“So…” Lark began. “We think Ruby’s next. I can design anything, and my girls can sew it right up. She’s petite. Not as petite as Dee, but…”
“Dee,” Kath said. “Dee has to be a cocktail dress. Like one of those wedding dresses from the fifties. Poofy, not floor length…”
“That’s a tea-dress, actually. And don’t worry,” Lark assured. “When she and Frodo get their shit together, I’ve got my sister covered.”
I think, with that statement, knowing that Lark felt the same way that Kath and I did, we both breathed a sigh of relief.
“Oh!” I said. “On the inside of her tackle box, she has this photo of a woman in this awesome dress. I think it’s purple, like an eggplant color. And she has roses everywhere.”
Lark smiled wide. “Take a pic with your phone. I’ll see if I can find the original, and I’ll get to work.”
“Happily ever after,” Kath said to me.
“Yep,” I agreed. “Happily ever after.”
Holst
Something I noticed about the guys at Coastal Ink, they had great cars. Nico had a blue Chevy Apache and Frodo had an equally impressive old Ford. It wasn’t huge because huge wouldn’t fit him. Instead, it was a classic, the kind you’d see at a hot rod show. If I had to guess, he’d invested some of the money he made from his former career into buying the vintage truck. The fact our friends and family had written Just Married on the back window, plus packed a cooler with perishables, two boxes of other groceries, her suitcase and mine into the back…well, that was more than incredible. It was the fact that I now had a wife I would give the world to, and friends, real friends, I knew I’d have for the rest of my life…those things left me without words.
Nico had a cabin up in the San Bernardino Mountains. During the reception, I learned that Nico was a legend in Laguna Beach. Katherine assumed I knew. But the half-owner of Coastal Ink had been bitten by a shark at the same beach I surfed at least three times a week, beaten badly by the husband of a tattoo client, and finally, was the victim of a shooting…a result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it was the man who came to his aid after the beating who’d given him the cabin, and the story went, he gave one very specific instruction when he did…
“Only take your forever girl there.”
And then my wife surprised me…
My “forever girl”…
My Katherine…
She’d changed all our plans last minute. We had the business taken care of for a week. Between Leo, Gloria, and Harry, Bear Claw was covered. I asked Katherine if she wanted to go to the Florida Keys or Hawaii or Paris. I would’ve taken her anywhere, but she didn’t want to fly. She wanted to drive up the coast, stay in bed and breakfasts, and see parts of our state she’d never been to before.
Katherine grew up with money and parents who traveled often, but she was usually left with a sitter. I hadn’t realized just how sheltered she’d been until she told me she’d never been to Disneyland. I decided I’d take her at Christmas. I’d been once during the holidays the year after my parents’ split, and it really was magical.
After we arrived, I made a fire near the lake and set up blankets and pillows—Nico told me exactly where to find everything we’d need—while my wife was inside the house, making us a light dinner. She walked outside in a long, flowing gown of paper-thin fabric that clung to every inch of her perfect body as she moved. As soon as I saw her, I popped the cork on a bottle of champagne and completely forgot about food.
“I was thinking.” She smiled with an expression I’d come to know well. It meant she intended to get her way by any means possible.
“And what were you thinking?” I asked, taking a sip from the bottle and handing it to my bride.
“Food is overrated. I’d rather just make love here in front of the fire, naked under the stars, and then we could have a sandwich or something before we fuck like wild animals, drunk on champagne, and howl at the moon. How does that sound?” she asked.
“Come here,” I growled. I hadn’t intended my voice to come out that way, but the way she spoke, and the way she looked, brought out that side in me.
She took the bottle and had a sip, then propped it next to a rock on the ground behind her. When she stood up, she stepped back a few feet. The night sky was almost completely dark, the moon had yet to rise, and when Katherine took the hem of her gown and lifted it above her head, I was struck again by her beauty.
“Your turn,” she prompted.
I opened my buckle, let the jeans and boxers fall to my ankles, and pushed off my boots one at a time. The rest of my clothing followed, my long-sleeve shirt joining the pile that laid in the dirt.
“You know why I wanted you to do that?” she asked.
“Why?” I answered, my voice gruff and thick.
“When you came in from that surf…I thought you were perfect, Holst.”
“I’m the one staring at perfection, Katherine.”
She closed the distance between us and pressed her naked body against mine. “We need our own cabin.”
I enveloped her in my arms and said against her ear, “Whatever you want.”
“Next year…we’ll start our little family…is that okay?”
“Jack,” I said.
“Jack,” she agreed.
“Until then…”
I moved my lips to the edge of her ear, down the side of her neck, and down again to her shoulder. We moved to the blanket, and there, under the starry sky, I made love to my wife. We spent the week just…being. There was no talk of the past, only of our future.
Ten years later, we left our sons in the capable hands of Tori and Cam, who’d stopped at two children, one boy and one girl, after she had complications during that birth, as well. Cam had punched a wall in the waiting room, and, even now, he had no sensation in the pinkie finger of that hand. But they were happy to watch Jack and Charlie while Katherine and I drove to our own cabin. It was on the other side of the lake from Nico and Lark’s. A neighbor had asked if he knew anyone who wanted to buy his old place and put some work into it.
The cabin was a sturdy A-frame with a master downstairs and a bedroom for the kids, upstairs. I told Katherine I wanted to die, right there, looking out at the lake. She informed me that she and Tori had already made plans for that eventuality. I compromised and told her I wanted my ashes scattered on the lake.
I loved the ocean; it was a place of my youth and would continue to be for some time. But it was then I told her, “I wake up to the face of heaven each and every day, and I hope the last thing I see on this earth is your face…the woman who married me…who gave me sons…who opened her heart and gave me her love…my Katherine. So to me, it doesn’t matter where I die, as long as the last thing I see is the face of a golden angel.”
I watched her chest swell with gulps of air, trying and failing to contain her emotions as her eyes became beautiful, glassy pools, and her cheeks lined with saltwater rivers.
“Love you, H.”
“And I love you, my Katherine in gold.”
The Leaves Series:
Inky
Cole
Nico
Beachy Bride Series:
Bride in Bloom
Katherine in Gold
Standalone:
Genevieve Clare
WEBSITE
www.jbhartnett-author.com