By Tuesday morning, I was lying inside the emergency department at St. Jude Medical Center while a nurse shouted for the one man I had spent eight months trying to protect from the truth.

Three months later.

The early spring heat of April had transformed the historic district of Charleston, South Carolina, into an expansive, fragrant paradise of blooming white wisteria, purple jacaranda, and ancient live oaks draped in silver Spanish moss.

The four-story historic brick single-house on Church Street—the home that Ethan and I had purchased during his fellowship eight years ago—was an ocean of light, open windows, and running sea air.

The heavy drapes had been stripped from the twelve-foot piazza doors; the pine floorboards had been hand-waxed with natural beeswax, glowing with a rich, honey-gold luster beneath the afternoon sun; and from the private walled garden behind the carriage house, the sound of a brick fountain trickled with clean, eternal music.

In the center of the kitchen island, sitting on an unadorned brass bookstand, was my dark leather journal—its pages no longer filled with oncology appointments, but with hand-drawn garden sketches, recipe notes for shrimp and grits, and the blueprints for our new coastal cottage on Sullivan’s Island.

At two o'clock on a brilliant, breezy Saturday afternoon, I stood at the island wearing an off-the-shoulder gown of emerald-green linen that flowed gracefully around my ankles, my dark hair falling in soft, natural curls across my shoulders, sipping iced peach tea from a heavy crystal tumbler.

My skin was radiant, tanned from spending two weeks sailing the barrier islands with Ethan; my collarbones were full, healthy, unscarred save for a tiny, pale silver line along my right clavicle where the chemotherapy port had been surgically removed six weeks ago.

Around my left fourth finger... sat my vintage platinum band with the French-cut sapphires, blazing like captured starlight against the white quartz.

Footsteps moved softly across the heart-pine floorboards behind me.

I turned around.

Ethan walked into the kitchen.

He wore an unbuttoned navy linen shirt over a clean white crewneck tee, faded denim trousers, and bare feet, holding a wooden crate filled with fresh heirloom tomatoes and sweet basil that he had just harvested from our raised garden beds.

His face was lean, tanned, laughing with that rich, booming, and uncomplicated baritone that had returned to his chest the day we walked out of the hospital doors together.

He set the crate on the island, stepped around the counter, wrapped his large, warm arms around my waist, and pulled me flush against his broad chest, his chin resting gently on the crown of my head.

"The pathology review from Johns Hopkins arrived forty minutes ago, Claire," Ethan murmured softly against my ear, his lips brushing the sensitive skin below my jaw, sending a sweet, familiar warmth straight through my marrow.

I tilted my head back against his shoulder, looking up into his clear, beautiful hazel eyes. "And?"

"Six-month post-treatment molecular surveillance is completely negative," Ethan smiled, his eyes shining with rare, sweet tears of pure, unadulterated peace.

"Zero clonal rearrangement. Zero circulating tumor DNA. Dr. Patel officially closed the acute clinical file at one PM."

I smiled, taking a deep, clean breath of the sea wind blowing through the piazza doors, feeling the solid, honest heat of his body beneath the linen.

"You know what that means, Dr. Cole?" I whispered softly.

"What does it mean, Mrs. Cole?"

"It means you are officially relieved of your duties as my primary attending physician," I laughed, turning in his arms, wrapping my hands around his neck, looking into the face that had saved my life.

"And you are permanently reassigned to being my husband."