Katherine and Matthew welcomed her with open arms.

“The celebrant’s here for another half an hour, Rachel,” hinted the bride.

“Why is everyone ganging up on me today?”

“Because I don’t want to be the only normal person in this crazy family,” said Matthew.

“So what number wife would that make you?” teased Zander, who was already hauling off his tie. He still hadn’t entirely forgiven her for the swimming pool incident.

“The last,” said Devin as he joined them with Mark.

Rachel frowned. “Excuse me, but I still haven’t said yes yet.”

“First a cop in the family, now a librarian?” Zander shook his head. “God help my image.”

“Musicians are as much geeks as petrol heads and computer nerds,” retorted Rachel, “but to repeat, I haven’t said yes yet.”

Zander turned to his brother. “You do know she’ll be teaching you big words like virtuous and respectable.”

“I was working on those anyway,” said Devin. “No, what the librarian’s done is extend my emotional vocabulary.” The teasing left his voice. “Taught me what love means.”

Rachel stared at him. “Oh, you’re not playing fair,” she whispered.

He picked up her hand. “I know where I belong. With you. Now take off the coat, Rachel.”

She dropped his hand, trying not to laugh. “You’re incorrigible.”

“So put me in my place again, Heartbreaker.”

Rachel laid a hand over her heart, palm open, and tapped it gently. Devin’s gaze followed the gesture then lifted swiftly, all the teasing gone.

He kissed her, right there among the guests, and it wasn’t a chaste public kiss but a toe-curling, carnal one that left her disheveled and breathless. They broke apart amid laughter and cheers.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said huskily.

They’d started walking before she came to her senses. “We can’t, we’re at your mother’s wedding.’

“That’s right,” Katherine called across the room. “Mark, go stop the celebrant from leaving.” He tore out.

Rachel’s heart started to pound. “That’s crazy.”

“You can’t stay on the kids’ carousel forever,” said Devin. “It’s time for the roller coaster.”

She could barely breathe for the hammering against her ribs. She wanted to say yes but…Helplessly, she stared at him. “Devin…”

He pulled her aside. “Tell me,” he said gently.

“How do you know this is different…from the others?”

“Those relationships started with a bang-literally-followed by rapid disillusionment. With you, the feelings only get stronger.”

She remembered their first encounter and smiled. “You thought of me as a fossilized conservative-”

“Who transformed not herself, but me,” he said seriously.

Mark returned, panting. “The celebrant’s coming back.”

Devin held out his hand to her, the dragon’s tongue flicking the tip of that one knuckle. Outside, the clouds broke; rays of sunlight shimmered through the sheets of rain, tinting the bleak gray mist with gold, streaming in the window to burnish his smile, his hair, his eyes. “Be my wife,” he said, “my one true love.”

Rachel shrugged off her coat and handed it to her son, then took Devin’s hand. “Yes.”

Maybe she would get that birthday tattoo Trixie offered. Perhaps a tiny sword-wielding female knight on her rump. It was a joke that Devin would appreciate.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

New Zealander Karina Bliss was the first Australasian to win one of the Romance Writers of America’s coveted Golden Heart Awards for unpublished writers, and her 2006 Harlequin Superromance debut, Mr. Imperfect, won a Romantic Book of the Year award in Australia. It took this former journalist five years to get her first book contract-a process, she says, that helped put childbirth into perspective. She lives with her husband and son north of Auckland. Visit her on the Web at www.karinabliss.com.