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The guests gathered about them in a semi-circle, and in the midst of friends, she and Hudson exchanged their vows. The words they had chosen themselves made it a special service. Hudson had been right about his father, he did indeed have a flair for arranging a splendid occasion. No other girl would have a wedding like this.

no other girl would have a bridegroom like Hudson.

And in complete silence, the soloist’s voice soared to the heavens, ‘How great thou art, How great thou art’, and Serenity held tightly to Hudson’s hand hardly able to bear the joy of it all.

His parents were first to kiss and congratulate them, then Cam, then the whole tempo quickened as the famous Kokatahi Band started to play. Dressed in their gold-mining regalia and beating a fantastic toe-tapping rhythm on old-fashioned instruments, they lifted the mood to a new height of laughter and happiness.

Guests moved down the terraces to take crimson wine in silver goblets, slices of beef, from where the huge saddle of prime bullock turned on a spit over a glowing bed of coals of
matai
wood and it was as if time had ceased to exist.

As dusk deepened into dark, she and Hudson waltzed together in the marquee, oblivious of the crowd, lost to everyone but themselves and their love for each other.

He smiled down at her, and bent his auburn head to her fair one. ‘The only way I’m going to get you out of here is to do a young Lochinvar act. This will go all night, and if we start to say goodbyes we’ll never be alone together.’

He swooped her up in his arms, and strode through the cheering crowd, out past the bonfire still sending sparks into the night, and placed her in his car.

‘Look at the moon, Hudson, just look at the moon.’

‘The moon is always closer at Haupiri, darling, like the wind is close; like you and me, darling—always and forever, close to each other.’