Free Meant for Love by Marie Force Page B

doing?”
    “Looking up the place I heard about.” He typed into the search engine and clicked on the link to the resort. “Oh, look at that.”
    Grace sat up for a better look, oblivious to the fact that she was naked. A lot had changed in the last year, and now they were actually making wedding plans.  
    “I want to get married on the beach at sunset.”
    “That sounds perfect,” she said with a sigh of contentment that pleased him.
    He glanced at her. “Should we go for it?”
    “Right now?”
    “Why not?” He began to fill out a destination wedding questionnaire. “How many people? You do the count: my parents, your parents, your brothers, my brothers, my sister, Joe, Abby, Stephanie, Maddie, Thomas, Hailey, P.J. Who am I forgetting?”
    “Laura, Owen, Holden, the twins, your Uncle Frank, Shane.”
    “I have to invite my Uncle Kevin and his family, too.”
    “Aunt Joann?”
    “Nah, she never leaves Gansett.”
    “Friends?”
    “Tiffany, Blaine and Ashleigh. Oh my God, Ned! You have to invite him!”
    “Jeez, he should’ve been at the top of the list—along with Francine. Getting to be a lot of people, though.”
    “We know a lot of people. Jenny, Syd, Luke.”
    Evan laughed as the numbers grew. “What’s the count?”
    “I lost count. Fifty adults, six kids?”
    Evan typed the numbers into the computer and hit enter. Then he clicked on the “Beach wedding at sunset” option from a pull-down screen, along with the month of January as his preferred month and hit Enter again. “Let’s see what they’ve got.”
    They stared at the screen until the date of January eighteenth popped up as available.
    “January eighteenth,” Grace said.  
    “Are we going for it?”
    She blew out a deep breath and looked at him. “You’re sure about this?”
    “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask me that.”
    “Go for it.”
    Evan clicked on the link to Book This Date. “I need a credit card. Hand me my wallet, will you?”
    Grace reached for it on the bedside table and gave it to him. “How much do we have to put down?”
    “Twenty-five hundred to hold the date.”
    “That’ll make it official.”
    “Certainly will. They’re going to email us tomorrow to talk details.”
    “I can’t believe we just did that,” she said as he returned the laptop to the desk and got back in bed.
    “What will your parents say?” he asked, accustomed now to how unsupportive they could be of their only daughter when she didn’t fall in line with their idea of how her life should unfold.
    “They won’t approve, but who cares? It’s not their wedding.”
    “Will they come?”
    “I hope so.”
    “And if they don’t?”
    “Then they’ll miss the best day of my life. Their loss.”
    “I wouldn’t want anything to spoil it for you, Gracie.”
    “I’ll be marrying you, right?”
    “Damn straight.”
    “Then nothing, and I do mean nothing , could spoil it for me.”
    “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. I can’t wait to put another ring on your finger and make it official.”
    “I can’t wait either. January eighteenth.”
    “Be there or be square.”
    “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
    Evan stifled a yawn. He didn’t want to sleep yet. Running two thriving businesses, they got so little time to spend together, especially this time of year when the island was so busy. He hated to waste a minute of their time sleeping, especially now that they’d taken this huge step toward the next stage in their life together.  
    “You can’t get out of it now that we’ve got it booked,” she said in a teasing tone.
    “Getting out of it isn’t the goal.”  
    “I really can’t wait.” Her arms tightened around him, keeping him close as she drifted off to sleep.
    “Me either, baby.” Evan lay awake for a long time, thinking about the news Jack had relayed earlier. What the hell was he going to do about that?
     
    ***
     
    Before six o’clock the next morning, Alex was back at