The Royal Handmaid (35 page)

Tears flooded Rena’s eyes as the simplicity of his declaration went straight to her heart. With no hesitation, she reached up and put her arms around him, her expression sweet. She had known for some time that she loved him.

Travis drew her close and lowered his lips to hers. Her kiss stirred him as he had never known a woman could stir him. She was like the sweetest fragrance or the most moving melody imaginable. It was like falling into softness. “Let’s love each other all of our days,” he whispered after he pulled away.

“All of our days.”

Rena laid her head against his chest, and he held her tightly. She knew that this love was something she had been searching
for all of her life. Finally she lifted her head and said, “Let’s never lose each other, Travis.”

“We never will.”

The two of them turned and began to walk along the shore. They remained silent for several minutes, too full of emotion for speech. “Shall we tell the others?” she asked.

“Whatever you want.”

****

By late afternoon the wedding feast had broken up as people went back to their everyday affairs. Travis and Rena had returned to the village but now found themselves restless. “Let’s go back to the beach,” she suggested.

“You just want more kisses and more sweet talk, don’t you?” Travis said with a grin.

Rena smiled at his teasing. “That’s right. I will require a great deal of that.”

“You should marry a poet, then.”

“I can teach you,” Rena quipped.

The two left hand in hand and went back to the beach. The sun was beginning to sink into the west, illuminating the sky and water with its usual tropical brilliance. Even though they had enjoyed the sight many times now, its beauty and splendor still took their breath away.

The two of them walked along, Rena stopping from time to time to pick up a shell. She found herself talking nonstop and finally said, “I’m babbling like a crazy woman.”

“I guess I’ll have to put up with it for the next fifty years or so.”

“Yes, you will. I want something put in the wedding ceremony when the captain marries us.”

“What?”

“I want him to put a promise in there that you’ll tell me you love me every day, even when we’re fighting.”

“Fighting! We’ll never fight.”

“That’s what you think!” Rena laughed shortly. “We’ll have some hard times.”

“I guess you’re right. You’re pretty cantankerous. Okay, I’ll ask the captain to put that in the vows. Does that only work one way?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you have to tell me you love me every day too?”

“Of course. And let’s agree never to go to sleep mad at each other.”

He laughed. “What do you mean by that, Rena? What if a fuss lasts two or three days?”

“Then we don’t sleep. We stay awake until we both say we’re sorry and make up.”

Travis rubbed his beard and grinned. “A fella could miss a lot of sleep like that.”

“Will you do it?”

“Oh, we don’t have to put it in the wedding vows. Let’s just promise each other now.”

“All right.”

Rena laughed again. “We’re making up all sorts of rules for ourselves, aren’t we?”

“Not a bad idea.”

“I’m not sure it always works that way. People can make lots of plans, but then they don’t always work out like they want.”

Travis seized her and spun her around. “
You’re
what I want! God has given me two great gifts. One is salvation in Jesus and the other is a woman to love for the rest of my life. That’s all a man needs, Rena, and I’ve got them both.”

He kissed her then, and she clung to him. Finally she pushed
him away breathlessly. “That’s enough of that. Come along. Let’s walk some more.”

They walked for no more than ten minutes when suddenly Travis halted. “Do you hear something?”

Rena looked at him with surprise. “No . . . what do you hear?”

“I don’t know.”

The two stood absolutely still, straining to hear, and suddenly Travis whirled and pointed out toward the ocean. He yelled, “Look!” And when Rena’s eyes turned to follow his gesture, she saw a dot in the sky and heard a faint buzzing. She grabbed Travis’s arm with both hands and held on to him.

“Travis,” she whispered, “it’s a plane!”

“Yes, it is!” He pulled away from her and began dancing around, waving his arms. “Here we are!” he yelled. “Look, here we are!”

Rena laughed. “They can’t hear you.” But she could not resist joining in and began waving her arms and crying out too.

The dot became larger, and suddenly the plane dipped and banked to one side.

“They’ve seen us!” Travis yelled. “Look, they’ve seen us!”

“What kind of an airplane is that? I’ve never seen one like it,” Rena said.

“Why, it looks like a catamaran with an airplane on top of it. Look, Rena, they’re landing!”

The plane swooped down for a landing. It touched the water, bounced once, and then settled onto the ocean, taking a long distance to stop. Travis and Rena watched speechless, holding each other.

“We’re saved, sweetheart!” Travis said.

“It’s a miracle!”

“I’ve been praying for a miracle to drop out of heaven, and one literally did. Look, they’re putting a boat out.”

The plane had come to rest about a hundred yards from shore. A door opened, and a small rubber boat was released.
Two people got in it and began to paddle. “I can’t believe it,” he whispered. “You see who that is?”

Rena shaded her eyes and suddenly gasped. “It’s my dad!” she cried.

“And do you see who the other one is? It’s Cerny Novak.”

The two stood at the edge of the water, and as soon as the small boat was close, they began calling out. Rena ran into the water, and Loren Matthews jumped out of the boat, crying, “Rena—Rena!”

Rena ran to meet him as fast as she could in the water. He grabbed her and held her so tightly she could barely breathe. “I found you, Rena! I found you!”

By now Travis was by their side too, and Cerny Novak leaped out of the boat to pull it onto the beach. As Travis grabbed the boat to help him, he was grinning broadly. “You son of a gun, you did it!”

“I reckon those prayers of yours must have done some good,” Cerny said as he put out his hand to Travis. “You’re not going to believe this, but I’m on the glory road now.” He laughed aloud. “I thought I was a goner, but God put me in the right place at the right time.”

By this time the shore was filled with people, natives and missionaries alike, all hurrying and shouting and babbling. “Dad, come on.”

She pulled him onto the shore, and he was met by Captain Barkley, who was smiling broadly. “Well, you took long enough to get here, Loren.”

“Sorry about that, Caleb.”

Rena would not let go of her father. She clung to his arm as he greeted the others, and Novak was greeted as well, especially by Shep and Oscar and Chip.

Oscar shook his head. “Never thought I’d see you again, Cerny.”

“Well, I was about ready to die, but God had other ideas. Wait’ll you hear what happened.”

The group started moving inland, and Loren said, “Cerny,
will you go back and tell Captain Williams and the copilot we need to pull the plane in? We’re going to be here for a while. I imagine we can get something to eat and maybe a dry place to spend the night.”

“Right, Captain,” Cerny said.

The group moved as a mass, everyone talking at once, but Travis stopped Loren by saying, “Mr. Matthews, let’s get one thing straight right now.”

Surprised, Loren turned and said, “What’s that, Travis?”

“I want permission to court your daughter.”

Loren’s eyes opened wide, and he turned to face Rena, who was still holding on to his arm. “Is that the way it is, Rena?”

“Yes, it is, Dad. I love him with all my heart. He’s the best man I’ve ever known.”

Loren kissed his daughter and hugged her firmly. He put his hand out to Travis. “All right, son, you come courting. And I’ll dance at your wedding.”

The crowd pulled Loren away, and Travis took Rena’s hand, holding her back. They lingered behind until the voices grew faint; then he turned to her and said, “You know how God has promised in the book of Romans that He will turn any situation to good?”

She smiled up at him. “How many times have we quoted that verse to each other this past year? ‘And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.’ ”

“Do you believe that, Rena?”

“How could I not, when I look at all the tragedy and heartache we’ve suffered together and how such joy and happiness have come out of it? Who could have done this other than God?”

“One could almost believe that He made this all happen on purpose—just to bring the two of us together.”

Rena touched his cheek tenderly and said, “You’re right. I could almost believe it.”

Travis wrapped his arms around her and held her close.
“It is a great mystery to me how God could have done this thing. And whether He meant for it all to happen exactly this way, we’ll never know. But I do know this—nothing happens in our lives that is out of His control. He has brought you into my life for a purpose. We would never have known each other without all this hardship, but I believe He means for us to be together now.”

Rena laughed and squeezed him tightly. “I think you’re right,” she said. “Marriages
are
made in heaven.”

Travis lowered his head and kissed her, and then the two turned and made their way to where the joyous sounds of laughter filled the air.

GILBERT MORRIS spent ten years as a pastor before becoming Professor of English at Ouachita Baptist University in Arkansas and earning a Ph.D. at the University of Arkansas. A prolific writer, he has had over 25 scholarly articles and 200 poems published in various periodicals, and over the past years has had more than 180 novels published. His family includes three grown children, and he and his wife live in Gulf Shores, Alabama.