervous, even more so when we walked in and the saleswoman seemed overly excited to see us.

“Hi, I’m Danielle Renton and I’m supposed to pick up a dress,” I said to the woman standing behind the counter.

“Of course, give me one second.” She disappeared into the back room, returning a few moments later with a garment bag, a shoebox, and another small bag. When she opened the garment bag, I sucked in a deep breath.

The dress was absolutely gorgeous. It was a light pink strapless dress with an angled skirt, a little higher in the front then in the back. Simple, yet elegant, it was perfect. Nate knew me so well.

“It’s beautiful,” Marissa whispered.

It took me a few moments to look away from the dress. “What is everything else?”

“Well, your fiancée didn’t stop at just the dress,” the woman said, opening first the shoebox, then the bag next to it.

“Wow.” The magnificent, strappy silver heels that sat nestled among the tissue were the perfect addition to the dress. Then I saw what else Nate had picked out. It was a stunning necklace with pink and purple rhinestones embedded in the links.

“Does it ever end with him?” Marissa laughed. She turned to me, her expression had turned serious. “You’re so lucky.”

“I can’t believe he did all of this.” Shock and awe colored my tone. Nate had taken something that could have been a quick, unremarkable trip to the courthouse and turned it into something unique. Of course it would have been special because it was our wedding, but knowing what Nate had put into it in less than twenty-four hours was amazing. Throughout the years Nate had always been one step ahead of me, but every time it still surprised me. And then it hit me: I was about to marry the most amazing man in history.

“Danielle? Danielle?”

There was someone’s hand on my arm. I looked down to see Marissa trying to get my attention, that’s when I noticed the wetness on my face.

“Danielle, are you okay?”

I swiped the tears from my face with the back of my hand. “Yeah, I just got caught up in how wonderful Nate is, and as of this afternoon, he’s mine forever.”

Her hand tightened on my arm. “I know, sweetie. It’s a good thing we didn’t do you makeup yet.”

All I could do was roll my eyes at her. Marissa always ended up bringing things back to humor. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s get going so I can finish getting ready.”

The woman at the counter was packing everything back into the boxes and putting them in bags. She handed them over to Marissa and I. “Can I just say, you have a very special man there. Congratulations! I wish you both the best.”

“Thank you for everything,” I said with a smile.

When we got back to the apartment, we immediately went into the bedroom to get dressed. Marissa had brought a dress with her and was changing in the bedroom, while I went into the bathroom to finish getting ready. A few minutes later, I walked out to a gaping Marissa.

“Damn, that boy is a genius.” She walked all the way around me, taking in the entire picture. “The color and cut of the dress is perfect.”

Once she came back around the front she wrapped her arms around me. “You look beautiful,” she whispered.

“Thank you for being here today.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Now let’s go get you married.”

I smiled and nodded. The dress was truly beautiful, and I felt a little like a fairytale princess. On the trip to the base, I couldn’t help but notice what a gorgeous day it was. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and just a light breeze to keep it cool. Nate had made arrangements with the guard and put our names on the visitors list for the day. Once we passed the gates we saw Colin waiting for us, dressed in full military gear.

“Hi, Colin,” Marissa said.

“Hey, Marissa, I see you got her out of the apartment on time.” Colin laughed.

“Don’t you look handsome,” I said leaning up on my toes to kiss him on the cheek. “I didn’t know you could clean up so well.”

“Very funny. Only for you would I go to this trouble,” he answered with a smirk. He wrapped his arm around my shoulders in a brotherly gesture. It made me miss the fact that my brother was missing this, but from the moment I met Colin he treated me as a little sister so at least I had some family around me. “You look beautiful. Nate’s gonna go crazy when he sees you.”

That made me blush slightly. “Thanks. Is he here?”

He chuckled. “Of course he’s here. He’s been pacing about for the last hour or so.”