Asking the gorgeous and alluring florist to be my plus-one to tonight’s wedding should have been weird, but instead, it was as natural as breathing. And to my shock, she said yes. But I can't get my hopes up that it will go anywhere. Hattie has no interest in dating a Marine. She’s trying to save her family’s struggling flower shop, and she knows I’m only a temporary fixture in this town. So, we only have tonight. After that, we’ll go our separate ways, each of us thankful for a fun evening. It shouldn’t be too hard. After all, we don’t even know each other. It should be no problem to walk away and pretend my heart hadn’t recognized hers the moment we’d met. Besides, love at first sight is only for the movies, right? The Beginning is a clean, small-town, military romance novella set thirty years before the start of the Brides of Beaufort series. Enjoy Ms. Hattie and Thatcher's journey to their happily-ever-after, and find out how she became the meddlesome matchmaker who had a hand in the love stories from the main series.