wait for it to be over so he could enjoy a quiet supper with Marianne at the restaurant. He caught her eye across the dining room where she was cutting more slices of Uncle Charlie’s applesauce spice wedding cake, but as he watched she was quickly drawn into another conversation with more chattering ladies.
He escaped to the veranda and sank on to the porch swing to rest a while. After some minutes, Rooney Cloudman joined him.
“Had enough?”
“Of what?” Lance said tiredly.
“Enough of all this fuss and folderol,” the older man said with a grin. “All a man really wants is to get the I-do over with and start the honeymoon.”
Lance suddenly jerked upright. Honeymoon! Oh, God, there was that double bed in Marianne’s hotel room, but he hadn’t really thought about it until this moment. Now he had to seriously consider what a honeymoon would mean.
For the first time he wondered if Marianne was planning to have a marriage of convenience.
Was she?
Well, he sure as hell wasn’t!
“What’s the matter, son? You look like you just swallowed a fishhook the size of a pick-ax.”
“Rooney, how long have you been married?”
The older man laughed. “Not near long enough.”
“You recall how you, uh, ended up gettin’ married in the first place?”
Rooney leaned back and pushed the swing into motion with his foot. “Yeah, I sure do. I was married before, see. ’Cept it wasn’t in a church or anything ’cuz I’m half Cherokee. My wife, she was full-blooded Cherokee. Anyway, she died before I came to Smoke River, and when I met my Sarah I was mighty leery about gettin’ hitched up again.”
“What changed your mind?”
“Well, hell, I went and fell in love. Sarah, now, she didn’t feel that way about me fer a lotta years. So...I waited.”
Lance nodded. “What do you think changed her mind?”
Rooney slapped a gnarled hand on his knee. “Son, if I knew the answer to that, I’d be a rich man.”
Lance could think of nothing to say to that.
Rooney stuck an elbow into his ribs. “Chances are you’re not gonna understand a whole lotta things about yer wife, even if you both live to a ripe old age. But that’s not what’s important, see? Understandin’ her, I mean. What’s important is real simple. Just keep on lovin’ her.”
“That’s it? That’s all?”
“Yep, that’s pretty much it. And,” Rooney added with a chuckle, “don’t ask too many questions.”
Lance nodded his head. “Thanks, Rooney. I’ll remember that.”
“And remember them real smart words ‘for better or worse.’”
At that moment Lance made himself a solemn promise. For better or worse, no matter what came, he would do everything in his power to be a good husband to Marianne.
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