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Blue nodded. “Plenty of opportunity to open a general practice here right now. The area is booming.” He grinned at me. “And that’s what made you cry?”
“Oh yeah. Burst into tears right in front of the girls,” I admitted. “Cleo yelled, ‘Dad, he’s doing it again!’Pfft. As if I cry all the time.”
Grant’s laugh turned into a cough when I elbowed him in the side. He leaned over to press a laughing kiss to my temple. “I love that you never hide your emotions from me. It shows how much you care.”
“You do not love it,” I argued. “Not always. You said seeing me cry hurts worse than the worst avulsion you’ve seen in the ER.” I looked at Blue. “Do not google that word if you value your stomach contents.”
“This is also true,” Grant admitted. “Makes me crazy.”
“It also makes yougenerous.” I winked before looking back at Blue. “Pro tip: cry to Tristan and then ask him to kiss it better. Thank me later.”
Blue’s laughter brought Tristan over to see what we were talking about. We didn’t stick around long enough for him to test my theory, though, because Jacey called us over to the cake table.
“Mom said to make sure you got a piece of the cake,” she said, handing us each a plate. “Which makes no sense since you already fed each other a piece when you cut the cake, but whatever. She’s, like, your bestie now, so I figured she’d know best.”
I wouldn’t say Liza and I were besties, exactly, but once Grant and I had cemented our relationship last year, the tension between Liza and me had disappeared almost immediately, too. It turned out she’d been genuinely worried that Grant and I would end up miserable, which would make the girls miserable as well. Once she’d gotten over her shock at our marriage and seen with her own eyes how happy and settled we all were, she had no objections to our relationship. Though she hadn’t stayed in town permanently, she’d made an effort to keep her work trips shorter, and we’d fallen into an easy routine as friends and coparents.
As family.
I took a bite of the moist cake and groaned. “Your mother is doing the Lord’s work,” I admitted. “I told her when she helped me decide on the cake maker that I was worried I wouldn’t get to actually enjoy the cake I picked. She said she’d make sure we got plenty.”
“Liza said that?” Grant asked, savoring his own bite. “This is incredible.”
I nodded. “I told you what a huge help she was when all the final wedding details came to a head at the same time my beta was going live. She came back from her Louisiana trip and threw herself full-tilt into wedding planning. That’s how I got her and the girls to make all the favor packets and half the centerpieces.”
Grant peered over the crowd to find Liza’s blonde hair, which was done up for the wedding. “I’ll have to thank her.”
Jacey shook her head. “Not now. She’s putting the moves on Toby.”
“Who’s Toby?” Grant asked, squinting to make out the younger man standing with Liza.
I leaned in and lowered my voice. “Tristan’s head of distribution here at the vineyard. Total playboy.”
“Is it serious?” he asked.
I glanced at Jacey, who was thankfully distracted by a dog who’d come over for pets, and lowered my voice to a whisper. “I believe your ex-wife is simply looking for some… ah… temporary physical entertainment.”
His laugh brought a smile to my face. It was one of my favorite sounds in the entire world. “Good for her.”
“You’re not jealous?” I teased. I had no doubt that Grant was completely committed to me, even before he’d sworn it in front of our friends and family two hours earlier.
“Jealous of someone getting physical entertainment? Hell yes I am. In fact, I want to whisk you off and physically entertain the hell out of you right now,” he growled. “What do you say to that plan, Mr. Brighton?”
I looked around at the golden sun shining on our friends and family, at the gorgeous vistas of Alexander Vineyard, at the glinting platinum band on my finger, and grinned. Once upon a time, I’d worried love was a fleeting thing that could be snatched away in a heartbeat. But standing in Grant’s arms, I knew down to my soul that, no matter what challenges and joys life had in store for us, our love—ourfamily—would last forever. And I would never doubt that again.
I stood on my tiptoes and pressed a kiss to my husband’s lips.
“I say…I do.”
* * *
