After they completed the tour of the mansion, they made their way to a lovely resort hotel near Disney World. After Ivan unlocked the door to their assigned room, he swept Delia off her feet and carried her over the threshold. Before setting her on her feet again, they indulged in a long, passionate kiss that ultimately led to sweet lovemaking.
Their wedding night was all that Delia had dreamed of and hoped for. A wonderfully loving, caring husband who was also very handsome, a fabulous hotel room complete with a hot tub on a private balcony, and bottle of non-alcoholic champagne delivered to their room, especially ordered by said handsome husband.
Ivan found an assortment of CDs and a CD player in the entertainment center in the hotel room. He selected a disk that had a collection of timeless love songs and put it in the player. The haunting music filled the room as he poured the bubbly into two crystal goblets and carried them out to the balcony where Delia was just stepping into the hot tub.
“Thank you, babe,” Delia said as Ivan handed her a goblet.
He stepped into the hot tub, too, and they both sat down, cuddling close to one another.
“To us,” Ivan said, holding up his glass. “May our life together be long and as happy as we are at this moment.”
“To us,” Delia responded.
They touched their glasses to each other and then sipped the fizzy liquid.
“So what do you want to name the baby?” Delia asked
Ivan looked at her a bit startled.
“Haven’t even begun to think about it,” he admitted. “I’ve never even considered baby names, because I never considered the possibility that I would ever have a baby. Do you have any ideas?”
“Oh, maybe one or two,” she said demurely, looking at him with a hint of mischief in her eyes.
“And what would they be?” he asked warily. “I hope you’re not into weird names like Leaf or Apollo or Apple or Audio.”
Delia laughed and said, “Audio? I don’t think so. Apple is out, too. But I was thinking about using your family’s names if it’s a boy. What about all three—Alexander Adrian Ivan?”
“That’s a long name for a little boy,” Ivan said thoughtfully. “But I do kinda like it. Maybe we could call him Xander, since Granddad is Alex.”
“I like Xander,” Delia said. “I’m sure not into naming him after my father.”
“What was his name?” Ivan asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever known your parents’ names.”
“My father was called Link, short for Lincoln, and my mother was Susie.”
“Those are decent names,” Ivan said. “But if you don’t want to use them, that’s okay.”
“I have enough memories of them without naming my kids after them,” she said with a trace of bitterness in her voice.
“What if it’s a girl?”
“Well, I’ve toyed with Jasmine for several years. I really like that name. Katie is another favorite name of mine. What about you? What girls’ names do you like?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I’ve never really given names any thought,” he said. “I know that I don’t like the name Gertrude or Harriet or Pearl. My mother had three great aunts with those names. They were all uptight old biddies that intimidated me when I was a little guy, so I just associate those names with scary old women.”
“No argument from me there,” Delia said, shaking her head. “Makes you wonder what some people are thinking when they name their kids.”
“No kidding. What do you think of using my mom’s name, Evelyn, as part of a girl’s name? You know, as a middle name. I don’t know if Jasmine Evelyn works together or not.”
“Jasmine Evelyn.”
Delia tasted the name on her tongue to see how it felt.
“It could work,” she said. “What was your mom’s middle name?”
“Marie.”
“That’s always a good middle name,” Delia said quickly. “Jasmine Marie, Katie Marie, Tiffany Marie, Alexis Marie. Hey, there you go. If it’s a girl, we can name her Alexis and it will still be in honor of your granddad, if you wish. Alexis Evelyn might even work. Or Alexis Irene, for both of your grandparents.”
“Well, it’s a good thing we’ve still got time to come up with a name,” Ivan said with a chuckle. “These are all good names, but eventually we’ll have to settle on just one.”
“I’ll start making a list of all the names we like and then as time goes by, we’ll whittle the list down to just one boy’s name and one girl’s name,” Delia said.
“That works,” Ivan said.
“I think I’m beginning to turn into a prune,” Delia said, looking at her wrinkled fingers. “I’d better get out of the water.”
“Yeah, me, too. It’s getting late anyway. We should get up early tomorrow if we’re going to Disney World.”
“Oh, boy! I can’t wait to go there,” Delia said, her face lighting up with excitement. “I’ve never been even to a regular amusement park, much less Disneyland … or World, or whatever.”
“Another time we’ll go to Disneyland in California,” he said, giving her his hand to help her out of the hot tub. “I will do my best to make up for your lost childhood. We’ll do all those things you missed out on. I promise.”
Delia touched Ivan’s cheek with her damp hand.
“You are the kindest, most thoughtful man I’ve ever known,” she said softly. “Is it any wonder that I love you so much?”
He pulled her wet body against his and kissed her like there was no tomorrow. He released her when a sudden breeze sent an involuntary shiver through her. Although it was still 75 degrees or more, the breeze hitting her wet skin was a tad cool. He reached for a thick towel that lay on a lawn chair nearby and put it around her bare shoulders. Then he picked up another and dried himself.
They went inside the hotel room, got out of their wet swimsuits and got into the shower. After showering together they prepared for bed. After enjoying another intimate hour, they fell asleep.
They spent the entire following day at Disney World. Delia felt like a little kid as they went from one attraction to another. Her face simply glowed with joy. A part of that joy was coming from getting to visit one of the “happiest places on earth,” but most of her joy was because Ivan loved her. He not only loved her, but also had just committed to spend the rest of his life with her. And she was carrying his baby. Life just didn’t get any better than this.
The next day they spent visiting Epcot Center, and over the next several days they went to several other attractions in the Orlando and central Florida area. Delia was blown away by the dozens and dozens of lakes in that area. They were of all sizes from little ponds to large lakes. Having lived in the dry desert of central Arizona for more than ten years, she had grown unaccustomed to seeing that much water all over the place.
One evening, after they’d enjoyed a lovely dinner and were sitting on the veranda of the hotel they were in for the night, Delia brought up the subject of work.
“I’m having such a wonderful time with you, that I nearly forgot all about the job you sent me to do,” she told Ivan. “While we are back east, do you want to go ahead and do the inspections of the properties in Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and Ohio like you had assigned me to do?”
“I hadn’t given it any thought,” Ivan confessed. “I’m just so glad to be with you, and we’ve been having so much fun, that I forgot all about work. I guess we’d better do those, though.”
“I know, me too. I’m just so incredibly happy to have you back that I can’t think of anything else. This past week has been like living in a fairy tale. I keep having to do a reality check to see if I’m dreaming or if this is all for real. I still can’t believe that we’re actually married. And then to get to go to all these fabulous places and see things that I’ve never seen before, including the ocean, has just put me on sensory overload, I think.”
Ivan could see the love light gleaming from her eyes and could read the happiness that shone on her face. She was indeed a beautiful woman, but the love and happiness that exuded from every pore of her satiny brown skin transformed her from merely beautiful to exquisitely stunning. He wondered that the whole world didn’t notice and fall at her feet.
“I’m at a loss for words to tell you how much more than just happy I am,” Ivan said. “I feel like I am finally complete. A whole man. Not only do I have you for my wife, but also I am going to be a father. You don’t know how much that means to me. If it wasn’t for you, I may have never learned that I am healed. You are the most beautiful woman, and the most right woman for me. Of course, I have dated a few other women over the years. But none of them were right for me until I met you. I knew from the moment I saw you in the store, that you were the one. I had to have you somehow. I just can’t believe what a jerk I was. I swear to you that I will never doubt another word you ever say to me. Ever.”
“I love you so much, Ivan, sometimes I think my heart will just explode right out of my body,” she said, caressing his cheek. “You are my one and only love for the rest of my life. I will never give you any cause to doubt me, and the only time I will ever keep secrets from you will be at Christmas and your birthday.”
This last sentence brought a mischievous twinkle to her dark eyes, making him love her even more, if that were possible.
“Now, back to the subject of work,” she said matter-of-factly. “These inspections really don’t seem like real work. Driving from one beautiful place to another, seeing things I’ve never seen before, and going places I’ve never been before, make it seem more like a paid vacation than work. So I’m game to keep going, if you are.”
“You’re right, you know,” he said, taking her small soft hand in his. “I’ve always enjoyed traveling to check on my properties. Now with you along, it will be way more fun. So what do you say we hit the road in the morning and make our way toward Tennessee? We’ve got properties in Chattanooga, Nashville, and Memphis. There are lots of cool places to see in Tennessee, so we’ll have fun.”
“Oooh, can we go to Graceland when we’re in Memphis? I’ve always wanted to see Elvis’s house.”
Delia clasped her hands in front of her face in an almost prayer-like motion, her expression dreamy with the thought of her favorite singer. Elvis may have been a couple of generations before her time, but he was still the sexiest singer with the most fabulous voice of anyone she had ever heard.
“Of course we can go to Graceland,” Ivan assured her. “I haven’t been there either, so it will be a first for both of us. However, I guess I’d better call home and tell the crew what’s going on. I should have done that sooner, but I got so wrapped up in just ‘us’ that everything else just left me.”
“Yeah, they might think you fell off the edge of the earth,” Delia said with a giggle. “Are you going to tell them that we’re married?”
“Yeah, and I’m going to tell them that I don’t know when we’ll be home. It might not be for another month.”
“What about your grandparents? They came down to be near you and they’ll probably be wanting to go back home next month, don’t you think?”
“Oh, shoot! I forgot all about them, too,” Ivan said, slapping his head. “Yeah, well, now I don’t know what to say. Maybe we ought to go on home now, have our whoop-de-doo wedding reception, and tend to business at home until they want to go back to Oregon. I suppose I’ll have to take them home, too. I went up and got them in the motorhome. We could take them back in the motorhome and then keep on going for a while. That would give us a chance to inspect the RV parks, too, posing as regular guests, like you suggested. Would that be all right with you, honey?”
“Sounds fine to me,” Delia said with a happy smile. “Doing anything with you is fine with me. I certainly don’t want your grandparents to feel slighted. I have gotten the feeling that they aren’t too impressed with me anyway, and for them to think that I took your attention away from them would really put me on their black list.”
“Well, I guess that’s what we’d better do then,” Ivan conceded. “We’ll leave in the morning for home. But if you see anyplace along the way that you want to stop and check out, just say so. We’re not on a deadline.”
And so it was on an early-March morning that Ivan and Delia headed her little red Toyota back towards Arizona. Since she had just come this way a couple of weeks prior, there were a few places that she had spotted that looked interesting to stop at. Mostly just little roadside souvenir shops or a historical monument here and there along the way. She really didn’t want to spend a lot more time on the road and keep Ivan away from his grandparents.
It took them four days of travel, with stops along the way to go from the Orlando area back to Scottsdale. When they drove in the driveway together, Travis Randall, one of the groundskeepers was cleaning the pool and saw them come in. Knowing the state of agitation that Ivan had been in when he left home, and the funk that Delia had been in before she left, he was pleasantly surprised to see them come home together.
Ivan pulled the car up to the garage.
“You may as well just bring your things right into the house,” he told Delia, “since you’ll be moving all your stuff in.”
“Okay,” she said with a bit of a self-conscious giggle. “Your staff is really going to have something to talk about now.”
“They’ve been talking ever since before you left,” he told her. “Not so I could ever hear them, but I know they’ve been talking. I could see it in their eyes.”
“You can’t blame them,” Delia said defensively. “I know they care a lot about you and here this newcomer gets you all upset. Of course they’re talking.”
They got out of the car and each grabbed a suitcase to carry inside.
“Welcome home,” Travis said when the newlyweds got close to where he was working on the patio around the pool. “You two look a lot happier than you did last time I saw you.”
“Thanks, Travis,” Ivan said, forgetting his formality. “I’d say we’re both a whole lot happier than we were when we left here. Say, would you do me a favor? Call everyone together here on the patio as soon as they can get here. Tell them to just drop what they’re doing. I’ve got something to say and I might as well say it to all of you at once.”
“Sure thing, boss,” Travis said.
He laid down the pool net he’d been using to scoop dead bugs out of the water, pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, typed a text message, and sent it to the other five employees. He wondered what the big announcement was. Must be something good, or they both wouldn’t look so happy. Maybe they went and got themselves married or something. Well, he’d know pretty soon.
The word went out and from hither and yon, the Potters, the Maddens, and the Randalls all gathered on the patio and waited for Ivan and Delia to come back out of the house. When they did, the folks all gathered around them welcoming them back to the ranch.
When the initial hubbub died down, Ivan spoke.
“You all are probably wondering what’s been going on for the past month between Delia and me.”
Six heads nodded and “Uh-huhs” were heard coming from most of them.
“Well, it’s kind of a long story, but let me start by telling you that we got married March fourth near Orlando …”
He was interrupted with applause and cheers, hugs and handshakes all around.
“Congratulations!”
“I’m so happy for you both!”
“Way to go, boss!”
The well-wishing went on for a couple of minutes until Ivan called for their attention again.
“That’s not all of it,” he continued. “As you all know, the car accident that killed my family also left me sterile. I had no idea that things could change … there … so when Delia told me that she was pregnant, I naturally assumed the worst. I sent her away on the pretext of a business trip, but I really just wanted her out of here, but I didn’t have the heart to just throw her out into the street. The upshot of all this is, I went to the doctor and learned that things had indeed changed and I am no longer sterile. So not only are we married, but we’re also going to have a baby.”
The cheers and congratulations erupted once more as the women hugged both Ivan and Delia and the men shook his hand and slapped him on the back, laughing and hooting and teasing. When he had once more calmed them down, he continued with his little speech.
“Now since we got married on the other side of the continent with none of our friends or family with us, we plan to have a reception here at the ranch. How soon kinda depends on how fast you ladies and Delia can plan it, how many people we decide to invite, and a few other minor details. I expect it to be within a couple of weeks.
“There shouldn’t be very much extra work involved except in the kitchen department. You guys keep the place so nice anyway, that you shouldn’t have anything extra to do but your usual everyday maintenance.
“You ladies will have some extra work to do in the kitchen to make a nice spread for the party. We don’t want a sit-down dinner, just more of a buffet-type thing. Delia was telling me the other day about something her neighbor lady back in Oklahoma used to make called haystacks. It sounds like just the thing for a crowd and seems easy enough to prepare.
“We’ll order a wedding-style cake from town, and the only other thing will be punch and maybe some dishes of those little mints and nuts.”
“So what’s a haystack and how to you make it?” Lynne Potter wanted to know.
Ivan looked at Delia for her to explain it.
“They’re so easy,” she said. “You just put a layer of corn or tortilla chips down on the plate, then add a layer of pinto beans, and then grated cheese, chopped onions, chopped tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, and sour cream. And that’s it. You can also drizzle ranch dressing over all if you want. Oh, yeah, and chopped or sliced olives and avocado, too. They’re really good. The only work is in grating all the cheese and chopping all the veggies. That, and cooking a big pot of pinto beans. You put everything into separate bowls and then everybody serves themselves.”
“Sounds good to me,” Travis said.
“All food sounds good to you,” Betsy, his wife, said teasingly.
“At least I’m easy to feed,” he countered.
“That you are,” she conceded. “As long as I do it all day long.”
“Yeah, Trav, hasn’t that hollow leg of yours ever filled up?” Ned joked.
“I think they’re both still hollow,” Betsy said dryly.
The mood was the jolliest it had been around the ranch in many a day. The boss man was back and he was happy, so that made everyone happy. And since he was happy, they forgave Delia for making him unhappy, and were glad she was back, too.
“Speaking of supper,” Travis said to no one in particular.
“Nobody was speaking of supper,” Jess teased.
“I’m sure somebody around here mentioned food,” Travis said in mock earnest.
“Yeah, what he said,” Ned chimed in. “It’s got to be close to suppertime.”
“I know, I know,” Lynne said with an exaggerated sigh. “You haven’t eaten for at least two hours, so now you want some supper.”
“I knew you were a good woman,” Ned said, putting an arm around her shoulders and giving her a squeeze.
“You all go home,” Ivan told them. “You ladies feed these guys before they get into the horses’ oats and start eating them.”
After everyone had gone home, and Ivan and Delia were alone, Delia realized that she hadn’t yet called Kendra to tell her the good news. So she pulled her cell phone out of her jeans pocket, pulled Kendra’s name up in her contacts list, and pushed Send.
“Hey, Kennie,” she said when Kendra answered the phone.
“Hey, Delia,” Kendra replied. “Long time no hear.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve been occupied. How are you and Jared doing?”
“Just fabulously,” Kendra gushed. “I’m never been so happy, Dee. He’s just the greatest guy in the whole world. He’s thoughtful, he’s smart, he’s soooo cute, and he just got a big promotion at work.”
“Awesome,” Delia said, delighted for her friend.
“So how’s it going with you and Ivan,” Kendra asked. “Is he still all bent out of shape with you?”
Delia had told Kendra the whole story when she first left the ranch to go on the business trip, but she hadn’t updated her since.
“Not so much,” Delia said with a little giggle. “We got married a few days ago.”