“What?”
“I was just thinking that I wasn’t going to let you off the hook over Rose and Emma Sanderson because I know you still have healing to do and…oh, my gosh, Cal, am I just like my father? Controlling and manipulative and—”
“You, my sweet, are just you. A piece of your father and of your mother, and mostly just the unique human being you were born to be. As to the rest, we all step into the lives of those around us, if we care enough. If we think we can help. Like I did with my dad all these years.”
“And like Frank did when he came to see me.”
“Right.”
“So, maybe, in his own way, my dad cares. A little.”
“I think he does.”
“Okay, we’ll go with that. Makes putting up with him easier.”
“We’ve already won where your father’s concerned, Morgan.”
“How’s that?”
“By agreeing to let him pay for our wedding.”
“And how does that make us victorious?” They’d wanted a very small, very quick exchanging of vows that was private to them and Sammie and Frank and made everything legal as quickly as possible.
“Because by agreeing to the wedding, he’s going to be there.”
“And?”
“He’s giving you away to me, and what more could either of us want from him?”
Morgan laughed. And hugged him. And knew, as she pressed her lips to his, that her professor had not only become her intended, and her lover, but he’d also become her very best friend.
* * * * *