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Torin and I had a quiet wedding that everyone attended. He told me he didn’t want a big to-do, and I didn’t either. We kept it simple, exchanging vows before a priest, my brothers, and his family. Now I wear a simple gold band and bear the McCarthy name. My family is rebuilding, and so is his.

With the volume of little kids running around our ankles, laughing and shouting, blowing bubbles with Caitlin down in her garden, I think their family is pretty well-established by now.

Torin comes up behind me. “Hey,” he says, his voice deep in my ear as his hand slides across the small of my back, and I sigh into him.

“Hey,” I say back.

“Thought you weren’t drinking any more wine?” he says with a wink.

“No. I said I wasn’t drinking any more that night. Plus, I can’t say no to your father when he offers me a glass of wine. He’s adorable!”

Torin snorts. “Adorable? He was the scariest man in Ballyhock back in his day.”

“Well, I guess we all have our moments, don’t we?” I say with a wink.

He kisses my cheek. “We do.”

A breeze blows across the gorgeous blue-green waves of the Irish Sea. Behind me, Kyla shouts, “Shut the door behind you, will you?”

She’s not quite as ornery as she was before, now that she’s eloped with a man she met online. Her brothers tried to throw an absolute fit about it, but in the end, Kyla won because the McCarthy family has enough to worry about.

Everyone’s here, and Caitlin is beaming. Torin and I live not too far from here in a house of our own. It’s quiet there, mostly. Just the two of us, lots of books, and a crazy little Yorkie named Penny who sleeps by Torin’s feet and barks at imaginary threats. And there’s plenty of space. We like it that way.

“Uncle Torin,” a little voice says as Seamus’s toddler tears through the garden and half tackles him.

Torin lifts him and swings him into the air. Zoya watches, pushing one of their little ones on a swing in the distance. Cavin and Erin’s little boy, a chubby, beautiful, blue-eyed, blond-haired doll, toddles toward Caitlin’s open arms. She can’t get enough of him.

Cavin is having an animated discussion with Erin before she bursts out laughing.

Bridget smiles quietly, nursing her little one on a garden bench, while Declan stands beside her, scrolling on his phone.

“I thought Ashland and Bianca came?”

“Aye, they’re setting the table for dinner. Did you see the charcuterie board she brought?”

My stomach growls with hunger. “We should go sample it.” But we don’t move, not yet. It’s so nice out here.

Torin’s dad, Keenan, sits in his chair, watching it all with the satisfaction of a man surrounded by people he loves.

“You know, they love you,” Torin says quietly.

“Not as much as you do,” I say with a smile, because it’s true. He does love me. He’s good to me.

“Valentina, is that my top?” Bronwyn asks, hands on her hips as she marches up to me.

I look down at myself when she points to my pink top. “Oh, right. I did borrow this, didn’t I?” I give her a teasing smile. “But I love it, and you love me.”

She rolls her eyes, but Torin snorts. “You have clothes with the tags still on them, and didn’t you tell her she could borrow anything she wanted?”

“She did,” I say, nodding sagely.

Bronwyn opens her mouth to protest but comes to a halt when her phone vibrates with a text. She smiles down at it. Lucky for her, Torin’s looking out at the sea again and doesn’t see the name Lorenzo across the top, with a little heart-eyes emoji.

At least I don’t think he does. The muscle in his jaw tightens for a fraction of a second, but when I look up at him, his eyes are placid, fixed on the sea.

“Bronwyn, you need to get in here,” Kyla says. “Ashland and Bianca have set the entire table without you.”

“Leave your sister alone,” her husband says quietly in her ear.