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The baby’s frank regard distracted her. “Heavens, Miss Mary Mae,” exclaimed her namesake. “Could you get any cuter? May I?” She promptly stole the baby, carrying on a one-sided conversation with her.
“Hey, Daddy.” Faith received a hug from their father, who raked his daughters with brown eyes identical to their own. “Everything okay here?”
Faith answered before Grace could. “Couldn’t be better.”
As her sister’s eyes connected with Grace’s, it was understood they wouldn’t burden their parents with their family struggles.
Grace gestured to the teachers who were pouring themselves lemonade from a seven-gallon cooler with a spigot. “Come on. Let me introduce you to everyone.”
But as they made their way toward the other guests, Amos called for everyone’s attention while carrying a three-tiered cake he had made himself from the houseboat to a table set at the head of the pier.
“Mateo.” He waved the little boy over. “Do you want to see your cake?”
With her heart in her throat, Grace watched as Christopher led Mateo over. Eyes wide, her son had to go up on his toes to take it in.
“Don’t touch it yet.” Amos scooped him up, perching Mateo on his forearm. “We have to toast to your future.” He looked for Grace who was on her way to join them while calling Simon into their midst.
Once they were all standing together, Amos picked up his red cup off the table and lifted it high, prompting those gathered to do the same.
Ann, her colleague, shoved a red cup into Grace’s hand as she’d lost track of hers.
“A toast to Mateo’s future here with us,” Amos called, speaking in what Grace called his “senior-chief voice.” He hefted the boy higher and looked him in the eye. “Mateo, may the uncertainties of yesterday fall away like shadows. And may the promise of tomorrow light your path in the ways of righteousness and peace.”
Moved by Amos’s eloquence, Grace acknowledged his toast by quaffing down a gulp of her lemonade.
“Care to add anything?” he asked her.
“Just…welcome home, Mateo.”
Several guests repeated her words, calling out, “Welcome home, Mateo!”
“One more thing,” Amos said, “not to steal your thunder, my boy.” He bent to set the squirming child on his feet before continuing in the same raised voice. “While you are all here, Grace and I thought we would take advantage of your presence to speak our vows of marriage.”
Except for the children still talking, an astonished silence fell over the group. Grace looked at Faith to gauge her twin’s reaction to their surprise. She had clapped a hand over her mouth but then lowered it to reveal a delighted smile. Only their parents had known of their plan, as Amos had asked Don for his blessing when they first met a week earlier.
One of the SEALs stepped forward, a slim, mature man with a sparse head of hair. Amos had introduced him earlier as the Team chaplain.
“If you would all form a circle around the happy couple. Dad, if you would stand next to your daughter.”
Within seconds, Grace was flanked by her father and surrounded by familiar, smiling faces. Her colleagues were already teary-eyed. Even the children joined the circle, intuiting that something important was about to happen.
With a heart full of love, Grace met Amos’s transparent gaze and queried her heart one more time. They scarcely knew each other, and yet, it felt like she had known him all her life. While sleeping in the berthing area with the boys, she had known unequivocally that she belonged in Amos’s bed in the captain’s quarters. Old-fashioned soul that he was, he wouldn’t let her join him unless she married him first.
Listening to Amos promise to cherish her in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, Grace experienced the certainty that God had always meant them for each other. This ceremony was just an outward sign of an inward truth.
Then it was her turn to repeat the chaplain’s words. “I, Grace Elizabeth Garrett, take you, Amos John McLeod, to be my wedded husband…”
All too soon, the ceremony came to a close. Chaplain Tucker raised his voice to a shout as he pronounced them man and wife.
As if on cue, the SEALs in one accord shouted, “Hooyah!”
Startled, Mateo threw his arms around Grace’s hips.
“You may kiss the bride,” Tucker added.
With Mateo squashed between them, Amos kissed Grace soundly, leaving her breathless and giving rise to another rousing cheer.
He broke off the kiss with a grin and picked up a comb-like implement Grace had seen in his kitchen while wondering what it was for. Now she knew.
“Who wants cake?”
“Me!” Five children crowded around the cake he had made.
Laughing, Grace went to help Amos distribute the slices. As she did, her gaze fell on the eloquent script written in purple frosting around the lowest tier.
Mateo, welcome to our family!
