She grinned. “You look so handsome and so grown up.”

He thrust out his pillow. “I thought today I would get the real rings.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but Casey and your Papa Patrick are in charge of the rings.”

Georgie cocked his head. “Then why the hell am I the ring-bearer?”

Emma’s eyes widened while Casey tried to hide her laughter behind her bouquet. “George Byron Parker! Don’t you dare say a naughty word like that!” Emma chastised.

“Is hell a naughty word?”

“Yes, it is.”

Georgie shrugged. “Oh, I just heard John and Uncle Aidan using it.”

“Well, let them be in trouble, not you.” She patted his back. “You have a very important job as the ring bearer, even without the real rings. You’re part of our wedding party, and that makes you very special.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Georgie seemed momentarily appeased. Then his face clouded over again. “Do I really have to walk with her?” he jerked his chin over to Emma’s cousin, Sarah, the flower girl.

“What’s wrong with Sarah?”

Georgie rolled his eyes in exasperation. “She’s a girl!”

Emma bit her lip to keep from grinning. “I promise she’s a very nice girl, and you won’t have to hold her hand or anything.”

“Good!”

Marie, the wedding planner, clapped her hands. “Okay then. It’s time. Georgie, Sarah, you’ll go out first. Then I need Connor, Stacy, and Casey…oh my, that rhymed,” Marie giggled.

Casey rolled her eyes as she handed Emma her enormous bouquet. “This chick has seriously got to go.”

Emma welcomed the laugh that bubbled from her lips. It helped to ease the nerves she felt. Drawing in a few deep breaths, she tried to calm herself down. After all these years, it was finally happening. She was getting married. As she felt Noah kick beneath her yards of fabric, she shook her head and smiled. God had certainly blessed the broken road of heartache and loss to get to this point of extreme joy.

As they stepped onto the front porch, Emma glanced up at the sky. It was like God had smiled down on their special day by blessing them with not only a beautiful cloudless sky, but one of Georgia’s unseasonably warm days for late January. She leaned on Granddaddy’s arm as they took the path around the house. Memories flashed through her mind of taking the same turn with Aidan as they snuck away for their midnight skinny dipping escapade.

The grassy aisle leading up to the altar was covered with intertwining red, pink, and yellow rose petals. Emma’s heart warmed as it was a special touch, not just to liven up the dying winter grass, but it was a reminder of happy times with rose petals in the hotel room on their first baby-making venture as well as their engagement. It brought a beaming smile to her face. But her smile grew even wider at the sight of Aidan standing at the front of the altar. He peered down the aisle, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of her.

The string quartet finished playing Canon in D and then changed over to the first strains of the Bridal March. “It’s show time, Emmie Lou,” Granddaddy said, a mixture of amusement and regret vibrating in his voice.

She drew in a deep breath and stepped forward into the aisle. As everyone rose out of their chairs for her entrance, her gaze honed in on Aidan’s as he finally took her in.

His mouth gaped open while his blue eyes widened. Her breath caught at his reaction. Instead of the cocky grin she expected at her appearance, surprise filled her when Aidan’s eyes shimmered with tears. Her heart shuddered and then restarted. In that moment, all she wanted was to power-walk up the aisle so she could get to him and throw her arms around him. She couldn’t imagine ever loving him more than she did in that moment.

An eternity seemed to pass before she reached his side. Aidan swept the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand. Although a shaky smile flashed on his face, emotion raged in his blue eyes. Without thinking, she let go of Granddaddy’s arm and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh Aidan,” she murmured, squeezing him tight.

“Emma, I’m almost speechless. I mean, you’re like nothing I ever could have imagined.” He sucked in a ragged breath and shuddered in her arms. “You’re like a f**king vision.”

Once again, a flashback filled her mind of the night she met him for their first baby-making session. He had crossed the crowded hotel lobby, kissed her, and then told her those words. “God, Em, I love you so much it hurts,” came his pained whisper in her ear.

“I know. I love you so much, too.”

The minister cleared his throat. “I don’t believe we’ve gotten to that part yet.”

Remembering where she was and how she was totally blowing the carefully scripted plan, she jerked away. “Oops,” she replied, a warm flush filling her cheeks.

Laughter rang through the crowd. Stepping back, she slipped her arm once again through Granddaddy’s. “I’m supposed to give you away, Emmie Lou, not have you run away as fast as you can,” he quipped.

She smiled at him through her tears. “You’re never giving me away, and you know that.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, Baby Girl. Especially not with you carrying that fine, strapping great-grandson of mine. He’s gonna need a man to teach him a few things.”

“Granddaddy!” Emma hissed as Earl winked at Aidan.

The minister once again cleared his throat. “Dearly beloved we’re gathered here today in the sight of God to join together Aidan Patrick Fitzgerald and Emma Katherine Harrison in the bonds of holy matrimony.” Emma began to tune the minister out and drown herself in the smiling image of Aidan before her.

She barely noticed when Granddaddy officially gave her away and left her side to go sit with Grammy. She even had a hard time focusing on her cousin, Dave, as he sang a twangy rendition of John Lennon’s Grow Old Along With Me. There was no one for her in that moment but Aidan—the man who had made all of her dreams come true.

Emma jolted back into reality when the minister called her name, and she then repeated her vows as he prompted her. “I, Emma Katherine Harrison, take you, Aidan Patrick Fitzgerald, to be my lawfully wedded husband. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer until death us do part.”

In a booming voice, Aidan repeated his vows with complete and total assurance, which made Emma’s heart flutter. He then took her wedding band from Patrick, his best man, and slid it onto her finger. “With this ring, I thee wed.”