Suddenly Married (15 page)

One brow high on her forehead, Dara smiled, then laughed, and so did he.

She tried a different tack. “So…are the kids all tucked in?”

The question coaxed a smile. “Well, they’re in bed, but I don’t know how ready they are to go to sleep.”

She raised her eyebrows, waiting for his explanation.

“Guess they’re pretty excited. They weren’t expecting a wedding
and
a party.”

“Neither was I,” she admitted. She bent down, stuffed packing paper into one of the boxes she’d unpacked. “In fact, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Who planned it?”

His cheeks turned bright red. “Planned what?”

“The wedding.”

“W-well, well,
we
did,” he stammered, “remember?”

Dara climbed into the box, stamped the papers down with both feet. “No,” she said, shaking her head,
“what
we
planned was a quickie ceremony in front of Pastor Williams’s battered old desk. No witnesses, no music, no—”

“Wasn’t my idea,” he said, cutting her off. “That stuff…it was in the church when I got there.” One shoulder rose as he added, “Guess Williams figured it wouldn’t do any harm if we made use of it.”

Brow furrowed, she narrowed one eye. “Funny, no one at the reception knew, either.”

“Knew what?”

Eyes wide now, she hopped out of the box. “When, where…
that
we were getting married.”

He dismissed her comment with a noncommittal shrug. “You know how that kind of news travels.”

Yeah, well, she thought, I’m not buying it. Not for a minute. Because the only person Dara had told about the wedding was the principal at Centennial. And he didn’t go to their church.

Noah pocketed both hands, leaned forward a bit, stared at the toes of his shoes. “You, ah, you want a cup of tea before we turn in?”

Before we turn in…She liked the comfortable, familiar
married
sound of that.

“I’d love some tea, but only if you’ll have a cup, too.”

Noah met her eyes, and after a long, penetrating stare, he smiled. “Okay, but only if you’ll let me fix it.”

She shut the closet door and picked up the cardboard boxes.

“Let me get those,” he said, taking them from her.

He started for the door, but her hand on his arm stopped him. “Noah?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks.”

His eyebrows knitted in the center of his forehead. “For what?”

“For whatever strings you pulled,” she said, “you know, to make the wedding, the reception…for making it all happen.” She tilted her head. “I don’t know how you knew it had always been a dream of mine…a wedding like that. It was lovely. Really. So thank you.”

For a moment, transfixed by those big brown eyes of hers, Noah couldn’t seem to find his voice. Might have been a big mistake, he told himself, trying to give her something better than a “quickie ceremony,” because now she’ll expect more. Trouble was, he didn’t know if he could give her more.

“I didn’t do a thing,” he said. And it was true; Pastor Williams and his missus had arranged everything.

At Noah’s request.…

“I’m leaving it in your very capable hands, Williams,” he’d insisted as he dashed off a generous check, made payable to the church. “Doesn’t need to be fancy. Dara doesn’t go for a lot of fuss and bother. But I want her to have flowers, lots of flowers. And friends around her. A nice meal. Some soft drinks and a pretty cake. Someone to take pictures.”

“Ah, memories…” the pastor had said, a knowing smile on his face.

“Yeah. Right. Memories.” He’d shoved the checkbook back into his jacket pocket “Whatever’s left over after you buy the supplies…belongs to the parish.”

It had been worth every dime spent. The good ladies of the congregation had prepared a six-course ham dinner in the little kitchen behind the banquet hall and served it up piping hot on white stoneware. Lucy Barnes had whipped up a beautiful four-layer cake,
topped off with the traditional painted-plastic bride and groom. Moe Houghton donated a barrel of root beer. The Kincaid family brought their mandolins and banjos and guitars and created a foot-stompin’, hand-clappin’ hoedown right there in the church basement. Dara had looked adorable, square dancing in her little white suit and hat.

She’d looked enchanting, laughing and chatting with their friends and neighbors, too. So ravishing, in fact, that he almost forgot how petrified she’d looked earlier.

Almost, but not quite.

She’d stood at the back of the church, wringing her tiny hands in front of her, eyes wide and frightened, like a rabbit caught in the act of enjoying some gardengrown lettuce. He’d wanted to thunder down that white-sheeted aisle and scoop her up in his arms, promise that nothing would ever harm her—not if he could help it!—as long as they both lived.

Which, if God had heard even
one
of the hundreds of prayers he’d said since the day he met her, would be a long, long time.

He glanced at the alarm clock. Eleven-forty.

What’s taking her so long? And why is she in there?

They had watched the eleven o’clock news, Dara sprawled on the sofa, sipping the tea he’d brewed her, Noah tilted back in his recliner. Afterward, while he flipped off the lights and locked the doors, she’d gone upstairs. When he rounded the landing, he noticed a pencil-thin streak of light glowing from under the hall bathroom door. Had he said or done anything that had made her feel she wasn’t welcome in the master bathroom?

Lying in bed, he stared at the ceiling fan overhead and reflected on their evening.

When they got home after the reception at seven o’clock, Dara had changed into sneakers, leggings and an oversize sweatshirt. When she came downstairs, the first thing he’d noticed was that she’d scrubbed her face clean of eye shadow, lipstick and rouge. How could she be pushin’ thirty? he’d wondered as she’d bustled around the kitchen, preparing a snack from the party leftovers the church ladies had packed up, when she barely looks twenty-one!

They’d had a grand time, he and the kids and Dara, sitting around the table, recalling the events of the day as they nibbled at ham sandwiches and potato salad, baked beans and coleslaw. He couldn’t remember the last time the kids had been so happy, so animated.

Yes, he could.

Every time they’re around her, he’d told himself.

After supper, she’d excused herself to finish unpacking while he and the kids watched an old movie for the hundredth time. Then he’d tucked the kids into bed and listened to their prayers and joined her in the bedroom—correction, their bedroom—where he found her on her hands and knees in the closet. They’d had a short but friendly conversation, and he’d carried her empty packing boxes downstairs, and while she said good-night to the kids, he’d brewed them both a cup of tea.

Nothing that would make her feel unwelcome, he told himself.

Then they’d watched the last half of a show about a cat and a newspaperman or something, and the news. Anyway, he thought that’s what they’d watched; Noah hadn’t really been paying much attention to the TV.

Because he couldn’t keep his eyes off Dara.

In the trim-fitting pants and baggy sweatshirt, she’d reminded him of a fresh-faced teenage girl, stretched out on the couch with a bowl of popcorn in her lap and a mug of tea at her side. During a commercial in the cat program, she’d gotten up to make them another cup of tea, and when she’d leaned across him to get his mug, Noah got a whiff of her perfume. Like lilacs in the springtime, he’d thought, and it had been all he could do to keep from pulling her into his lap and smothering her with kisses.

For that next half hour, as the local news anchor read reports about the state police crackdown on aggressive drivers and the joke-cracking meteorologist delivered another forecast for snow, Noah had wondered what on earth the two of them were doing on a Saturday night, watching TV in his family room. They should have been walking hand in hand on a deserted beach on some exotic island in the Caribbean. This is your wedding night, after all, he’d thought.

Covering his face with the pillow, Noah shook his head. You’re a numbers man, he told himself. You don’t let things slip through the cracks.

But the truth was, he hadn’t
forgotten
about the honeymoon. Quite the contrary. He’d been
afraid
to plan one, because what if he did—she’d go along with it, of course, because that’s the way she was—but what if he planned a romantic getaway and Dara gave some slight hint that she didn’t
want
to be alone with him? She’d married him to clear her father’s name, to see that his kids were properly cared for. And a honeymoon, well, that was for people in
love.

Wasn’t it?

Okay, so the big question now was, would she want
to consummate their vows…ever…or did she view this a marriage in name only?

You could ask her, he thought, if she’d ever come out of the bathroom!

But he wouldn’t ask her, and he knew it.

Because he was as afraid of that answer as he’d been of the honeymoon.

He tucked the pillow under his head again, linked his fingers together under it. Everything just happened too fast was the answer he immediately gave himself.

But it was a poor excuse, and a lie to boot. Because the truth of the matter was, he’d fallen feet over forehead for Dara, almost from the moment she’d walked into her father’s office at Pinnacle Construction wearing that neat blue teacher’s suit, shiny curls bouncing, bright brown eyes flashing, smiling.

Even if he’d been uncertain then, he’d known it a week or so later, when she’d come to dinner at Bobby’s invitation. He’d taken her in his arms not once but twice! He remembered thinking at the time of a Top-40 song, recorded during the seventies, that went something like “love fits like a hand in a glove.” That was how Dara felt in his arms…as if she’d been created just for him by the Almighty Himself.

“Which switch turns out the lamp?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Noah cleared his throat and lifted his head in time to see her pointing at the double switch plate on the wall near the bedroom door. Now, really; how did she expect him to think straight when she looked like
that?

She wore a floor-length white cotton nightgown with soft ruffles at the sleeves and hem. He’d never seen her bare feet before, but they were just as slender and shapely as the rest of her. It surprised him—that little
bit of shocking red on her toenails—but it was a delightful surprise. You’re a vision, he thought, swallowing. You look like a princess in that getup.

Impatience must have gotten the best of her, because Dara flipped the switch nearest the door—and started the ceiling fan to spinning above him. “Uh, that one turns on the, ah—”

“The ceiling fan?” she finished, smiling.

He nodded.

“And this one?” She flipped it, turning on the light fixture attached to the fan. Turning off the fan and the overhead light, she said, “Looks like you’re in charge of lights out.”

It seemed to Noah that she floated, rather than walked, toward the bed, the flowing, billowing nightdress trailing behind her like…

Like the train of a wedding gown.

His heart beat like a parade drum, his pulse and breathing accelerating as she pulled back the covers and slipped between the sheets.

“Okay,” she said, rolling onto her side to face him, “I’m ready.”

Ready?

His heart was pounding now, knocking against his ribs, battering his spine. He wondered if she could feel it, like tiny hammer blows, thudding against the mattress.

Ready? Ready for what?

And then it dawned on him in a quick and disappointing moment…all that talk about which switch worked which light. Levering himself up on one elbow, he rolled to his right, nearly knocking the alarm from the nightstand as he reached for the lamp. Gritting his teeth, he twisted its knob and doused the room in blackness.
“You want me to turn the bathroom light on?” he whispered.

“Whatever for?” she whispered back.

“In case you need to—”

“I’ll be fine.”

He could tell by the sound of her voice that she was still facing him.

“In a few minutes,” she continued, “my eyes will get used to the dark. I eat a lot of carrots. Good for night vision, you know,” she nervously chattered.

Chuckling, Noah shook his head. “I don’t know about carrots, but sometimes, you’re a nut.”

She sang that part of a popular candy bar commercial.

Rolling onto his left side to face her, he said, “And sometimes you’re not.”

Dara crooned the rest of the jingle.

Without thinking, Noah reached out, rested a hand on her shoulder. When he realized what he’d done, he half expected her to draw away, to stiffen with fright, to gasp. But she did none of those things. Instead, Dara gave his fingertips a light pat-pat-pat and a gentle squeeze.

And she didn’t let go.

Could it mean what he hoped it meant?

Or was it nothing more than a friendly gesture? You’ll never know if you don’t—

“Noah?”

“Hmm.”

“Why do you suppose that, when the lights go out, people tend to whisper?”

Smiling, he shrugged. “Guess the darkness is a signal of some sort, telling people to be calm, to be quiet, the way nature stills and silences the earth.”

“Aha.…”

“‘Aha’ what?”

“I’ve married a poet, I see.”

He scooted closer, slowly slid his hand from her shoulder to her upper back and, laughing softly, said, “You mean like ‘How do I love thee? Let me count the ways’?”

A moment of complete quiet went by. “Something like that.”

He wished he could see her face so he’d know what that slight change in her musical voice meant. He moved closer still, wrapped both arms around her, again prepared for her to stiffen, to hold him at arm’s length, to turn away.

Again she didn’t.

Snuggling her face into the crook of his neck, Dara exhaled a long, slow sigh. And the sound of it wrapped around him like a warm blanket. Eyes closed, he kissed her forehead. “I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings earlier.”

“Hmm?”

“When you were talking about your wolf collection, and I said—”

“You didn’t.”