I make love to you on top of the bar, are you?”
“Try it and let’s see,” she dared him. “I’m pretty sure I’ll be ecstatic.”
He called downstairs to make absolutely certain that everyone had cleared out, then carried Maggie downstairs and did his absolute best to see that she was every bit as ecstatic as she’d been anticipating all these months.
When he held her afterward, he promised to keep right on making her happy for the rest of their lives.
“If you don’t, my brothers will beat you up,” she warned.
Ryan thought of the way Sean had taken an instant liking to Maggie. “If I don’t, my brother will beat me up.”
“Then I guess you’re highly motivated,” she teased, deliberately wiggling her hips beneath him.
“Highly motivated,” he agreed, right before he set out to show her just how motivated it was possible for a man to be.
Epilogue
Despite Maggie’s initial insistence on marrying before Ryan found the rest of his family, she was finally persuaded by her mother to at least wait until fall to give them time to plan a proper, lavish ceremony befitting the oldest O’Brien daughter.
“In fact,” Nell had said with a sly gleam in her eye, “if you want to teach Ryan a bit more about romance, a wedding on the anniversary of your first meeting would certainly be a good way to start.”
Maggie had been convinced, especially since it meant that the Thanks giving season would mean something special to Ryan and possibly even chip away at his general hatred of holidays.
Besides, a fall color palette for the bridesmaids’ dresses had made her sisters happy. With the trademark O’Brien auburn hair, they all looked fabulous in shades of bronze and gold velvet.
Maggie’s dress, a heavy white satin sheath with simple pearl trim at the low neckline and a dip in back, was far more elegant and sophisticated than she’d originally envisioned, but she’d fallen in love with it the instant she’d seen it. She made a slow turn in front of the dressing room mirror, still not quite believing that her wedding day was finally here after a wait that had seemed to last an eternity. In less than an hour she would be Mrs. Ryan Devaney.
When she made one last turn, she met her mother’s gaze and saw that Nell O’Brien was trying valiantly to smile through her tears.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“You’re just so beautiful. They say every bride is radiant, but I swear I don’t think I’ve ever seen one who glowed with happiness as you do right this minute.”
“That’s because Ryan makes me very happy.”
Her mother smoothed an errant curl back into Maggie’s upswept hairstyle. “He’s a complicated man, your Ryan. That won’t change just because he’s been convinced to make a commitment to you.”
“I know that. I don’t think he’ll ever truly be at peace until he finds the rest of his family.”
“How’s that search going? Anything new?”
Maggie shook her head, sharing in Ryan’s frustration. Jack was concentrating on finding Michael at the moment, and he’d run into one brick wall after another.
“Ryan and Sean are ready to give up looking for their brother, Michael, but I’ve been pushing them to continue. I keep imagining that little boy they’ve described sobbing his heart out as they were separated. I know he’d be happy to see them again, that he’s been waiting for them all these years.”
Her mother smiled. “You just want happy endings these days,” she teased.
“Well, of course I do,” Maggie said. “I’ve found mine.”
“And Ryan’s found his.”
“I’m part of it,” Maggie agreed. “But he needs his family.”
“You know, it wouldn’t be so awful if he didn’t locate them,” her mother said. “He has all of us now and Sean and the Mon-roes. And Rory and Father Francis. I’d say his life is full.”
“He says that, too,” Maggie said. “But I want more for him.”
“You want it, but does he?”
Maggie thought about it. “Yes, I think he does deep down. Finding Sean was a turning point. Before that, it might not have mattered as much to him, but he’s been a changed man since he located Sean.” Maggie smiled. “Of course, some of that is because Sean has a wicked sense of humor and a zest for living that can drag Ryan out of his dark moods. I wonder if it was always that way, if Ryan was the serious, responsible big brother and Sean the cutup or if they changed after their parents left.”
“You’ve never asked?” her mother said with a