As they walked to the rear door, Dale looked at Marie. “We do have a lot to discuss, don’t we?” They stepped outside. The sun made a weak entrance through the gray clouds, as if struggling to regain its throne. The faint shimmering rays felt welcome.
“Yes. I’m so grateful for the man you are and for your love. I love you so much, Dale.”
His brows arched. “Then you’re not mad about earlier? About all this?” He waved a hand around the area.
“Well, of course I’m not happy we got hit with a tornado, but it’s helped me to see things a lot more clearly. Blew away some of the cobwebs, so to speak.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
She faced him and took hold of both his hands. “I realize now that sometimes I’ve blown things out of proportion and been too structured, believing everything has to go a certain way for it to succeed or hold any special meaning. I’ve learned today that outside influences can and do interfere, and anything less than my expectations doesn’t necessarily mean a person is unworthy of my trust. Or my love.”
“Wow. You learned all that through a twister?”
She laughed. “You bet.” Despite the circumstances, she felt strangely lighthearted, as if removed from what was happening around her. For the first time she understood the term about being at peace even in the midst of a storm, or in this case, the aftermath of one.
“Know what I learned?”
She lifted her brows expectantly.
“Never wear a tuxedo till you get to the church. Never ride with hungry farm animals, and never, under any circumstances, get in a car that has speedway racing stickers plastered all over the back bumper.”
She chuckled. “I can’t wait to hear about your morning, and I know we need to talk, but shouldn’t we go help the others?” Marie wanted to avoid what she had to say as long as possible.
“No need to. Except for that girl I just bandaged up, no one else was hurt in the area. Damage is minimal—not counting that big field over there, which apparently is the main path the twister took. Only a farmhouse and barn got smashed, a few roofs got ripped off, but from what we and others have learned, all other buildings are standing and there are no fatalities.”
“Oh Dale, that’s wonderful. Praise the Lord for that!”
“I also talked to Pastor Carmichael. He’s eager to go ahead with the ceremony. Truth is, now that he’s finally got us here, I don’t think he wants to let the opportunity slip by again, tornado or no tornado.” One side of Dale’s mouth crooked upward. “Since the church is still standing, and the guests for the most part have stayed, I second the motion. Let’s get married.”
She blinked, stared. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life.”
“But our clothes!” She thought about the dirt and grass staining her skirt. Her veil was also torn. Cynthia did have a blow dryer, which could dry the material, as well as her ruined hairstyle, but surely Dale was joking.
“We can get cleaned up, and what we can’t clean we’ll ignore. I’ll trade ties with Todd. Or we can switch to our street clothes. I really don’t care what we wear, so long as I get to spend the rest of my days with you. When I thought I wouldn’t be here in time, I felt sick inside, since you’d told me this was my final chance at tying the knot.”
His words made her prickle with guilt and reminded her of what needed to be said. “Dale, about that. I’m sorry. I was just upset. I didn’t mean it. I’ll wait, as long as you need me to. I was wrong to give you an ultimatum, and I feel we should postpone the wedding to a day when you’re ready, too. The last thing I want is to make you feel pushed into doing this.”
“But I am ready, and I don’t want to wait.” His eyes twinkled, and Marie’s heart gave a little lurch. Whenever he got that look, she knew to prepare herself for a shock.
He took hold of her left hand—and dropped to one knee, staring up at her.
“Dale, what are you doing?” She tried to pull her hand from his, but he tightened his hold. She looked around self-consciously, glad to see everyone was too busy to pay attention to them.
“Something I should’ve done long ago, and you reminded me I never did do.” With his other hand, he gently covered hers that he clasped. “Marie, you’re the wind beneath me and what keeps me going when I want to give up and quit. You’re the reason I get up in the morning, hoping to spend time with you, to see your face. I’ve loved you ever since high school, and I’ll go on loving you until all our hair goes gray or falls out or both.”
Shyness gone, she bit back a smile. His poetic words touched her, and his inborn, inadvertent humor drew her to him all the more.
He shook his head slightly. “You know what I mean. Marie, if I have to go through another day like this without you, I’ll go nuts. But with you beside me, as a part of me, I can tackle anything. Say you’ll marry me. Today. Now.”
She studied the sincere hopefulness shining from his clear eyes, the slackness of his expression as he waited, his faint smile. His wasn’t the most eloquent of proposals, but it was all she desired and a symphony to her ears. Time schedules, a myriad of details to be met, flawless attire—none of that seemed to matter anymore. She, like most other women, had always longed for the perfect wedding, but how better to describe perfection than it being all about true love? The joining of two hearts and souls as one, in and through Christ Jesus—that was all that truly mattered. The rest were just little extras, here one day, gone the next. But their love was big and would last a lifetime. She no longer had any doubts about that.
“Yes,” Marie whispered. “I’ll marry you whenever you’d like.”
Dale quickly stood to his feet and enfolded her in his arms. From behind, they heard Dale’s twelve-year-old cousin say to someone, “Um, am I missing something here? Isn’t that why we came today, ’cause they’re gettin’ married?”
Dale laughed, Marie with him, and both turned to look at his two young cousins who’d come up behind them. “Right you are, Donna,” Dale enthusiastically agreed. “And thank God He got me to the church on time!”
Reception in full swing, Marie heard Dale groan when Ben approached the microphone. He aimed a few jokes about the “three-times-is-a-charm wedding” at his younger brother, who took them well. He then spoke of what a great guy Dale was and how blessed he was to have Marie, wishing both of them a good life. Before Marie had a chance to recover from that shock, Ben dedicated the next song to his “newly-wed, but never-thought-we’d-get-there brother,” a look of mischief on his face. The musicians grinned the wedding couple’s way and began playing the rousing old show tune from My Fair Lady, “Get Me to the Church on Time.”
“Why are you smiling like that?” Dale asked Marie, his smile just as wide.
“Am I smiling?” She slid a forkful of bridal cake between his lips and chuckled when the white and lilac frosting smeared the corner of his mouth. With her cake napkin, she brushed it away. “Your brother really isn’t such a bad guy. I noticed Rachel seems to think so, too.” She glanced to where the couple was dancing in a comical way. Ben was no dancer like Rachel, who’d taken both tap and ballet, but she was laughing at his antics, going along with all the awkward spins and fast twirls he led her into.
“Yeah, pretty amazing how fast they honed in on one another.”
Marie studied Dale. “But to answer your question, I’ve been replaying those words we spoke: ‘to love and to honor, in sickness and health, forsaking all others as long as we both shall live.’ ”
“I do.”
“So do I.” She didn’t think she could be any happier than right at that moment. A third of the guests had needed to leave, to check on their homes and families, but those out-of-towners who hadn’t been personally affected by the tornado had stayed. As well as those who’d called their homes and neighbors to learn all was well. And all was well.
Despite the storms that blew their way, she had finally married the man of her dreams. The third time really was the charm. And so much more had happened in these past hours, as if God was mending the tears in Marie’s life, just as the people would soon clear away the debris and put their town in order again.
Before the ceremony, which had taken place a little less than an hour ago, her mom fixed Marie’s torn veil with her handy travel sewing kit. As she’d sewn the gauzy strips back together, both women talked as if they were old friends. In those twenty minutes, Marie felt closer to her mom than ever before. Even Henry called on her mom’s cell to wish her a happy wedding, a gesture that stunned Marie. And strangely enough, though the women were different in personality, Dale’s mom and Marie’s mom were getting along as if they’d been best friends for life. Marie looked over the reception hall to the far table where they, along with another interested guest, pored over childhood photographs of the bride and groom from the albums they’d each brought from home.
“I cringe to think what pictures Mom might have put in there,” Dale said, following Marie’s gaze. “I guess I should’ve checked to see if they passed inspection first.”
“You were a beautiful baby,” she soothed. “I loved the picture of you all muddy from the creek with only your Snoopy boxers on.”
Dale groaned. “She put that in there?” He looked at his tux, which he’d cleaned up as best he could but which still bore faint traces of grease on the shirt. “Guess I haven’t changed all that much,” he said wryly. “I’m still a mess.”
Marie thought him the most handsome man at the reception. “To tell the truth, I hardly noticed.”
They stared deeply into one another’s eyes, a message that couldn’t be vocalized linking them, heart to heart. The band switched to a slower song, and Marie smiled. “They’re playing what they did when we first auditioned them.”
“So, beautiful, you wanna dance?”
“With my favorite guy in the whole world? I’d love to.”
On the ballroom floor, Marie linked her arms around Dale’s neck while he did the same to her waist. Slowly they swayed as one and stared at one another, nearly oblivious of the other couples dancing around them.
“I still can’t believe you went through so much to get back here today,” Marie said softly. “What made you keep it up and not quit, Dale? Even if it was just about what I said last night, that was a lot for one person to go through. I probably would’ve given up after the goat ate my tie.”
“I almost did give up, in jail, but I just couldn’t do it. This was too important. You’re too important.” He snuggled her closer, pressing his forehead to hers. “You never pushed me into marriage, Marie. I went into it with my eyes wide open.” He grinned. “I guess you could say I was blown away by love.”
His words made her feel alive, yet at the same time cosseted in dreamlike softness, and she looked up at him in adoration.
The sudden sound of the guests’ spoons clinking against crystal glasses in unison made Marie’s face warm as she realized what this particular wedding custom meant. The ringing continued, other spoons joining in the clinking, as everyone there eyed them in expectation.
Dale smiled. “They’re asking us to do something.”
“Yes.”
Anticipating the moment, Marie turned her face upward as Dale lowered his mouth to hers in a warm, tender kiss. The guests applauded and a few whistled through their teeth. Yet, lost in each other, neither Marie nor Dale paid the slightest bit of attention to them.