“I think I’m going to cry,” Lois said, fluffing the short veil that was attached to the small white pillbox hat atop Wendy’s head. “It’ll make my mascara run, but you look so adorable.”
“Here.” Wendy handed Lois her handkerchief.
“I can’t use that,” Lois said. “That was your mother’s. It’s your something old.”
“That doesn’t mean it can’t be used.” Wendy wrapped the handkerchief back around the bouquet of flowers in her hands, because Lois was using her pinkie to wipe the corners of her eyes. Her something new were pearl earrings, a gift from K.T. Borrowed was the penny in her shoe from Lois, and blue was a lovely flowered broach that Gloria had given her and was pinned to the front of her simple, short-sleeved, knee-length white dress.
“Are you nervous?” Lois asked, having crossed the room to peek out the door.
They were in the chapel at the base, where her wedding would take place in minutes. “No,” Wendy replied. “I’m happy, excited, and growing impatient.”
“For the wedding night?” Lois asked, giggling.
“Yes,” Wendy answered. The past two weeks had been amazing, but she was more than ready to share all of the love inside her with K.T.
“When a nifty number makes your pulse throb, that’s not love, it’s sex,” Lois said, repeating one of the lines they’d read together from a magazine.
“My entire body has been throbbing for months,” Wendy said. The magazine hadn’t been the only advice she’d been given on sex. Gloria had not only offered plenty, she’d seen that a contraceptive diaphragm had been prescribed.
“Children can come once the war is over,” Gloria had said, and once again, Wendy had accepted that as good advice. She didn’t want there to be any reason for her and K.T. to be separated.
He’d accepted the second-in-command position for the Salvage Division, and Captain Heinz had said that having her travel with K.T. would be like having their own private nurse on staff.
The captain had also seen that they were given housing. A beautiful house in the officers’ residential quarters because K.T. was now a member of a new program that had been formed for the navy to appointment enlisted men to the rank of officers. The house was furnished and full of their belongings, just waiting for them to arrive later today.
“I think everyone is here,” Lois said. “The music should start at any moment.”
Wendy wanted to throw open the door and march down the aisle. Get all the pomp and circumstance over with. She’d have been fine with just going to the justice of the peace in Honolulu, but everyone had wanted a wedding.
Everyone meaning all the friends they’d acquired here in Hawaii. There were plenty. And she appreciated each and every one of them very much.
However, she adored K.T. and all she wanted was for him to be her husband.
Forever more.
That finally happened. Lois opened the door, and Captain Heinz walked her down the aisle, where she never took her eyes off K.T. as they vowed their love and honor to one another.
As soon as the minister pronounced them man and wife, K.T. lifted her veil. Not caring that everyone in the chapel was watching, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him like the world was about to end.
She knew it wasn’t. It was just beginning.
Minutes later, they were splattered with rice as they left the chapel and climbed into a gray jeep that had a just married sign hanging on the back, along with strings of cans.
“Ready?” he asked while starting the engine.
She held her bouquet of flowers over her head. “I’m always ready!” She’d already tucked her handkerchief into her purse, so as they began to drive away, she tossed the bouquet into the crowd. Then spun around to see who caught it.
Lois looked stunned, then held the bouquet over her head as if it was a trophy as she ran toward another jeep.
A line of jeeps was soon behind them, honking as they drove through the base toward the sub base, where they would board boats to go to the Monkey Bar so no one would have to worry about being off the roads by seven forty-five.
People working at the base stopped long enough to wave or salute the jeep.
“Join us at the Monkey Bar!” she shouted and waved.
“You will have the entire base there,” K.T. said, laughing.
“The more the merrier!” She hugged his arm. “And I couldn’t be any merrier! I’m married!”
He laughed. “So am I!”
At the dock, they quickly left the jeep and boarded a boat that already had a driver, who took off as soon as they sat down.
“More people can fit in here,” she told K.T.
He kissed her. “There are plenty of other boats, and I like having you all to myself.”
“Ooh, la, la,” she said, while wrapping her arms around his neck for a kiss that lasted until she felt a tug on her hair.
She broke this kiss in time to see her hat and veil flying through the air. There were several boats behind them and one swerved beneath the hat. A sailor reached up and plucked the hat out of the air. The entire boat, and those beside it, cheered at the accomplishment.
At the docks, that boat landed beside them and the sailor offered her the hat. It turned out to be the one with the broken ankle, still wearing his cast. “Keep it,” Wendy said, grasping K.T.’s arm with both hands. “I have what I want.”
The smile on K.T.’s face confirmed what she already knew. He loved her as much as she loved him, and that was the best thing ever.
Rather than walking up the beach to the bar, K.T. turned, so they were walking along the beach.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I have something you need to read,” he said.
“What?”
He stopped and pulled a folded piece of paper out of his white dress uniform pocket. “This.”
She looked up at him, then unfolded the paper. “It’s a telegram.”
“From Sid.”
“I’ve never received a telegram before.” Excited, she read the typed note:
Congratulations Wendy and K.T. We all wish we could be there. A luau has been requested to continue your celebration. Send us pictures.
With love,
Kent McCallister and Sidney Williams
She looked at K.T. “A luau?”
K.T. loved the way her eyes shimmered, the way her dimpled smile made her entire face shine, and her. All of her. “Yes, a luau. Compliments of our families.” Sid had sent him a separate telegram last week, asking for information about paying for the wedding. Her family felt it necessary, and had stated that his family wanted to provide money for the wedding, too. The contract with the oil company was already paying off. He’d agreed to a luau, but kept it as a surprise for her.
“That was so nice of them.” She tucked the telegram in his suit coat pocket, then wrapped her arms around his neck. “Oh, Oklahoma, we are going to have the best life. The absolute best life.”
He ran his hand up and down her sides, loving how her curves fit perfectly in the palms of his hands. “Yes, we are.”
Because of her, he no longer felt that he needed to control everything, amongst other things. She’d shown him how life was meant to be lived. To its fullest every day. Starting tonight, they’d live their nights to the fullest, too. He kissed her, long and deeply, a precursor for what was to come.
“With kisses like that, I might be convinced to forgo the luau,” she said.
He lifted a brow.
She giggled and took a hold of his hand and gave it a tug. “We can’t miss the whole party. We’ll leave after we’ve learned how to hula dance.”
“Men don’t hula dance.”
“Yes, they do. They dance like warriors, I read about it but haven’t seen it. I’m glad I gave Lois two rolls of film so I can send some pictures to our families. They should have received the pictures of us fishing by now.”
“Probably,” he answered. They had caught a couple of fish, and had taken many pictures, but they’d spent most of that day lying on the beach, kissing, and talking, and kissing some more.
“Oh, I can hear the music and smell the food,” she said. “This is going to be so much fun. So. Much. Fun.”
Hours later, the dancing, food, music, drinks, and camaraderie were still in high gear, when he and Wendy were once again showered, this time with floral leis, as they took their leave. The crowd continued to cheer as they hurried, hand in hand, down to the dock and climbed in the boat where a seaman was ready to drive them across the harbor. K.T. felt like the luckiest man on earth that she loved him as much as he loved her.
“Look at that,” she said. “The sun is setting and we’re going to ride right through it.” Leaning her head on his shoulder, she sighed. “This has been the best day of my life.”
“Mine, too.” He agreed.
She lifted her head. “I love you, K.T. McCallister.”
“I love you, Wendy McCallister.”
“Oh, I love my new name. Love everything about my new life. I don’t know why I was afraid of all this.”
“Everyone is afraid of something.”
“Not you.”
He ran a finger down the side of her face. “I was afraid of never seeing you again. So afraid, that if the Solace had been closer to the cruiser that day, I would have dived in, and swum to it.”
“Thank goodness you didn’t, and thank goodness Gloria refused to put my name on the list.”
He frowned, having never heard that. “Why did she refuse?”
“She told me that I had to give you the chance to forgive me, and I agreed, but I was still so ashamed of not giving you Betty’s letter, that I told Gloria to add my name to the list. She refused. Told me that she wouldn’t approve a transfer for me to anywhere until I learned a valuable lesson.”
“What was the lesson?”
“How to forgive myself. Gloria said it wasn’t easy, but that’s where forgiveness starts. That if she hadn’t learned to forgive herself for her son’s accident, she would have never become a nurse. Never have done anything with her life, except wallow in pity. I figured if she’d been able to forgive herself, I could, too.”
“Forgive yourself for what?”
“For the way I behaved. How I kept Betty’s letter from you, for lying to you about only wanting to be friends. I’d never done anything like that before, and I was so ashamed. I’m normally a very honest person, and I promise to spend the rest of my life making that up to you.”
He kissed her forehead. “There is nothing for you to make up. We both had things we needed to work out. The day you gave me Betty’s letter, I was going to tell you that while I was in California, I was going to call Betty, tell her that I wouldn’t be coming home because I loved you. But I didn’t tell you any of that, because all along, I’d been telling myself that I couldn’t commit to anything, couldn’t commit to loving you, because the world is at war. We don’t know what tomorrow might bring, but while in California, I realized that not loving you was a far greater risk. One that I couldn’t live with.”
“Oh, K.T.” She laid a hand on his chest, right above his heart. “That’s what I realized, too. You are everything I ever wanted, all rolled up in one. You are my world.”
“And you are mine.” He kissed her, but just a fast kiss because the boat was pulling into the dock, and he was anxious to share the love that was boiling over in his heart with her.
The drive to their new home in the jeep wasn’t overly far, and once there, he lifted her into his arms and carried her over the threshold.
“You can put me down now,” she said, once the door was closed behind them and she’d flicked on the light.
“Nope, I’m carrying you straight to the bedroom.”
She laughed and kissed the side of his face. “What are we going to do there?”
He carried her down the hall. “I don’t know? What do you want to do?”
“We could hula dance,” she whispered. “With no clothes on.”
“You’re full of challenges, Nebraska,” he said, clearly recalling how he’d told her that the night of the dance contest.
“You love challenges,” she replied, just as she had before.
He walked into the bedroom. “How do you know that?” he asked, again, just as he had that night.
“You married me,” she said.
He dropped her onto the bed, gently, but enough that the bed bounced and it bounced again as he dove onto the mattress beside her. “You’re right, and it’s the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”
The need for the ultimate physical connection between the two of them had been boiling inside him for a long time, and he knew she felt the same. She put her heart and soul into everything she did, and once again proved that as she held nothing back when her lips met his with an open-mouthed kiss.
That kiss created a firestorm of desires and emotions so charged they couldn’t get their clothes off fast enough. Couldn’t get enough of touching each other, kissing each other. All the dreams he’d had about her, all the fantasies his mind had created, didn’t compare to the real thing.
His life had changed the moment he’d met her and despite the route they’d taken to get to this moment, he knew it had all been worth it. He would never have understood that nothing was stronger than true love if he hadn’t lived through finding it.
All of their nearly frantic kissing, tasting, caressing, and teasing, had brought them to the ultimate moment, and the mere idea of how close he’d come to losing all of this, to never experiencing all of this with her, momentarily brought him down to earth.
He paused, his gaze locked with hers and his body positioned over hers.
She bit down on her bottom lip and cupped his face, splayed her fingers into his hair. “This is us, Oklahoma.”
Nodding, because only she would know what he was thinking and why he’d paused, he said, “I know. I’m just in awe at how lucky I am.”
She pulled his face downward, so their lips were almost touching. “One more thing we have in common.”
The instant their lips touched, the emotions and desires filling the room were reignited, flaring hotter and brighter. He lost his ability to do anything but feel when her warm, moist body fully accepted him as he slid inside her. Together, they embarked on a union focused on nothing except giving and receiving undiluted pleasure.
Every movement, every thrust, brought a new dimension to gratification, driving them to a conclusion that struck with a brilliance and left them clinging to each other, gasping for air.
As the waves of satisfaction washing over him slowed to ripples, he rolled onto his side, still breathing hard.
“Holy cow!” she said, throwing an arm across her forehead. “No wonder there are so many articles about that in magazines.”
He loved her honesty, and humor, and absolutely everything else about her, and wasn’t in the least surprised that she’d read articles on the subject. Propping his head with one hand, he used his other hand to trace a line from the base of her neck all the way down to her stomach, already contemplating round two. “How many articles did you read?”
“A few.” She twisted her neck, gave the length of him a slow appraisal, moving nothing but her eyes, before rolling onto her side and draping a leg over his. “But I’d rather do than read and I think that’s something that we may need to do again.” She kissed him. “At least once a day for the rest of our lives.”
“Just once a day?”
Pushing his shoulder, encouraging him to roll onto his back, she climbed on top of him. “Not just, at least. Life is all about having fun.”
She had taught him that, and though their first encounter had been amazing by no stretch of the imagination, he knew that with practice, it was only going to get better and better.
Just like his life.
Their life.