“Now I’ll have all of my family with me in heaven,” Amy said. “You and Daddy and Mommy. Everybody I love.”
That night, when Wes came home, he immediately noticed a change in Laney. She was calmer and smiled more, and he wondered if it had something to do with the move.
“So what did you guys do today?” he asked Amy while Laney was making supper.
With big, round eyes, Amy looked up at her father. “We talked about Jesus,” Amy whispered. “And I helped Laney ask Jesus into her heart.”
He caught his breath. “You … you did?”
“Yes, Daddy. She cried, and then she called Brother Alan, and he came over, and …”
Wes let her go and stood up, trying to determine how much of this was his child’s imagination and how much was reality. “Are you telling me that Laney prayed?”
“With me, and then with Brother Alan. But don’t tell her I told you. Let her do it. She needs to confess it before man, you know. I’m just a girl.”
Tears came to his eyes, and he lifted his child up into his arms. “You are an amazing little angel, do you know that?”
“Why, Daddy?”
“Because …”
He stopped short when Laney breezed in with two bowls of vegetables in her hands. “Are you guys ready to eat?”
Wes swallowed and tried to look natural. “Sure. I’m starved.”
She set the bowls down then looked up at Wes. A shy smile crept across her face. “Did Amy tell you what happened to me today?”
He set Amy down and met the child’s eyes. She nodded that it was all right to tell. “Well, yes. She said that you’d made a profession of faith.”
Laney smiled openly. “That sounds so cold. Not at all like what happened to me.” She reached out for him, and Wes pulled her into his arms and crushed her.
“I’m so happy for you, Laney.”
“I’m getting baptized Sunday, Wes. I hope that’s not a bad time.”
He pulled back to look at her, laughing with joy. “A bad time? Are you kidding?”
And as he held her, he recommitted his own life to the One who had taken a lie and turned it into truth.
That night, Laney and Amy went back into the child’s room to resume their packing. Looking around the room, she saw it with new eyes. Eyes that didn’t count the loss but saw only the gain. Eyes that didn’t recall the darkness but saw only the light.
And there was light in Patrice’s legacy to her daughter. Beautiful light in the ceramic clowns that Patrice had painted, lattice hangings, quilted dolls. They hadn’t had much money, but Patrice had made them wealthy in other ways. “We’ll take all of this,” she whispered finally. “They belong with you.”
She found herself wishing she had met the woman when she began helping Wes pack. She saw Patrice’s sense of humor in the silly gifts she had bought for him: a huge polka-dot bow tie that she’d given him for a birthday, a pair of size fifty-four boxing shorts with hearts all over them, plaid socks, a Scottish kilt.
Wes caught her gazing with a smile on her face at the woman’s portrait beside the bed, and he stopped folding the clothes he was stacking into a box.
“I think I would have liked her,” Laney said finally.
Moved again, Wes gazed with her at the picture. “I think she would have liked you,” he whispered.
She looked up at him, expecting him to still be gazing at the picture, but his eyes were on her, instead. Her heart caught at his yearning expression. “You just don’t know what you do to me, Laney.”
Hope rose to block her throat. She touched his stubbled jaw with disbelieving fingers. “Tell me.”
He moved her hand to his mouth and held it there as his brows came together. “You make me forget the pain, but you create a new pain.”
She stared up at him. A new pain. He felt it, too. “Then why?” she asked. “Why have you avoided me? Why have you been coming home late, working weekends—”
“Because being near you drives me crazy,” he said simply. “Because I can’t really even touch you, and I want to. But wanting to seems like such a betrayal … it doesn’t make sense, I know, but it’s there.”
“It’s OK,” she whispered.
She caught her breath as his lips came down on hers with the gentleness of a sigh, cleansing her of her fears and phantoms, bathing her in warmth and hope. He was almost husband, almost lover, almost friend.
After a moment, he broke the kiss and gazed down at her, touching her face as if she were a precious treasure. “I was thinking, Laney … about all the guilt I’ve felt. About our marriage. The way we did it.”
It was clear something was missing, but she wasn’t sure what he meant.
Recognizing her confusion, he met her eyes as his grew misty. “It never feels good to go against God’s will. It always makes me miserable.”
“And you think our marriage was against his will?”
He thought for a moment. “It might have been in his will, eventually, but we didn’t give him time. And because we rushed so, we deprived ourselves of the opportunity to get to know each other. To get closer. Maybe even to fall in love.”
She didn’t know what to say, so she only gazed up at him, waiting for whatever he was leading to.
“But it’s so funny how God always makes provisions for our mistakes. He works around them, you know? Uses them.”
He stared at her for a long moment, and it was clear that this wasn’t easy for him.
“He’s making me fall in love with you, anyway,” he said. “It’s the craziest thing. And now we’re equally yoked. There’s really no reason …”
She caught her breath as he kissed her again.
“Laney,” he whispered against her lips, “would you consider setting things right?”
“How?” she whispered.
He combed his fingers through the back of her hair and pressed his forehead against hers. “Would you consider marrying me again? This time for real? In the church, with God blessing us?”
Slowly, she stood straighter and gazed at him with astonishment. “You want to marry me again?”
“Yes,” he whispered. “Right now, I don’t know whether to go forward or backward. I feel like I’m cheating if I get close to you, like the Devil’s got some terrible hold on me, and he’s using my past and my own marriage against me. I want it to be real, Laney, so I can act on my feelings. So I can be happy about falling in love with you, rather than miserable.”
She breathed in a sob and covered her mouth. Would a real marriage keep the memories of Patrice out? Would it help him to forget and cleave to her?
Maybe, she thought. And if not, she would be patient. All she wanted now was to be Wes’s wife—in more than name. “Yes … I’ll … I’ll marry you again …”
“Tonight?” he whispered. “We’ll get Sherry to watch Amy, and we’ll go talk to Alan and get him to do it all over, right there in the church.”
“Tonight,” she whispered, teetering between laughter and tears.
A lan came over from the parsonage at nine and met them in his office, wearing a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Wes reached for Laney’s hand and squeezed it. “We want you to marry us, Alan.”
Alan frowned and leaned forward. “Didn’t we already do that?”
“Yeah, we did. But I wasn’t being honest with you. And I wasn’t being honest with God.”
Alan’s eyebrows lifted, and smiling, he leaned back in his chair.
“Now, I want to make a real commitment. Under God. I want him to be at the center of this covenant.”
Alan smiled at the tears in Laney’s eyes. “And how do you feel about this, Laney?”
Laney was quiet for a moment, then finally, she tried to speak. “Everything changed for me today,” she whispered. “I don’t deserve any of this, but here it is. I don’t know why he would bless me with my little girl and such a wonderful man after all the things I’ve done in my life …” Her v
oice broke off, but she tried to go on. “The fact that Wes wants to marry me again, for real, is just too good to be true. But if God could give me a gift like he gave me today, then he could give me this.”
Alan looked down at his hands, his own eyes misty. “You don’t know how I’ve been praying for this.”
Laney looked surprised. “You have?”
“Ever since I performed your ceremony,” he said. “I’ve felt so guilty. I shouldn’t have done it, and I’ve asked God to forgive me and make your marriage a real one. I guess he just answered my prayer.” He slapped his knees and grinned as he got to his feet. “All right, then. Let’s go to the sanctuary and talk to God together.”
They felt as giddy as teenagers as they headed for the sanctuary. Halfway up the hall, they saw Herman, the janitor, and his wife, Ruby, waxing the floor in the nursery.
“Hey, Herman!” Wes called, and the old man peeked out the door. “Want to be a witness at a wedding?”
Herman looked puzzled and stepped out into the hall, still holding his mop. His wife came out behind him.
“Wes?” she asked. “Who’s getting married?”
“We are!” Wes said. “Come on. You can stand up for us.”
“But … we’re not dressed for it!”
“Neither are we!” Wes said.
Herman leaned the mop against the wall and loped toward them. “Thought you two already got married,” he said.
“That’s right,” Ruby said. “I know Eugenia told us you’d already gotten married. She was a little miffed that she wasn’t invited.”
“Well, she’ll be doubly miffed when she finds out we did it twice and left her out both times! You just tell her that I liked my new wife so much I decided to marry her twice!”
Laney laughed and fell against Wes.
When Herman reached them, he looked at Alan. “All this OK with you, Pastor?”
Alan grinned. “I’m game if you are.”
Herman looked them both over, then let a tiny grin crack through his usually bland features. “Well, all right. Ruby, it looks like we’re going to a wedding.”
“Beats mopping the floor,” Ruby said on a high-pitched laugh.
They went into the small sanctuary and gathered at the altar, and suddenly all the laughter faded and the giddy smiles settled into serene ones. The Holy Spirit was with them.
Alan’s voice was reverent, soft, as he spoke.
“Tonight, when I saw the joy on both of your faces and felt the thrill you both felt at the idea of doing it before God, asking for his blessings, I couldn’t help feeling that it was all in his plan. I’m honored to be here with you as you commit your lives to each other under God.” He swallowed back the emotion cracking his voice, and said, “Wes, do you take Laney as your lawfully wedded wife?”
Wes listened to the vows this time, savoring every one, seriously looking forward to fulfilling each one with her. “I do,” he said.
“And Laney, do you take Wes to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
Tears came to her eyes as the vows were repeated, sweetly, seriously, with a different spirit this time. This time, she hadn’t coerced him. This time, it was his idea. It wasn’t money that was the catalyst or Amy or any number of other things. It was love. Even though he hadn’t said it outright, in so many words, she thought he was beginning to love her. Not as much as Patrice, perhaps, but she would take whatever he gave her.
“Laney and Wes, by the power vested in me by God and the state of Louisiana, I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.”
Wes leaned down and kissed her hard, deep, with all the passion that he’d held back since the first time he’d tasted her. The kiss lingered on, and her fear vaporized like a fog in a cool, dry wind. He was her husband, she thought. Her real husband. And he took pleasure in her kiss, her touch … Tonight, he would take pleasure in her body.
Alan cleared his throat, but the kiss didn’t break. “You may kiss the bride,” he teased softly. The janitor and his wife began to laugh, and finally, Wes pulled his lips away from Laney’s. Touching her face with his hand, he said, “Sorry, guys. But if you knew how badly I wanted to do that …”
Laney blinked back the tears in her eyes and turned to hug Ruby. “Thank you for being our witnesses.”
“It’s not like you needed us,” Ruby said, hugging her back. “There’s nothing to sign. You’re already married.”
“You were needed,” Wes said. “You were needed so you could tell everyone who asks that Wes is elated with his new wife. That our marriage is not a sham.”
“I’ll call Eugenia first thing in the morning,” Ruby laughed, clapping her hands together. “Now, you two go home and start your lives together. Again.”
Laney reached out to hug Alan. He had given her a cursory hug at the first wedding, but she’d felt his reluctance to hold out too much hope for either of them. This time, however, his hug spoke volumes. “God has funny ways of working,” he said. “I’m always amazed, but I’m never surprised.”
Feeling as if she would burst with joy and excitement and gratitude, Laney let Wes pull her out of the church and back to the car.
She was nervous as they drove home. Their first wedding night had been filled with uncertainty, but there was no uncertainty now. She knew where tonight would lead them, and she felt an almost childish excitement about it. Yet it still frightened her. The one time she had been with a man had turned out badly. Now she didn’t really know what he expected from her, what he needed, how he wanted her to behave.
He seemed to grow quieter as they grew closer to his house, and she began to wonder if he regretted what had happened. When he pulled into his driveway, he left the car idling but made no move to get out.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered.
He started to speak, stopped, then tried again. “I want this to be right,” he whispered. “Perfect. You deserve that.”
“It will be,” she whispered.
“Would it … would it bother you if we had our honeymoon at your house?” he asked. “I mean, I know we haven’t moved in over there yet, but it is going to be our home together, and it just makes more sense.”
Her heart sank. She knew the real reason he didn’t want to share their honeymoon night here. Already Patrice’s memory had come between them.
He seemed to read her thoughts and leaning across the seat, slid his fingers through her hair. His lips brushed hers, chaste but promising. “Don’t look so crestfallen,” he whispered. “It’s you I want to be with. Without distractions.”
“I want that, too,” she whispered. “My house is fine if you don’t feel comfortable here.”
He kissed her, then backed the car out and headed back across town.
Laney tried not to let herself dwell on his preoccupation with Patrice, though she knew he didn’t want to take her home and make love to her on the bed he’d shared with his first wife. He wanted to do it someplace else, almost in secret, so that Laney wouldn’t taint Patrice’s memory.
They reached Laney’s house, and she found herself uncertain again as they went to the door.
“Wait a minute,” Wes said, taking the key from her hand and unlocking the door himself. He smiled down at her, lifted her in his arms, and carried her over the threshold. “Welcome home, Mrs. Grayson.”
Her fears and worries about Patrice and why he had brought her here vanished as her feet touched the ground again, and Wes drew her closer. He kissed her, deeper than he had at the church, and she felt the hunger that had been hidden away since the first night she had shared a bedroom with him. Her anxieties melted away one by one as the new freedom of her marriage released her.
“That apricot scent,” he whispered. “It’s driven me crazy since the first day I met you.”
She couldn’t answer. Her voice was lost somewhere in the electricity his words sparked.
“I’ve watched you sleep sometimes at night, Laney,” he went on. “And I’ve fought myself to keep from slipping under the
covers next to you … holding you …”
She slid her arms around his neck with a freedom she hadn’t known before and sought his lips again. He kissed her with a ravenous urgency, creating the same urgency in her.
When her knees seemed weak and her hands trembled, he lifted her again and carried her up the stairs.
Amazed at the miracle of this newfound love and the sweetness of their covenant together, they cherished each other without inhibition, then slept for the first time as man and wife.
After her baptism on Sunday night, they spent their first night as a family in Laney’s house. Amy had fallen asleep on the couch after supper, exhausted from the day’s move, and had been carried to her new bed. Laney wanted to be alone with Wes, to tell him she loved him, to hear him say he loved her. She wanted to hear him say that he trusted her completely, enough to combine checking accounts and stop trying to pay her back for every penny she spent on him … and every cent she had given him. But one dream at a time was the most she hoped for, and having her new family opening up to her for the first time seemed so much already.
She tried to leave Wes alone as he lay on the daybed beside the glass doors looking out over the pool. His pensive, distant mood probably shouldn’t be disturbed, she decided. So she made herself busy cleaning the kitchen then putting away some of the toys Amy had left in the den. She tried to move quietly, feeling she wasn’t welcome in his thoughts, feeling that, perhaps, he regretted everything that had happened over the past few days. Maybe he felt he had given her too much of himself, and by doing so had taken too much from Patrice. Laney struggled to understand, to be stoic, to be patient.
But when he reached out and pulled her down beside him as she was tiptoeing by, the relief and gratitude washing over her told her she was as weak as a dandelion puff where he was concerned.
“Why are you being so quiet?” he asked.
“Because you are.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “There’s just so much on my mind. So much has happened so fast.”
“I know. Too fast, maybe.”