Undeniably Yours (23 page)

Beth Hansen became Mrs. Kevin Kowalski two weeks later, on a balmy Saturday night in the middle of a playground. She wore shorts, a relatively clean white shirt, a streak of marshmallow in her hair from pre-wedding s’mores and an accumulation of at least a half-dozen layers of bugspray.

She carried a bouquet of wildflowers Kevin’s nephews had picked for her in the woods. While she couldn’t identify them all, she’d been assured—by Mary, not the boys—that none of the leaves were poison ivy and all the blossoms were insect-free. Lily snoozed in her stroller, the entire thing draped with mosquito netting, and Kevin wore a T-shirt with a fake tuxedo pattern printed on it, a last-minute gift from his brothers.

Her father walked her down an aisle lined with strings of lit Chinese lanterns borrowed from a camper, while her mother sobbed and Paulie, her maid of honor, tried not to swear at a particularly determined horsefly.

Every year the entire Kowalski family made the trip to northern New Hampshire to camp for two weeks, ride their four-wheelers and swim in the pool. It wasn’t exactly primitive camping, since they were all bedding down in very nice RVs, but there were s’mores and hot dogs on sticks and plenty of mud. Kevin and Beth’s shiny new RV—an extravagant wedding gift from Joe and Keri—was parked by itself in an isolated spot across the pond from the others, on account of it being their honeymoon.

She’d questioned the wisdom of bringing a two-month-old baby camping but Kevin had pointed out that Lily didn’t really care where she was as long as she was fed, changed and cuddled. Plus, he’d said, she was a Kowalski. She could take it.

“I now pronounce you man and wife,” the justice of the peace declared. “You may kiss the bride.”

She flung her arms around her husband’s neck as he lifted her right off the ground to kiss her senseless to a soundtrack of cheers, applause, wolf whistles and what sounded like a few groans and gags from the juvenile male crowd. That was followed, naturally, by a very unhappy squawk from Lily, who didn’t particularly care for having her naps interrupted.

Kevin set Beth down, but Paulie—who wasn’t camping but had made the drive up with Sam—was already at the stroller, lifting the baby out. Kevin and Beth were hugged and kissed as they made their way down a makeshift receiving line—more like a gauntlet, she thought—and then she was able to take Lily.

“At least you know how you’ll be celebrating your anniversary every year,” Paulie said. “The Annual Kowalski family camping trip.”

“Of Doom,” Beth and Kevin said together and everybody laughed.

Then there was food and more food and then the cake. Or the cakes, rather, because there were three sheet cakes to accommodate the family, their friends and pretty much everybody in the campground.

Lily was fed and changed and eventually, after a round of pass the baby, she finally went back to sleep in Shelly’s arms. Stephanie plugged her iPod into a set of external speakers somebody had provided and a sweet country song drifted across the campground.

Kevin pulled Beth into his arms and they danced for the first time as man and wife. She laid her head on his chest, tears brimming on her lashes. She wasn’t sure how he’d managed to stumble across the Tim McGraw and Faith Hill duet, considering his taste in music, but it was perfect. His love definitely did something to her.

“I thought I’d never get to dance with my wife.”

She loved the sound of that. “You sure know how to show a girl an interesting time, husband.”

His hands slid down her hips—not far enough to be indecent in front of the family, but far enough to promise he’d get indecent later. Beth preferred to think the warm tingle spreading across her skin was the thrill of the moment rather than the high concentration of DEET eating her flesh.

“Are you going to be sorry someday you didn’t get the dress and the flowers and all that crap?”

“I’ll never be sorry. And I had flowers. Special flowers picked just for me.”

“Umm…were you able to identify all of them before you touched them?”

“No, but your mother checked them for poison ivy and bugs.”

She rested her head against him as he laughed and she felt the rumble through his chest. His hands slid up to her back and he rested his cheek on the top of her head as they swayed together through the rest of the song. As the last notes faded away, he tipped her chin up and kissed her again. Then he moved his mouth close to her ear.

“I can’t believe I’m going to say this,” he said so quietly nobody could hear him but her, “but I’m glad you made me wait. Made
us
wait. For this, I mean.”

So was she. This marriage wasn’t going to be chased by doubts. No staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night wondering if her husband had really wanted to marry her. “I love you.”

“And since you wrote it on a napkin, it must be true.”

True to his word, Kevin had framed the napkin she and Lily kissed in the middle of the night and hung it over the bar. She was hoping that, along with the wide and shiny gold band on his finger, would cut down the number of napkins in the basket.

“Do you want your present now?” he asked.

“Right here in front of everybody?”

“Everybody helped. Joe just finished up his part while we were dancing, as a matter of fact. I think they’d like to see you open it.”

She let him lead her over to the table set up for the gifts and she laughed when he handed her a flat package wrapped in newspaper and secured with what looked like an entire roll of tape.

“We either forgot the extra wrapping paper or it’s hiding in one of the campers,” Keri explained.

“I wrapped it,” Brian said.

Bobby shoved him. “I helped!”

“It looks wonderful.” Beth turned the package over in her hands until she finally found what looked like a weak point in the tape. It wasn’t easy, but she managed to get the flat box unwrapped without using her teeth.

When she lifted the lid and peeled back the tissue paper, her breath caught in her chest and tears sprang instantly to her eyes.

It was a collage photo frame, identical to the one she’d given Kevin for Christmas. The picture Mary had taken of them with Lily when she was three weeks old was in the center. There was a photo of Beth playing with the boys and Stephanie at Christmas. A shot of her and Paulie laughing together at Jasper’s she’d never even known was taken. A photo of her parents with Lily, taken while they were still at the hospital. A group shot of the entire family, with her at the center in her tiara, taken at her baby shower.

And there were two from that very night. One taken as they looked into each other’s eyes and said their vows. Another of them in each other’s arms when they danced as husband and wife.

That must have been Joe’s part, she thought. He had a laptop and a small printer with him, so he must have printed the last two pictures while they finished their dance.

They were all there in candid moments captured forever under glass. Her family. “It’s beautiful.”

Kevin put his arm around her waist and pulled her close. “They’ll look awesome hanging together in the new house.”

There wasn’t a new house yet, but Kevin was pretty determined Lily would spend her first Christmas in a real house with a yard she wasn’t old enough to play in. “Yes, they will. In the meantime, they’ll hang together over your—I mean
our
—couch.”

He kissed her again, until Bobby’s voice broke into the moment. “Time for the Wedding Garter Toss of Doom!”

Beth and Kevin broke apart, and she laughed when she saw the game they were setting up. Instead of horseshoes, they’d be tossing rings painted to look like wedding garters at the stakes. The kids were already arguing over who was on which team, and the guys were surreptitiously switching out paper cups of Kool-Aid disguised as wedding punch for beer and sodas.

Her family, she thought again and there was no hesitation. No pangs of regret or longing for Albuquerque. Hell, she even had her eye on a late-model minivan for sale down the street from the bar.

This was her home, with the people who cared about her. She loved them all, especially the tall one arguing with his brothers about how many paces should be between the stakes and whose paces they were going to use.

“I love you,” she mouthed when he looked in her direction.

He grinned, flashing full dimples at her. “You might love me right now, but the kids said we have to be on opposite teams. The groom’s team and the bride’s team.”

Beth laughed and joined her family, ready to kick her new husband’s ass at the Wedding Garter Toss of Doom.

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