Not this time, though. He raised the shot glass, waited for quiet. When he got it, he said, “Life goes on,” and knocked back the shot. The whiskey burned its way down his throat, filled his middle with warmth.
“Oh, that’s good, Sam,” Barbara said softly. “That’s just right.” She lifted the shot glass to her lips. She started to sip, but at the last moment drank it all down at once as Sam had. Her eyes opened very wide and started to water. She turned much redder than she had when the justice of the peace flustered her. What should have been her next breath became a sharp cough instead. People laughed and clapped anyhow.
Joshua Sumner said, “Don’t do that every day, you tell me?” He had the deadpan drollness that goes with many large men who are sparing of speech.
As the wedding party filed out of the justice of the peace’s office, Ristin said, “What you do here, Sam, you, and Barbara? You make”-he spoke a couple of hissing words in his own language-“to mate all the time?”
“An agreement that would be in English,” Yeager said. He squeezed Barbara’s hand. “That’s just what we did, even if I am too old to mate ‘all the time.’ ”
“Don’t confuse him,” Barbara said with a cluck in her voice.
They went outside Chugwater was about fifty miles north of Cheyenne. Off against the western horizon, snow-cloaked mountains loomed. The town itself was a few houses, a general store and the post office that also housed the sheriff’s office and that of the justice of the peace. Hoot Sumner was also postmaster and sheriff, and probably none too busy even if he did wear three hats.
The sheriff’s office (fortunately, from Yeager’s point of view) boasted a single jail cell big enough to hold the two Lizard POWs. That meant he and Barbara got to spend their wedding night without Ristin and Ullhass in the next room. Not that the Lizards were likely to pick that particular night to try to run away, nor, being what they were, that they would make anything of the noises coming from the bridal bed. Nevertheless…
“It’s the principle of the thing,” Sam explained as he and the new Mrs. Yeager, accompanied by cheering well-wishers from the Met Lab and from Chugwater, made their way to the house where they’d spend their first night as man and wife. He spoke a little louder, a little more earnestly, than he might have earlier in the day: when they found they were going to host a wedding, the townsfolk had pulled out a good many bottles of dark amber and other fluids.
“You’re right,” Barbara said, also emphatically. Her cheeks glowed brighter than could be accounted for by the chilly breeze alone.
She let out a squeak when Sam picked her up and carried her over the threshold of the bedroom they’d use, and then another one when she saw the bottle sticking out of a bucket on a stool by the bed. The bucket was ordinary galvanized iron, straight out of a hardware store, but inside, nestled in snow-“Champagne!” she exclaimed.
Two wineglasses-not champagne flutes, but close enough-rested alongside the bucket. “That’s very nice,” Yeager said. He gently lifted the bottle out of the snow, undid the foil wrap and the little wire cage, worked the cork a little-and then let it fly out with a report like a rifle shot and ricochet off the ceiling. He had a glass ready to catch the champagne that bubbled out, then finished filling it the more conventional way.
With a flourish, he handed the glass to Barbara, poured one for himself. She stared down into hers. “I don’t know if I ought to drink this,” she said. “If I have a whole lot more, I will fall asleep on you. That wouldn’t be right. Wedding nights are supposed to be special.”
“Any night with you is special,” he said, which made her smile. But then he went on more seriously, “We ought to drink it, especially now that we’ve opened it. Nobody has enough of anything any more to let it go to waste.”
“You’re right,” she said, and sipped. An eyebrow rose. “That’s pretty good champagne. I wonder how it got to the great metropolis of Chugwater, by God, Wyoming.”
“Beats me.” Yeager drank, too. He didn’t know much about champagne; he drank beer by choice and whiskey every so often. But it did taste good. The bubbles tickled the inside of his mouth. He sat down on the bed, not far from the stool with the bucket.
Barbara sat down beside him. Her glass was already almost empty. She ran a hand along his arm, let it rest on his corporal’s chevrons. “You were in uniform, so you looked fine for the wedding.” She made a face. “Getting married in a gingham blouse and a pair of dungarees isn’t what I had in mind.”
He slid an arm around her waist, then drained his glass of champagne and pulled the bottle from its bed of snow. It held just enough to fill them both up again. “Don’t worry about it. There’s only one proper uniform for a bride on her wedding night.” He reached behind her, undid the top button of her blouse.
“That’s the proper uniform for bride and groom both,” she said. Her fingers fumbled as she worked at one of his buttons. She laughed. “See-I told you I shouldn’t have had that champagne. Now I’m having trouble getting you out of soldier’s uniform and into bridegroom’s.”
“No hurry, not tonight,” he said. “One way or another, we’ll manage.” He drank some more, then looked at the glass with respect. “That takes me to a happier place than I usually go when I’ve had a few. Or maybe it’s the company.”
“I like you Sam!” Barbara exclaimed. For some reason-maybe it was the champagne that made him feel better than if she’d said I love you.
Presently, he asked, “Do you want me to blow out the candles?”
Her eyebrows came together in thought for a moment. Then she said, “No, let them burn, unless you’really want it to be dark tonight.”
He shook his head. “I like to look at you, honey.” She wasn’t a Hollywood movie star or a Vargas girclass="underline" a little too thin, a little too angular, and, if you looked at things objectively, not pretty enough. Sam didn’t give two whoops in hell about looking at things objectively. She looked damn good to him.
He ran his hands over her breasts, let one of them stray down her belly toward where her legs joined. She stretched luxuriously and made a noise like a purring cat, down deep in her throat. His tongue teased a nipple. She grabbed the back of his head, pulled him against her.
After his mouth had followed his hand downward, she rubbed at the soft flesh of her inner thighs. “I wish there were more razor blades around,” she said in mock complaint. “Your face chafes me when you do that.”
He touched her, gently. Her breath sighed out. She was wet. “I thought you liked it while it was going on,” he said, grinning. “Shall I get that rubber now?”
“Wait.” She sat up, bent over him, and lowered her head. It was the first time she’d ever done that without being asked. Her hair spilled down and tickled his hipbones.
“Easy, there,” he gasped a minute later. “You do much more and I won’t need to bother with a rubber.”
“Would you like that?” she asked, looking up at him from under her bangs. She still held him. He could feel the warm little puffs of breath as she spoke.
He was tempted, but shook his head. “Not on our wedding night. Like you said, it ought to be perfect. And it’s for something else.”
“All right, let’s do something else,” she said agreeably, and lay back on the bed. He leaned over the side and pulled a rubber out of the back pocket of his chinos. But before he could peel it open, she grabbed his wrist and repeated, “Wait.” He gave her a quizzical look. She went on, “I know you don’t like those all that much. Don’t bother tonight-if we’re going to make it perfect, that will help. It should be okay.”
He tossed the rubber onto the floor. He wasn’t fond of them. He wore them because she wanted him to, and because he could see why she didn’t want to get pregnant. But if she felt like taking a chance, he was eager to oblige.
“It does feel better without overshoes,” he said. He guided himself into her. “Oh, God, does it!” Their mouths met, clung. Neither of them said anything then, not with words.