LITMIR.BIZ

       Epilogue

      “We’re alone,” Brendan said as he carried Josie over the threshold of their private suite.

      Since his arms were full with her and her overflowing gown, she swung the door closed behind them. It shut with a click, locking them in together. “Yes, we’re finally alone….”

      And she didn’t want to waste a minute of their wedding night, so she wriggled in his arms, the way their independent son did because he thought himself too big to be carried. As she slid down Brendan’s body, he groaned as if in pain.

      “Was I too heavy?” she asked.

      He shook his head. “No, you’re perfect—absolutely perfect.” He lifted his fingers to her hair, which was piled in red ringlets atop her head. “You looked like a princess coming down the aisle of the ballroom.”

      “Well, technically.” She was. It had made her an anomaly growing up, so she’d often downplayed her mother’s royal heritage. When she’d married Stanley Jessup, her mother had given up her title anyway. But here it was no big deal. Josie was only one of three princesses in the palace on St. Pierre Island. Four, actually, counting Charlotte Green-Timmer’s new daughter. Charlotte and Aaron had married shortly before their daughter’s premature birth.

      There was a prince, too—Gabriella and Whit Howell’s baby boy. The princess had fallen in love with and married her father’s other royal bodyguard. There were so many babies.

      So much love. But she’d felt the most coming from her husband as he’d waited for her father to lead her down the aisle to him. In his tuxedo, the same midnight-black as his hair, he looked every bit the prince. Or a king.

      And standing at his side, in a miniature replica of his father’s tuxedo, had stood their son—both ring bearer, with the satin pillow in his hand, and best little man.

      “It was the most perfect day,” she said. A day she had thought would never come—not four years ago when she’d had to die, all those times she nearly had died, and during the three months it had taken to plan the wedding.

      “As hard as you and my mom worked on it,” he said, “it was guaranteed to be perfect.”

      She blinked back tears at the fun she’d had planning the wedding with Roma. “Your mother is amazing.”

      “She’s your mother, too, now,” he reminded her.

      And the tears trickled out. “I feel that way.” That she truly had a mother now. “And my dad loves you like a son.” He couldn’t have been prouder than to have his daughter marry a hero like FBI Agent Brendan O’Hannigan.

      “I’m glad,” Brendan said. “But right now I don’t want to talk about your dad or my mom.” He stepped closer to her, as if closing in on a suspect. “I don’t want to talk at all.”

      Her tears quickly dried as she smiled in anticipation. “Oh, what would you rather do?”

      “Get you the hell out of this dress,” he said as he stared down at the yards of white lace and satin.

      With its sweetheart neckline, long sleeves and flowing train, it was a gown fit for a princess—or so his mother had convinced her. Josie was glad, though, because she had wanted something special for this special day. A gown that she could one day pass down to a daughter.

      “Your mom told the seamstress to put in a zipper,” she told him. “She said her son was too impatient for buttons.”

      He grinned and reached for the tab. The zipper gave a metallic sigh as he released it, and the weight of the fabric pulled down the gown. She stood before her husband in nothing but a white lace bra and panties.

      “You’re the one wearing too many clothes now,” she complained and reached for his bow tie.

      He shrugged off his jacket, and for once he wore no holsters beneath it. He carried no guns. When their honeymoon was over, he would, but as a supervising agent, he wouldn’t often have occasion to use them. He wasn’t going undercover anymore—except with her.

      She pulled back the blankets on the bed as he quickly discarded the rest of his clothes. “In a hurry?” she teased.

      “I don’t know how much time we’ll have before CJ shows up,” he admitted.

      “His grandparents promised to keep him busy for the next couple of days,” she reminded him. “And he’s more fascinated with the royal babies right now than he is with us.”

      Brendan grinned and reached for her.

      “He wants one, you know,” Josie warned.

      Brendan kissed her softly, tenderly, and admitted in a whisper, “So do I.”

      She regretted all that her unfounded suspicions had cost him—seeing her pregnant, feeling their son kick, seeing him born, holding him as a sweet-smelling infant.

      But she would make it up to him with more babies—and with all her love. She tugged her naked husband down onto the bed with her. “Then we better get busy …”

      Building their family and their lives together.