Following close behind was Isabelle DeCurtis, in a blue silk sarong in the same shade as Maya’s dress, with a white orchid tucked behind one ear.

Finally, Ava DeCurtis and the bride stepped onto the sand, with Letty’s hand tucked into Ava’s arm. Ava wore her flowered Aloha Bingo muumuu and a lei of orchids.

“Ready?” Ava whispered.

Letty nodded. “More than you’ll ever know.”

“Hey, Papa Joe.” Maya called out the new name she’d picked out for him as she approached the arch, her arms opened wide. “We’re getting married!”

“We sure are,” he agreed, bending down to pick her up. Isabelle stepped to her brother’s right, before kissing his cheek, and then the three waited while Ava and Letty approached.

Joe’s smile broadened and his breath caught at the sight of his bride, walking toward him just as the sun peeked through the cloud cover. He thought of that first dawn, when he’d discovered Letty sleeping in her Kia in the Murmuring Surf parking lot. As exhausted and terrified as she’d looked, he’d seen something in that girl—something pure was the closest he could come to describing it to himself.

He could hardly believe the same woman was standing right in front of him, dressed in a slender bias-cut white silk dress that brushed her ankles. She wore a woven crown of white jasmine and tiny white orchids, and a circlet of imitation white pearls was pinned to the narrow spaghetti strap of her gown. He held out his hands.

Letty handed her bouquet of white orchids to Isabelle and took Joe’s hands in hers. His were strong and warm, the thumbs and palms callused, and they dwarfed hers, making her feel safe. He was still wearing the “engagement ring” she’d woven after a convenience-store stop in Virginia a week earlier.

Her own engagement ring was a simple white-gold band with a modest solitaire-cut diamond that had been Joe’s grandmother’s.

“I love you,” he mouthed.

“I love you too,” she whispered.

“I love you three,” Maya said, loud enough for the officiant and the rest of the family to hear it and chuckle.

The rest of the beach was deserted. All of the Murmuring Surf snowbirds had flown back north in the spring. The sole witness to the ceremony was a lone elderly female birdwatcher, who stood along the shoreline nearby, hands reverently folded over her binoculars as she watched the morning’s event unfold with deepening curiosity.

Letty looked around at the small circle surrounding her as dawn broke. She’d felt lonely and isolated for so very, very long, but now, that was in the past. Joe’s family, as the cheerful officiant they’d recruited from a nearby church reminded her, was her family now. And hers—meaning Maya—was his. And that was enough. In fact, it was more than enough.