Katherine’s heart was hammering in her chest as the first strains of Pachelbel’s Cannon started. She held on to the arm of Sheriff desperately, and she was so grateful that her veil offered some camouflage disguising her tear-filled eyes. She drew in a deep sigh and sent up loving thoughts to both her parents and Sean’s before she nodded at Sheriff and they took the first steps down the flower-laden aisle of the church.

When she glanced ahead, a smile parted her lips as she looked up to see Sean with his best man, Devon, standing behind him, Clint behind him, and Cole bringing up the rear. On the other side of Sean was the minister of their church, holding his bible and smiling down toward Katherine as she made her way carefully down the aisle.

Sean stepped toward them and walked partway down the aisle to meet Sheriff to take hold of his Peach. The wedding attendees all chuckled at his expense, but he didn’t give that first thought to anyone except the woman he had fallen in love with as a boy and spent every single moment since loving her with every fiber of his being. Just being there and watching her walk down the aisle toward him, wearing a beautiful white wedding gown, after believing that he had lost her forever for a whole decade, the whole world could laugh and it wouldn’t touch him so long as he had the satisfaction of holding her in his arms every night for the rest of their lives.

Sheriff playfully swung Katy away from Sean, causing another burst of laughter from the guests, but only just briefly before he used the arm not holding Katy to pull Sean into his embrace, squeezing him tightly before releasing him and taking Katherine’s hand from his arm and placing it into Sean’s.

Sean squeezed her hand and then pulled her arm through his, pulling her flush to his side. He pressed a kiss to the top of her veil-covered head, and then together they walked the rest of the way to the minister so they could finally fulfill their destiny and say “I do.”

***

WHEN THE COUPLE APPROACHED the dance floor for their first dance as husband and wife, they asked that the couples of their wedding party and Sheriff and Thelma join them on the ballroom floor for a dance in celebration of their nuptials and remembrance of their parents, whom they would not be able to share the traditional wedding dances with.

Cole Swindell crooned his hit “You Should Be Here” as the couples, Katy and Sean, Thelma and Sheriff, Courtney and Cole, Claire and Devon, and a laughing Jo Ellen and an actually smiling Clint took to the dance floor. The D.J. invited all of the couples to the dance floor, and Katy laughed out loud when she looked over to see Jo Ellen’s husband swinging their son around in a modified two-step, both laughing at the silliness of the moment.

The year had been brutal.

Katherine had lost her parents on an evening when they were out celebrating their anniversary, the love that had bound their lives together and given her life. It still hurt, and she suspected it would for ages to come, but she also knew in her heart of hearts that if her parents had to leave, they would have wanted her life to turn out exactly the way it was. They would have wanted her one true love to come back to her and make sure she got her happily ever after.

She looked around as Sean led her seamlessly around the dance floor, their bodies moving in sync. She had had growing suspicions about Devon and Claire and their growing closeness, and looking at the couple as Dev held her close, her cheek resting against his heart and his lips brushing across her scalp, appearing to be in their own little world, she knew her suspicions were correct. Cole was holding Courtney to him as if his life depended on it, and she looked on the verge of tears. The turmoil between those two had reached epic proportions, and Katy was worried that their friends wouldn’t be able to come back from their past.

Glancing at Jo Ellen and Clint lightened her heart. As damaged and closed off as Clint was, it was such a relief to see a rare smile on his face.

Dancing in the arms of her husband, the man she had always known was it for her, Katy knew that no matter what came at them, they could handle it together. She may have lost her parents, but she had also gained a new and extended family through her husband and the cousin she had grown to love like a sister.

Her eyes were moist again when the song ended and the D.J. requested all of the single ladies to line up on one side and all of the single gentlemen to line up on the other. Sean kissed her and kneeled down to one knee as he made a show of lifting the skirt of her wedding gown to reach the garter around her thigh.

He met her eyes and held them as he wrapped his fingers around the garter and dragged it down her leg; he broke eye contact only to press his lips to the inside of her knee before he slipped the garter over her high-heeled pump and stood. Courtney rushed up to them and handed her her bouquet with a laugh. Sean nudged Courtney away from his wife and pulled her back into his arms. Laughing, he dropped kisses to her lips.

“OK, OK, we have to do this so we can get out of here and I can take you home and get you out of this dress and play with that sexy underwear I saw you stuffing into your overnight bag last night...”

She felt her face flame as she let out a shocked laugh before wrapping her arms around his neck and saying, “I really, really adore you, Mr. Everett.”

He growled and nipped at her lips before speaking against her lips, “And I adore you, Mrs. Everett. Let’s throw this stuff at our friends and get out of here.”

Laughing, she said, “Ok, ready? One, Two Thr—”.

He cut her off with a kiss as he tossed the garter over his right shoulder and didn’t take his mouth off hers until he heard a muttered “Oh shee-it” from Sheriff, followed by a resounding whack to his chest from Thelma and a frustrated shush.

Stepping back from one another, they looked at their friends. Katy bent over at the waist and roared with laughter when she saw Devon and Claire looking at each other with the most peculiar expressions on their faces.