Holy shit, the Cocker Family is really hard to keep track of.

Since our wedding is a major event — she’s the first cousin to get hitched — the extended family has shown up. That means all her Savannah clan, and the relatives of her aunts, like her Aunt Sarah’s brother Nathan and his family. Her Aunt Drew’s parents. Her Aunt Rachel’s friends Sylvia, Cora, and their families. All sixteen of Hannah’s fucking cousins. We’re getting married on a Saturday so whoever was at college flew in or drove back yesterday. The ones still in high school came, too.

Just scratching the surface with that list.

I keep being introduced to people and there is no fucking way I can remember all their names.

Thank God they keep assuring me I won’t have to.

“You’ll get to know us all in time. Don’t worry.”

I haven’t seen my Hannah since yesterday. She spent the night with Emma, Sofia, and all the other female cousins at Ethan’s house.

They took his place over and he came up to her Uncle Jaxson’s — Ben’s father’s — ranch where there’s a retreat on the property. Room for all us guys so all the dude cousins spent the night there.

It was Me, Andy, Ben, Ethan, Gabriel and Elijah, Max, Caden, Hunter, Eric, Nicholas, Wyatt, and Nate. Ask me if I fucked up their names all night long. You can bet your ass I did, especially because we got drunk. Had a crazy time roaming the ranch at night, playing cards, acting like idiots howling at the moon. It was ridiculous.

Gotta admit, makes me want a big family of my own. I can see why siblings matter now.

They all treated me like I was one of them, which made me relax. Andy fit right in, too. And some had been following my career so that gave me an advantage over being a complete stranger, just showing up with Hannah on my arm.

Truth? I miss my girl.

“Mom, you okay?” I ask her, bending down to where she sits next to Grandma, speaking in broken Greek since she rarely uses the language anymore. But it’s all my Grandma knows so Mom has no choice.

“Yes! What a lovely yard! I love that dolphin fountain over there! So antique!” She points a glossy, red fingernail to the far end of the yard where a weatherworn fountain rests unused for probably ten years.

“Yeah, it’s nice. You all good, Grandma?”

She nods, smiling, her hat protecting her from the bright sun. It’s a gorgeous day in Atlanta. Not too humid. Spring has smiled on us.

I straighten up as Nancy and Michael Cocker approach me, both the upper-class society types you’d see at a country club. I’ve met them before on a previous trip here, so I smile wide and introduce them to my family of two.

Mom looks flushed by the introduction, and I know she feels insecure in their company. Can’t blame her. I used to feel that way around Hannah. But the Cockers treat my mother like she’s on their level and she relaxes and talks about life in Florida with them while I excuse myself.

Ethan’s waving me over. He and Ben are standing to the right of chairs all placed carefully in comfortable rows for the main event. But as I head to them I glance around and catch Justin Cocker watching me, his wife Jaimie chatting with her father who’s standing with them.

Raising my hand to tell Ethan I’ll be right there, I change course. “Mr. Cocker.”

His shark-like eyes narrow and he shakes his head, volume low. “Call me Justin.”

“How you feelin’?”

He’s come to Boca since the day he rescued Hannah from my hotel room, had dinner with us, and we’ve come to Atlanta a couple times, but her dad and I have never really come to a relaxed place.

He inhales and says, “Probably never easy for fathers to give away their daughters.”

“I bet you’re right.”

“Especially to a beast of a guy like you.” His eyes flicker with amusement.

I chuckle, glancing to the ground and sliding my hands in my tuxedo pockets. “I bet that’s not easy.”

“None of parenting a daughter is easy,” he mutters like he’s warning me, or confiding in me. Probably both.

I’m not going to call him Justin. Maybe someday, but not yet. He’s earned my respect and I want him to know that.

Looking him dead in the eye I tell him, “I’m going to protect her, Mr. Cocker. I’ll never let anyone hurt her.”

His eyes sharpen, and he nods once. “Then I guess my job is done.”

“Pretty sure she’d argue with you on that.”

He chuckles. “No, she’d agree with me. She wants it to be you now.”

I see his Adam’s apple swallow hard.

Fuck, didn’t realize until now how much he misses her.

His wife opens her arms to hug me.

“Tobias,” she says in my ear, “Don’t let her disappear okay? Please buy a place in Atlanta.” She pulls back, holding my arms as she waits for my response.

Okay, fuckin’ hell. This family keeps punching me in the heart.

Without hesitation I tell Jaimie, “I promise. We’ll start lookin’ right away.” Meeting Justin’s eyes once more, he and I both give each other a masculine nod and I head away to find out what Ethan wanted.

As I stroll up, he and Ben have the look in their eyes like they know something tense just went down. Ethan asks, “He ask to fight you?”

Laughing under my breath I mutter, “Nah, he was passing the torch.”

Ben whistles under his breath, “You don’t know how hard that was for him to do.”

“I’ve got an idea. Saw it in his eyes.”

They nod.

We men get what it’s like to be men.

There are some things we take very seriously.

What just happened between me and Hannah’s father was probably the most profound thing I’ve ever experienced because it goes back through generations of fathers and daughters, and the aspect of evolution that we never quite grow out of. Cavemen protecting the pack.

“Our Grams is calling you over,” Ben says, jogging his chin to his great grandmother.

I look over and see May Cocker crooking her finger at me. She’s sitting in the front row, ready for the wedding on two cushions, green oxygen tank blending with the grass by her right side.

Strolling over to her, I glance around the crowd, my heart beginning to pump violently in my chest. Everyone’s taking their seats, the ceremony due to begin any minute.

“May, how’d you get to be so beautiful?”

She smiles like I’m a devilish liar and says in a sweet Southern drawl, “You remind me of my Jerald. He was big like you.”

“As big?”

She shrugs one slender shoulder, her floral dress bunching up a little. “He fought in World War II you know. So he was a brute.”

Chuckling I squat down and ask, “He must have been if he scored you.” Her eyes are shimmering with memories. My smile fades and I ask her, “How’d you lose him, May?”

Her wrinkles smooth out a little as her face stills. “Heart attack. He was only fifty-three.”

“That’s a lot of years without him.”

She nods, eyes distant. “I miss him every day.” She comes back to me, smile returning as her fragile hand floats around in the air. “But I have my family. I can’t complain.”

No, a Southern woman never would.

“It’s time, Tobias,” Andy says, walking up. I rise and touch May’s hand before taking my place by the minister. The Cockers were raised Catholic but most don’t practice it and with all the different religions, or lack of religions they’ve married into, Hannah told me they just use ministers now.

Andy takes the place by my side.

Under his breath he says, “Wanna make a break for it?”

I laugh and throw him a look. “You’re such an idiot.”