Kisses in the Rain (31 page)

Martha looked at herself critically in the mirror over the dresser in the guest room. "Could you move it up a little bit?"

Lindsay poked gingerly at the flowers. "Better?"

"Much better," Martha said, beaming at her reflection.

"I still don't understand why you didn't want to wear a wedding veil."

"Because Nick says he wants to see my face when I walk up to him before the ceremony."

Lindsay rolled her eyes. "He really
is
in love with you as much as you said he was. I'm so glad, Martha. And so relieved. If you knew the thoughts that were running through my head during the flight from San Francisco—"

"What did you expect?" Martha asked curiously.

"I expected that this whole wedding was another of your impulses. And I fervently hoped that Nick would show up for the ceremony and not be running off to points unknown."

"Lindsay, that's all over," Martha said patiently.

"When are you going to tell me where he was those times when he left?"

"Never. Here, hook up the back of this collar, will you?"

Lindsay moved behind her and expertly buttoned the tiny covered buttons on the back of Martha's wedding dress. The dress was of white crinkled muslin with delicate hand-crocheted lace insets and long sleeves. It fell to the floor, and it had no train. Lindsay had designed the dress to Martha's specifications, and a Ketchikan seamstress had whipped it up. Martha was delighted with it.

"Everybody's here," Faye said, peering through a crack in the door. She opened it and stuck her whole head in when she saw Martha. "Oh, Martha," she said softly. "You look beautiful."

Before Martha could reply, a ball of yellow fluff catapulted through the door, followed by Davey calling, "Come back here, you crazy dog! Come back here!"

The golden retriever puppy, which was only eight weeks old, took refuge in the swirls of Martha's long skirt. Davey dived after the puppy, and the two of them tumbled on the floor, squealing and giggling.

Martha bent over and detached the puppy and Davey from each other. She kept a hand on the puppy, which proceeded to lick her fingers while she straightened Davey's new suit and brushed away a layer of dog hair.

"How about putting Otter in his pen for the ceremony," she suggested to Davey.

"Otter wants to come to the wedding," Davey said.

"We agreed that he could come to the reception, remember? I've put a tray of dog biscuits out on the hearth just for him. But he'll have to stay in his pen for the ceremony."

"The cere—what?"

"The ceremony. When Nick and I marry each other."

"Oh."

"Everybody will have to be very quiet while we're speaking our vows," Martha said. "That's why Otter should be in his pen."

"Well, okay," Davey said reluctantly.

"Davey, I'll help you with Otter if you'll show me how," Faye said with a wink at Martha. Obediently Davey picked up the sprawling Otter and followed Faye out of the room.

"The dog's name is Otter?" Lindsay said with raised eyebrows.

"That's because we had an otter named Bear," Martha said with a laugh.

"Oh. I guess that explains everything," replied Lindsay wryly. She paused. "You certainly know how to handle Davey."

"I love Davey. He's sweet and precious and everything I could want in a son."

"Who would have thought you could be so maternal?"

"Not me," Martha said. She looked at her watch. "Are they starting to play music yet?"

Lindsay pulled aside the curtain and peered out at the slope in front of the cabin. The surface of Mooseleg Bay exploded in little stars where the raindrops hit. "The band had to take refuge on the porch. It's raining."

"I thought we'd be able to get the ceremony over before the rain started." Martha said, sighing.

"Maybe it'll stop," Lindsay said.

"I wonder where Nick is."

"I hear him. He's on the front porch with the band and the judge who is going to marry you. They're placing bets as to how long the rain will last."

Martha sat on the bed. "The rain may last awhile," she said. She knew this from experience.

Lindsay let the curtain fall across the window. Again she admired her friend's wedding attire. Martha looked so lovely. "Martha, with all this rain I don't see how you managed to get such a good suntan," Lindsay said.

"That's not a suntan. It's rust," Martha said.

Lindsay whooped with laughter.

"Is everything okay?" Faye asked, sticking her head in the door.

"Everything is perfect except for the rain," Martha said.

"We can always hold the ceremony inside if the rain doesn't stop soon."

"Nick and I want to say our vows with the mountains as sentinels, with the otters and eagles as witnesses, with—"

"Not only are you surprisingly maternal, you're also an incurable romantic," groaned Lindsay.

"They wrote the ceremony themselves," volunteered Faye before glancing over her shoulder. "Oh, there goes Davey running toward his bedroom with a handful of cookies. It'd be just like him to get chocolate all over his nice new suit." She closed the door and took off after the boy.

"I don't think I've ever been to a wedding quite like this before," mused Lindsay. "Chocolate-chip cookies instead of wedding cake—now there's an original idea."

"Nick and I wanted this ceremony and the reception to be our very own, a sharing of ourselves with our guests." Martha smiled at her friend reassuringly. "I hope you don't find it too hard to be the maid of honor in such an unconventional wedding."

"Hey, I'd fly to the ends of the earth to be
your
maid of honor," Lindsay said. She stared through the crack in the curtains at the mountain peaks on the other side of the rainswept bay. "In fact, I think I
have
gone to the ends of the earth. Are you going to be happy here, Martha?"

Martha smiled serenely and patted Lindsay's hand reassuringly. "Very," she replied.

The gold engagement ring on Martha's hand sparkled in the dim light. Nick had had it made to order for her; a local artist had styled a braid of gold around one of the gold nuggets Nick had panned from the stream here when he was a boy. For their wedding rings, the other nuggets had been melted down and fashioned into matching braided gold bands. The braids had three strands that symbolized the uniting of Nick, Martha, and Davey as a family.

Lindsay impulsively lifted Martha's hand to admire her engagement ring. "I can't believe it," Lindsay marveled. "You haven't been nibbling on your fingers. You're not even nervous about getting married!"

"I don't have anything to be nervous about," Martha said with great certainty and tranquility. Her hands rested quietly in her lap.

"It's stopped raining!" someone called. The musicians, who were friends of Randy's and members of a local string quartet, hurriedly took their positions on the grassy slope in front of Williwaw Lodge. Their guests formed a circle around the judge, who was Randy's uncle, and Nick, dressed formally, walked jauntily down the path clasping Davey's hand in his. Davey's fingers were disengaged from Nick's so that he could fidget impatiently beside Faye.

At the first strains of the music Martha had chosen for her processional, Lindsay quickly kissed Martha on the cheek, grabbed her bouquet of Alaskan wildflowers and, with one eye on the hovering rain clouds, proceeded with undue haste down the path.

"Are you sure you don't want anyone to give you away?" Martha's mother had asked anxiously the previous night when she'd arrived from Indiana, but Martha had told Georgine no, she was perfectly capable of getting her own self down the short path to the scenic spot where she and Nick had chosen to speak their marriage vows.

Martha stood watching her assembled guests from just inside the front door of the cabin. There were Wanda and her five grandchildren as well as Randy and his mother and stepfather and sisters. Also present were Hallie, Faye, Dr. Andy, Lindsay's Sigmund, Georgine, and Martha's sisters Roxie and Rebecca and their assorted husbands and children, Nick's brothers and their families and a few friends of Nick's. Martha and Nick had invited only the people with whom they wanted to share the beauty of their love and their vows, agreeing that there would be no pointless paying back of social invitations and no pretense. How could either of them be nervous when the only people present were well-wishing relatives and dear, dear friends?

All Martha felt now was eagerness to become Nick's wife.

When Lindsay reached the end of the path, Martha took the first step forward toward her new life. She proceeded down the neatly swept path gracefully and at a more leisurely pace than Lindsay. She wanted to savor the experience of being Nick's bride.

It's really happening,
Martha thought as her eyes met Nick's.
We're getting married.
All the world for her in that moment was concentrated in his eyes, and she floated toward him, feeling as though her feet barely touched the ground.

The sun ventured out from behind the clouds, casting a golden beam of light down on the assembly. The water in the bay shone opalescent in the sun, and beyond the bay, white-tipped mountains rose majestically against the sky. The rain-purified air was lightly scented with spruce.

Nick's eyes were bright and spoke of his love for Martha as she placed her hand in his. Nick and Martha had written their marriage ceremony themselves because they knew that no one else had ever expressed the way they felt about each other. Having learned to communicate, they wanted to start their lives together by saying what was in their hearts and on their minds. And so they began.

"Because you bring me your sweetness and your laughter, and because you made me see the person I could be when I was with you," Nick said.

"Because you are the dream I never knew could be real," Martha said.

"Because the rest of my life is the most precious gift I have to give you," Nick said.

"Because I want to live in your house and mother your son," Martha said.

"Because of the whisper I see in your eyes..."

"Because of the beauty that lives in your soul..."

"Because between us are no secrets..."

"Because we have only love..."

"Because we are a family now..."

"And because our love encompasses our past, present and future..."

"I, Nick, wish you to be my wife."

"And I, Martha, will be your wife."

"Forever."

"Forever."

Nick slipped the braided gold band, warm from his touch, on the third finger of Martha's left hand. She slipped a larger ring on his ring finger. They stood looking down at their entwined hands, so newly gilded. They were both overcome by the enormity of their emotions.

"Kiss the bride!" called Faye, bringing them back to reality.

Nick tenderly brought his hand up and brushed it against the baby's breath in Martha's hair, almost as if she was too fragile to touch. Then his arms went around her and crushed her to him, and the flowers in her hair were tickling his cheek, and he felt the dampness on his face and thought it was Martha's tears of happiness.

"It's raining again!" cried Lindsay.

"Run for it!" said the cello player, who played a fifteen-hundred-dollar instrument and was loath to have it ruined at a wedding where the principals seemed to find rain an enjoyable occurrence.

There was a great commotion as people simultaneously tried to fold up the musicians' chairs and run for the cabin.

"Look at those two," Sigmund said to Martha's mother once they had reached the haven of the porch.

"They don't even have enough sense to come in out of the rain," Faye said reprovingly.

Nick kissed Martha again. "Well, my Cheechako bride, I guess we'd better go in. Sorry the weather didn't cooperate."

Martha only smiled up at him. Then, laughing, she brushed the rain and the joyful tears from her cheeks and ran hand in hand with Nick to the front porch of the cabin where their guests waited.

"Martha, can I get Otter out now?" Davey wanted to know.

Martha glanced up at Nick, who shrugged and smiled.

"Not before I get a kiss from my new son," Martha said, swinging the boy up into her arms despite the mud on the soles of his shoes.

"It's Mother Martha!" announced Lindsay gleefully.

"And here are some of her mouthwatering cookies," Hallie said, appearing in the doorway to pass around the platter.

"Mother Martha's Mouthwatering Cookies!" exclaimed Nick. "That's it!"

"That's what?" Martha set Davey on the floor so he could go unpen the dog.

"The name we're going to give to your cookies! Mother Martha's Mouthwatering Cookies! We'll have it printed on the boxes and sell them from Sitka to San Diego and beyond, wait and see!"

"That will be thanks to our online presence, which will include smoked salmon and other gift items from Novak and Sons. We'll be able to sell our products anywhere in the world." Martha had already set up the website, which would be managed by one of Randy's uncles, who had extensive experience with online marketing in the Lower Forty-eight.