Her warm welcome and words caused tears to burn my eyes. “I am, too.”

When I pulled away, there were quick hugs from Deacon and Bishop, and then a lingering one from Alexandra, whose enormous belly looked like she was ready to deliver at any moment. When I said as much, she shook her head. “I still have six weeks, if you can believe it.”

“He’s going to be a very big boy.”

Alexandra smiled as she patted her stomach. “He already feels enormous when he’s kicking me.”

I then turned to a very impatient Willow who I was surprised had waited this long to give me a hug. “Wait until you see Poe. He’s huge!” she said after she’d clung to me for several seconds.

“Thank you for taking such good care of him!”

“It was mainly Uncle Rev who took care of him, but I had to help because he was such a mess over missing you.”

I couldn’t help the laugh that erupted from me at the pint-sized girl talking about relationships like a grown woman. When I looked at Rev, he appeared to want to strangle his niece. “Well, I missed him pretty bad, too.”

“I figured you did.” She grinned up at me. “Did he tell you he loves you?”

“Willow!” Alexandra and Deacon admonished.

“What?” she questioned innocently. “You guys said you wondered if he did earlier.”

While Deacon and Alexandra gave Rev and me sheepish looks, I couldn’t help laughing at the situation. “Yes, he told me he loves me, and I told him I love him.”

“Are you gonna get married?” Willow asked.

Now it was my turn to be speechless. Although there had been no proposal or discussion of marriage, the idea of Rev and me living the rest of our lives together seemed to be a given. While it seemed that we knew each other down to the deepest and darkest parts, there was still a lot of relationship building we needed to do before we thought of marriage.

“I think it’s time we got you something to eat,” Alexandra suggested.

“Yeah, that’s a helluva good idea. Let’s stick something in her mouth to shut her up,” Deacon muttered under his breath.

Once Willow had been ushered over to the food table, Rev and I exchanged a glance. “Well, um, that was . . . intense,” he said.

“Very. Who would have thought we would get the marriage question already?” I said, giving a laugh to try to ease the tension.

“I meant more the inquisition by Willow.”

“Oh,” I murmured. What did he mean by that exactly? Had he been thinking of marriage? I swallowed hard at the thought.

With a smile, Rev said, “I think I could use a drink.”

“You and me both.”

He took me by the hand and led me over to the bar. This time I settled on a Corona rather than my former buddy Jack Daniel’s. The house band went up onstage, and it wasn’t long before they were cranking out tunes, including some rock versions of Christmas carols.

After we finished our beers, Rev steered me over to the kitchen. The old ladies and other women had put on quite a spread of food. “All this for me?” I asked as I was handed a plate.

Kim grinned. “Of course. Especially since you decided to come home on the night of our annual Christmas party.”

I laughed. “Lucky me that I didn’t keep Rev gone another day.”

Sweeping a hand to her hip, she said, “Yeah, about the trip home, missy. It doesn’t usually take over a day. Just what caused you all to be so late?”

As I spooned up some lasagna, I couldn’t fight the warmth spreading across my cheeks. “We just had to stop a lot because it was so cold,” I finally answered.

“Mmm-hmm. I bet I can imagine just what kind of warming up went on, too.”

“Easy there, Kim,” Rev cautioned.

She grinned. “Like I couldn’t tell you’d been fucking nonstop from the utterly satisfied looks on your faces.”

While it was totally mortifying to have our sex life discussed, there was also a grateful feeling that accompanied it. No one was treating me with kid gloves or walking on eggshells when it came to the topic of sex. That meant I was no longer seen as just a victim, and that was certainly liberating.

As we ate dinner, we talked with different in- and out-of-town members who came by our table. Everyone was in the festive holiday spirit. I couldn’t help thinking how different this party was from my parents’ party.

At the thought of them, I wrinkled my nose. When I had spoken to them the other day, they had been utterly horrified at what I had done. Regardless of how they chided me, I was not about to change my mind about my decision. Even though they threw out words like “disinheriting” and “disown,” they forgot I was just months away from my twenty-fifth birthday, when I would receive my inheritance from my grandfather. When I had told Rev about the half million dollars coming to me, he had nearly fallen off the bed in shock. While the money meant security for us, it would have no value to me without Rev in my life.

When the band shifted to a slow love song, Rev took my hand. “I think I owe you a real dance.”

“What do you mean?”

“That night when we got drunk together, we danced in my room.”

At first my eyes widened at his words, and then the memory came back to me. “I remember that,” I murmured.

Rev smiled as he wrapped his arms around my waist, drawing me flush against him. I would never get enough of being this close to him, especially being able to press my ear against his chest and listen to his heartbeat. “I love you,” I said loud enough for him to hear me over the music.