And she kissed him, twining her arms around his neck and going up on her tiptoes, much to the delight of the cheering crowd. Kissed him until someone called, “Get a room, you two,” and they reluctantly parted.

“How soon can you move in?” he murmured when they finally pulled apart. “Do you need some time to be sure?”

Suzanne looked at the clock above the entrance. Two and a half hours till midnight. “How about next year?” she said with a smile.

He laughed. “I think I can wait that long.”

Then, out of nowhere, people started to gasp and look up, and Suzanne and Grady looked up, too, as a blizzard of metallic confetti drifted down all around them. The kind of blizzard it was okay to be standing in and the perfect sparkly way to be starting the first day of the rest of their lives.

Epilogue

Epilogue

Four p.m., December 24th the following year…

Suzanne hooked a candy-cane earring into the hole in her ear as she made her way through the archway and into the living room. Grady was fiddling with the tree, and she totally checked out her husband’s ass in his Wranglers as she crossed to him.

Husband. It had been two months, and she still loved the way it sounded.

“What are you doing?” she asked as she drew even.

He grinned at her. “These came yesterday.” He held up a red bauble attached to a short plastic chain. Sitting on the bauble was a small vampy-looking doll dressed in a tiny white crop bra, panties, and brown boots straddling the chain.

Suzanne pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh, pretending to be scandalized. “Oh no…Joshua Grady, that’s awful.”

“I know, right?” He waggled his eyebrows. “There are green ones as well.”

She laughed then, her heart full as she looked around the cabin that was, if possible, an even bigger Christmas train crash than last year because, this year, Grady was fully involved. They’d had so much fun trying to find the gaudiest Christmas ornaments, but wrecking ball baubles took the cake.

Grady had outdone himself, and Suzanne had never been happier. The fire was on, the tree lights were twinkling, and there were delicious smells coming from the oven.

It was perfect. Or was about to be anyway.

“When are Simone and Albie getting here?”

“They should be here in the next half an hour.”

This was her parents’ third visit to Credence, having come for the wedding two months ago. And they were staying for just over a week so her mother could judge the ice-sculpture contest again, which was scheduled for New Year’s Day.

“Burl and Cora should be here about then, too.”

All six of them were sitting down to a huge Christmas Eve dinner together.