“Don’t try, honey,” Linda said, patting Evan’s hand across the table. “You know how he can be when he gets something in his head.”

“Yes, you know how I can be,” Big Mac said with a satisfied smile.

Grace laughed, and the sound filled Evan’s heart to overflowing. He loved to hear her laugh as much as he hated to see her cry. He took hold of her hand. “See what you’re marrying into?”

“I know exactly what I’m marrying into, and I couldn’t be happier about it.”

“We couldn’t be happier either,” Linda assured her future daughter-in-law. “You two are a perfect fit, and we have no doubt that you’re going to have a long and happy life together.”

Evan would do everything within his power to make sure they had exactly that and nothing less.

***

Elated after her lunch date with Alex, Jenny went back to the lighthouse to shower and change. When she’d offered to bring him lunch, she hadn’t pictured an enchanted garden or sex outside in broad daylight. Earlier in the summer, when she told her friends she was ready to shake things up a bit, she’d never imagined shaking things up to the extent she had since she met Alex.

Part of her—the part concerned with self-preservation—wanted to take a step back and slow things down a bit. But the other part—the part that had missed being half of a couple, the part that had missed the connection she’d had with Toby—wanted to dive into what she was feeling for Alex without reservation.

Being with him was exciting, and Jenny felt more alive with him than she had since her life was shattered. And he’d said and done all the right things when she told him about Toby. He’d reacted with the perfect amount of distress on her behalf but hadn’t overreacted the way so many people had before him. Jenny appreciated that and would tell him so when she saw him later for their date.

She couldn’t wait. She felt like a teenager in the throes of first love, a thought that made her giggle, since she was hardly a teenager and this was hardly first love. Hell, she’d be hard-pressed to call it love, but it was definitely something. Her entire body tingled with awareness every time he was close by. All he had to do to get her motor running was look at her with eyes full of sexy intent, and she was his. Completely and absolutely his. She wondered if he had any idea how ridiculously gone over him she was.

“Probably better that he doesn’t know, or he’ll run for his life from the crazy lady in the lighthouse,” she said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

Her cell phone rang in the bedroom, and she ran to answer the call from Sydney.