“So,” Father Dominic said, hardly bothering to lower his voice. “The boy doesn’t know those girls are his brother’s children?”

“Shhh!” I glared at Jesse. “You really did tell him everything.”

“Of course. You told her everything.” He pointed at Dr. Jo, who’d recovered from her shock and was enjoying cake and champagne with Becca’s father and stepmother. I couldn’t tell if she’d met them before—perhaps because they’d set up an appointment for family counseling—or if their meeting was merely felicitous.

“Not everything,” I said with a glower. “Thanks a lot for inviting assorted randos from my past to my wedding reception, Father D. Who else can I expect to show up? If you say the Backstreet Boys, I won’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Susannah,” Father Dominic said. “Jack Slater shouldn’t be ostracized because of his brother’s antisocial behavior. Now who is that lovely woman over there?” He gave Dr. Jo an appraising glance. “Why have I never met her before?”

I looked from Dr. Jo to Father Dominic and then back again. “Nope,” I said firmly.

He had the grace to appear discomfited. “Oh, Susannah, please. I’m not interested in her romantically. I took a vow of chastity over sixty years ago and that’s not something I’m likely to abandon, even if others in my profession seem to take it—and every conceivable limit of morality—lightly.”

It was going to take him far longer to get over the revelations about Father Francisco than the injuries he’d sustained at the hands of Lucia.

“Whatever, Father,” I said. “I’m not introducing you.”

“Susannah, you do have a tendency to think the worst of people—even people you supposedly know and trust. I’m not saying she isn’t a very pleasant-looking woman. I’m only saying it would be enjoyable to get to know someone my own age who isn’t affiliated with the church or the school. This is a small town and I rarely meet new—”

“Nope,” I said again, even more firmly, and took Jesse’s hand. “You’re on your own with that one, Father D. You wheel yourself over there and make your own introductions. We’re going inside now. I need to have a word with my husband.”

Husband! It was fun to say, and even more fun to drag Jesse from the party and into the house—the house that we owned—and not have anyone say a word about it. They couldn’t, because we were officially a couple now, and it was officially our house, and we could do whatever we wanted in it.

It was quiet inside since everyone was gathered outside, drinking, eating, laughing, and listening to the loud, joyful music. Now that we’d had the chimney swept and the power transferred to our names, so that there was wood burning in the fireplaces at night, and air-conditioning cooling the rooms during the day, the house did not smell so much like “books” anymore.

But there was still a faint odor of them, and not only because Jesse owned so many, enough to fill all the built-in bookshelves, and then some.

I pulled Jesse by the hand up the stairs, using the other to hold the train of my very long dress, so I wouldn’t trip.

“What’s so important,” he wanted to know as he followed me, “that we couldn’t talk about it downstairs?”

“Nothing,” I said when we got to our room. It really was our room now, not mine. Jake had helped move Jesse’s enormous bed from Snail Crossing, and it now took up a tremendous amount of space—and had been nearly impossible to wrestle up the stairs. But it was worth it. “I just thought it was time for us to gracefully retire to the bedroom.” I reached out to playfully tweak his bow tie as he lay down beside me. “I need you to unlace this corset so I can breathe, pardner.”

“If that is another remark about me being a cowboy, you know I do not appreciate it.” He traced a shape on the swell of my breast above the neckline of my wedding gown. “Do you really want to take off your dress? You haven’t heard yet what I think of it.”

I rolled over onto my back. “Oh, I have a pretty good idea what you think of it already.”

He laughed and climbed on top of me. “Do you? You have a very high opinion of yourself.”

“Healthy. I have a healthy opinion of myself.”

He kissed me, laughing. “I think dresses like this are what you ought to be wearing all the time, Susannah. Although I suppose I’m lucky you don’t, or I’d be in the Monterey County Jail every night.”

“Ha! Are you saying I’ve finally done something of which your mother would approve?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” he said, and kissed me some more.

A little while later the last slanting rays of the sun were creeping into the room, making bright gold splashes on the walls and wainscoting and occasional bare patches of skin—we’d been in too much of a hurry to bother to unlace the corset—and I was dozing in his arms. I’d discovered, after so many years, that I could fall asleep easily, as long as Jesse was in bed beside me.

Of course, I might also have been dozing because he was reading aloud to me from one of his innumerable ancient books, this one by the poet William Congreve.

“ ‘Thus in this sad, but oh, too pleasing state! my soul can fix upon nothing but thee; thee it contemplates, admires, adores, nay depends on, trusts on you alone.’ ”

I heard him close the book, then lean over me.

“Susannah,” he whispered. “Susannah, are you awake? We’ve been away from the party for too long. We should get back to our guests.”

“In a minute.” I reached to wipe the corners of my eyelids.

“Susannah.” He sounded pleasantly astonished. “Susannah, are you crying?”

“No,” I said with a smile. “It’s my allergies again.”

Jesse laughed and kissed me as the sun slipped beneath the sea.