Dinner was served under the biggest tent, and from where I sat at the head table, I couldn’t hear what Dalton’s father was saying to all my aunts and uncles. By the looks on their faces, they certainly weren’t bored. Not one bit.
Marita and her new husband made a very special toast, congratulating us, and then announcing the upcoming arrival of their first child. People clapped and cheered and generally pretended to be surprised. (My family is nothing if not supportive.)
Throughout everything, Dalton didn’t leave my side. He was either holding my hand, staring adoringly at me, or both. When nobody was looking, he’d drag me off behind a van or a tree and try to get his hands up under my skirt. I swatted him away every time, telling him to wait just a little longer. He threatened to take me out on the lake in a canoe, but I called his bluff. He hadn’t acquired a canoe… yet.
I tore myself away from Dalton just long enough to freshen up and reverse my dress to the colorful side, carefully transferring the blue broach to the bodice again.
By then, the music had started and the party was in full swing.
The band was a folk rock duo from out of town, but they took requests and played great cover songs, which made everyone happy, and isn’t that exactly what weddings are all about?
I danced with my father, who mentioned he might take flying lessons.
“Do you still think I’m too young to get married?” I asked him as he twirled me around.
“Not if it makes you happy,” he said. “You are happy, right?”
“Of course I am.” The song ended and I kissed his cheek.
He went looking for my mother, who he was afraid to let out of his sight with Jake around.
Dalton took my hand. “May I have this dance, wife?”
“Of course, husband.”
The band started the next song, and we danced under the twinkling lights strung between the trees, under the moon, and the starry sky.
~
After the last song had been played, and the caterers and tent rental people finished packing everything up, Dalton and I walked down to the edge of the water alone.
He’d offered me a dozen options for where we could sleep that night, and I chose the Airstream trailer. I didn’t care if we rocked it off its foundations, because choosing the trailer felt right.
Dalton and I had crashed into each other in a tiny bookstore, then shared intimate moments in the backs of limousines, and who could forget the canoe excitement?
“Mrs. Deangelo,” he said, gazing down at me as we stood in the loose pebbles near the water’s edge. “You married me on this spot, today. Any regrets?”
I picked up a flat stone and tossed it out onto the water, where it skipped seven times.
“No regrets. Everything that happened, good or bad, was a pebble that formed the path that brought us here.”
He looked down at the broach on my dress. “My father must have given you that. He surprises me sometimes.”
“He surprises a lot of people. Every time he opens his mouth. He’s kind of a loose cannon.”
“Well, it takes one to know one,” he teased.
“Don’t laugh. You’re the one who married me!”
“How about for our first anniversary, we throw a big party here, and we both jump out of the plane and parachute down?”
“Sure, baby. Anything you want.”
“This is going to be fun,” he said, looking solemn. “I’m going to share my life with you, forever and ever, happily ever after.”
He leaned down and sealed his promise with a kiss.
I gazed up at his loving face.
“I love you, too, baby. Let’s go get that trailer rocking.”
He grabbed my hand and whinnied like a horse. “Your Lionheart is ready for everything you’ve got.”
Giggling, we rushed up the path and into the trailer.
He whinnied once more, and then we stopped talking.
Slowly, gently, we undressed each other. We lay our nice clothes carefully across the little round table at the front of the trailer, and then he led me down the short distance to the elevated sleeping nook. I slipped off his shorts, and he removed my slip, bra, and panties, dropping them to the floor.
He climbed up into the nook first, then helped me in.
We lay on our sides, face to face, and kissed slowly as we stroked each other’s bodies, hands caressing every inch of skin.
The touching and kissing moved seamlessly to making love. We moved together, first one gazing down at the other, and then rolling again to switch places. He moved deep inside me, and neither of us dared look away from the other.
I came first with him on top, and then again after a roll. After the third orgasm, I was delirious with ecstasy, and lost count. He shifted my leg and drove deeper, trembling with his desire. I gazed up at him through my eyelashes, and I saw his face change before he cl**axed. I saw him surrender to love, for the second time that day.
CHAPTER 44
One year later.
What happens next, after you marry the perfect man?
First of all, you float around in a cloud of happiness, and the things that usually bother you don’t seem so bad. I feel like the weather has gotten better since I married Dalton, but it could be all the time we spend in sunny LA.
We’ve been married a year now, and so many wonderful things have happened in the last twelve months.
I’ve got an incredible new career. I’ll tell you about it in a minute, but first let me catch you up on what everyone’s doing.
My new bestie, Mitchell, convinced my original bestie, Shayla, to move in with him after his roommate took a job in an off-Broadway play in New York. Shayla gave notice at her job and moved to LA two weeks later.
If you think I spend a lot of time over at their apartment, you’d be right! I’ve added several pieces of inspirational art to their art wall.
Shayla is still working in the restaurant business, only now she’s a manager, and working her way up the corporate ladder. She has vowed to stop dating unattainable, inappropriate men. That’s what she says. What she actually does is another story. It’s a lot like how Mitchell swears off dating models, only to dive right into a relationship with the next one, swearing it’s “different this time.”
Speaking of male models, Keith Raven is doing well. I thought he’d get back together with his ex, Tabitha, but he fell for an Italian girl. I don’t know too many details, because we haven’t kept in close contact. Our brief relationship was so intimate that I don’t feel right talking to him now that I’m happily married.