Lily took a dozen pictures of Holly that beautiful April evening before her daughter left her bedroom. With her long blonde hair all swept up in curls and wearing a lovely light-blue prom dress, she looked even more like Vera’s wedding picture than ever before. Preacher Drew’s son, Clay, waited for her in the living room. Looking all grown up in his black tuxedo with a blue vest that matched Holly’s dress perfectly, he was right at home in the old stone house. But then, he should have been—he’d been dating Holly for the past year and spent lots of time there.

“Oh. My. Goodness!” Clay stood up and his eyes widened. “You are so beautiful, Holly. I’m going to have the prettiest date at the prom.”

She smiled, a little shyly for Holly Anderson, but then Clay brought out the best in her. “Thank you. I’m going with the most handsome boy in the whole school.”

“If y’all are through kissin’ up to each other, let Mama take some pictures of you putting that corsage on her wrist so me and Isaac can get back to watchin’ our movie.” Braden’s voice had gone through the cracking changes. Now his drawl was even deeper than Mack’s and sounded like it came from a much bigger man.

“Little brothers are such a nuisance,” Holly fussed. “I’m never having sons. I’m only having daughters.”

Lily snapped several more pictures and then a final one of their backs as they were walking off the porch. Mack draped an arm around her shoulders.

“Time kind of gets away from us, don’t it? Before you know it, we’ll be watching her leave with some guy. Only she’ll be wearing a white dress and veil,” he said.

Lily shoved her phone into her hip pocket and turned around to face Mack. She put her arms around his neck and tiptoed to kiss him. When the kiss ended, she leaned her cheek against his broad chest. “I don’t want to think about that day, but I do hope that she finds a man who treats her as good as Clay does, and as good as you treat me.”

“We make a pretty good couple, don’t we? So have we got everything in order for our belated honeymoon at the end of next month?”

“All we’ve got to do is pack our bags and drive to the airport. From there it’s all planned out for us. The kids are excited to go on a ten-day Alaskan cruise,” she answered.

“I’m looking forward to it, too,” he said. “Ten days to celebrate our marriage.”

“That happened a year ago.” She tiptoed and kissed him on the cheek. “And we’ve celebrated it every day since.”