He sighed and pushed his fingers through his rich auburn hair, making a mess of it. “I guess you could say I’m feeling a tad bit…” He made an up-and-down motion with his hand. “Over what we’re about to do.”

“Emotional. You’re feeling emotional.”

“Except saying that makes me a first-rate pussy.”

Carolina burst out laughing. Her man had a way with words. “It does not make you a first-rate pussy.” Her mouth twisted around the dreaded word. “It makes you a first-time groom with a perfectly natural case of jitters.” She took him by the hand and led him into the living room, where they sat together on the sofa.

“I don’t have the slightest doubt about us or what we’re about to do,” he said. “You have to know that.”

“I do know that. Because if I thought you were having doubts after the campaign you waged to get to this day, I’d have no choice but to kill you.”

His face lifted into the impish half grin she adored. “And I’d have no choice but to let you.”

“Fortunately, there will be no killing today. Only loving.”

He leaned over to kiss her. “Today and every day.”

Carolina curled her hand around his nape and kept him there for another kiss. She shifted ever so slightly until she was pressed against him.

He responded to her the way he always did—passionately.

They stayed that way, wrapped up in each other, until Carolina heard a door close in the driveway. She drew back from him. “That’ll be Joe and Janey. Are you ready for this?”

“I was born ready, my love.”

Smiling, she fixed his hair and left her hand to rest on his cheek for a moment. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

“Aw, Christ, Caro. Don’t say that. You’ll make a mess of me.”

Touched by the fact that his emotions were hovering close to the surface, she said, “I mean it. You’ve made me so happy—happier than I ever expected to be, and I want you to know that before anything else happens today. I know I gave you a run for your money—”

He grunted out a laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”

“I just want you to know I’m so glad you were relentless. So very, very glad.”

Reaching out to run a finger over her face, he said, “I love you, Caro.”

“I love you, too.” She kissed him again, lingering until she heard the screen door open. Leaving him with a smile, she got up to meet her son and his family.

“We heard something about a party here today,” Joe said. He carried his newborn son, P.J., in an infant car seat that he put on the kitchen table.

“Are we the first ones here?” Janey asked.