A few heart-pounding, breathless seconds later, our clothes were in a tangled heap on the floor, and he was inside me. It was exactly how I had always imagined it would be, and yet unimaginably better. If evil was being unleashed, I couldn’t see it, or feel it, either. What I felt was the opposite. I was flooded with playful joy, as if the dark blue walls around us were sweeping us up and rolling us into the peaceful blue Pacific beyond my windows, full of warmth and light. It washed over us again and again, leaving us spent and happy and full of gratitude and love. How could there be evil in that?

There couldn’t. Only good.

Perhaps this was what Paul had somehow known and feared us discovering most of all.

Oh, well. Too late now.

I was so tired afterward I felt as if I could barely raise my head, but I did manage to notice something.

“Goddammit, Jesse. You didn’t even give me a chance to take off my boots.”

His head was resting on my shoulder as, with one finger, he drew lazy circles on my thigh. “I did try to remove them at one point, but you seemed more interested in my doing other things.” His tone was teasing. “I was only trying to appease your wishes.”

“Ha! If that were true, we’d have had sex a long time ago. What’s changed all of sudden?”

His dark eyes gleamed. “You still don’t know?”

“No, I still don’t know. I mean, besides proving that you didn’t turn into some kind of homicidal demon just from having sex with me, what happened to how we have to wait until we’re married out of respect for what you owe to me and my family and the church and all of mankind? All this time you and Father Dominic—”

Jesse stopped drawing circles on my thigh and lifted his head to give me a disapproving look. “I really wish you wouldn’t bring him up at this particular moment, Susannah.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk about him, either,” I said. “But you’re the one who dragged me to all those boring Pre-Cana classes. I’m certainly not complaining about how things have turned out, but what was the point of waiting if the entire time you were going to abandon all your religious scruples when—”

“I haven’t abandoned them. I merely decided there was reason to be more flexible about them.”

I grinned. “Would one of those reasons have to do with a certain person from our past who came roaring into town this week to declare his undying love for me, so you wanted to mark your territory?”

“It would not,” he said, “though I feel as if I should add ‘highly active imagination’ to the list of your many assets.”

“You can’t blame me for thinking it after what happened last night.”

“My reasons have more to do with what happened this morning. That’s why I spoke to Father Dominic.”

All feeling of postcoital lethargy left me. I sat up so abruptly I banged him in the head with my shoulder.

“You what?”

“Ow, Susannah. I’d ask if I hurt you earlier, but it’s clear that you’re feeling fine. If I were a less well-adjusted man, you might have wounded my dignity.”

“Oh, don’t worry about your dignity, I’ll be walking bowlegged for a week. We’re going to have to get a new cushion, as a matter of fact, or at least flip this one over. But why did you talk to Father Dominic? I get that he’s your confessor, but he’s my boss, too. I don’t need him knowing all my personal business. You didn’t tell him about this, did you?” I gestured to our clothes, which lay across the floor. “How could you confess something you didn’t know you were going to do? Unless . . .” I gasped. “Jesse! You scoundrel! Was this premeditated sex?”

“I didn’t confess anything,” Jesse said. “I merely relayed to him the same good news I relayed to you.”

“What good news?”

He sat up, as well, his hard abdominal muscles flexing as he hung his head in shame at my ignorance. “Beca in English doesn’t mean bacon, Susannah. It means grant.”

It took me a split second to remember. Then I gasped. “Jesse! You got the grant?”

He nodded. This time his grin wasn’t lopsided. Both sides of his mouth slanted upward.

“They sent the congratulatory e-mail yesterday. But I didn’t see it until this morning when the police gave me back my phone. I wanted to make some arrangements before I told you.” The prideful glint in his eyes was adorable. He was no multimillionaire—yet—but every penny he had, he’d earned himself, through hard work. “One of them was with Father Dominic—he’s doing much better today, by the way. It will still be some time before he’ll be able to return to work, of course, but he might—just might—be well enough to marry us next weekend.”

“Wait.” I stared at him, not sure I’d heard him correctly. “Next weekend?”

He nodded again, looking almost apprehensive, his dark head ducked a little shyly. “Yes. I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it, especially after . . . well, everything that happened last night. But when I spoke to Father Dominic this morning, he felt you might like the idea. He was the one who suggested it, as a matter of fact. I don’t know why.”

Now I knew why Jesse hadn’t wanted to see me that morning. It made sense. With Father Dominic’s help, he’d finally put the past behind him, and had been busy making plans for the future—our future.

When I saw that priest, I was going to give him the biggest hug.

“It would have to be a very small private ceremony, of course,” Jesse was going on. “And at such short notice, many of your parents’ guests might not be able to attend. But David will be back in town for the holiday, and I think getting married over Thanksgiving weekend—well, what better way to show our thanks for finding one another, and for everything everyone has done for us? We can still have a formal ceremony in a year if you want to, but I thought since I finally have money, and you have this house—”

I’d already flung my arms around his neck.

“Thanksgiving weekend would be perfect,” I whispered. “Just perfect.”

treinta y siete

We had a church wedding after all.

It wasn’t under the grand, sweeping arches of the basilica at the Carmel Mission, as we’d always planned. It was in the much smaller, more modest chapel at St. Francis Medical Center in Monterey.