Jenny’s hand over his mouth ended the sentence prematurely. “Shut up, or it’ll never happen again.”

“Shutting up now,” he said, his words muffled by her hand, which he nibbled. After she dropped her hand, he said, “Love you, Jenny Wilks-soon-to-be-Martinez.”

“Love you, too, Alex Martinez, even when you’re being nasty.”

“You love when I’m nasty.” He loved riling her up and every other damned thing about her. As they drove through the gates to the lighthouse where they’d met more than a year ago, his heart beat with excitement and anticipation and a tiny bit of fear that his big idea might not go over well with her.

“What’re we doing here? I saw Erin last night.”

“I have a little surprise for you.”

“What kind of surprise?”

“The kind you’re going to have to wait and see.”

She sat up straighter in her seat, but there was nothing to see—yet.

Alex pulled up to the spot he used to take when he was coming here to visit her and cut the engine. Then he turned to her, reaching for her hand.

“What’s going on?”

“You’re worried about something happening before our big day, right?”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“Today’s our big day. Right here where we first met, we’re going to get married. We’ll still have our wedding as planned, but that’ll be for everyone else. This, today, is for us. There’ll be nothing left to worry about once we’re legally and officially married.”

Tears filled her eyes, and she covered her mouth as a sob escaped from her lips.

One by one, the people he’d called earlier filed out of the lighthouse: Evan, his uncle Frank, Sydney and Erin, moving slowly on crutches.

Jenny saw them and began to cry harder.

“If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to. I just thought—”

She launched herself across the truck and into his arms, kissing him repeatedly. “You are the best guy in the whole world to think of this.”

“So you like the idea?”

“I love the idea, except Paul isn’t here.”

“He’ll understand completely, and he’ll still be my best man at our official wedding.”

“When did you think of this?”

“This morning.”

“And you made it happen for today?”

“I can’t bear to see you worrying when there was something I could do to fix it short of enclosing myself in bubble wrap for the next two weeks.”

“I’m sorry to have been worried—”

Alex placed his finger over her lips. “You have every good reason to feel the way you do. Do you care that your parents aren’t here for this?”

“No. They’d understand, too. The only one I truly need is you.”

“And the only one I truly need is you. So what do you say we go out there and get married?”