Summer Wedding Bells: Marriage Wanted / Lone Star Lovin'

“Don’t, please don’t.” She didn’t often plead, but she did now, struggling to keep her voice from quavering.

He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

She bit her lower lip so hard, she was afraid she’d drawn blood. “My parents would like to see me settled down and married. They…they believe I’m like every other woman and—”

“You aren’t?”

Savannah wondered if his question was sincere. “I’m handicapped,” she said bluntly. “In my experience, men want a woman who’s whole and perfect. Their egos ride on that, and I’m flawed. Defective merchandise doesn’t do much for the ego.”

“Savannah—”

She placed her hand against his chest. “Please don’t say it. Spare me the speech. I’ve accepted what’s wrong with me. I’ve accepted the fact that I’ll never run or jump or marry or—”

Nash stepped back from her, his gaze pinning hers. “You’re right, Savannah,” he broke in. “You are handicapped and you will be until you view yourself otherwise.” Having said that, he turned and walked away.

Savannah went in the opposite direction, needing a few moments to compose herself before rejoining the others. She heard her mother’s laughter and turned to see her father with his arms around Joyce’s waist, nuzzling her neck. From a distance they looked twenty years younger. Their love was as alive now as it had been years earlier…and demonstrating that was the purpose of this visit.

She scanned the yard, looking for Nash, wanting him to witness the happy exchange between her parents, but he was busy studying the fishing flies her father had left out for his inspection.

Her father’s shout alerted Savannah that dinner was ready. Reluctantly she joined Nash and her parents at the round picnic table. She wasn’t given any choice but to share the crescent-shaped bench with him.

He was close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off his body. Close enough that she yearned to be closer yet. That was what surprised her, but more profoundly it terrified her. From the first moment she’d met him, Savannah suspected there was something different about him, about her reactions to him. In the beginning she’d attributed it to their disagreement, his heated argument against marriage, the challenge he represented, the promise of satisfaction if she could change his mind.

Dinner was delicious and Nash went out of his way to compliment Joyce until her mother blushed with pleasure.

“So,” her father said, glancing purposefully toward Savannah and Nash, “what are your plans?”

“For what?” Nash asked.

Savannah already knew the question almost as well as she knew the answer. Her father was asking about her future with Nash, and she had none.

“Why don’t you tell Nash how you and Mom met,” Savannah asked, interrupting her father before he could respond to Nash’s question.

“Oh, Savannah,” her mother protested, “that was years and years ago.” She glanced at her husband of thirty-seven years and her clear eyes lit up with a love so strong, it couldn’t be disguised. “But it was terribly romantic.”

“You want to hear this?” Marcus’s question was directed to Nash.

“By all means.”

In that moment, Savannah could have kissed Nash, she was so grateful. “I was in the service,” her father explained. “An Airborne Ranger. A few days before I met Joyce, I received my orders and learned I was about to be stationed in Germany.”

“He’d come up from California and was at Fort Lewis,” her mother added.

“There’s not much to tell. Two weeks before I was scheduled to leave, I met Joyce at a dance.”

“Daddy, you left out the best part,” Savannah complained. “It wasn’t like the band was playing a number you enjoyed and you needed a partner.”

Her father chuckled. “You’re right about that. I’d gone to the dance with a couple of buddies. The evening hadn’t been going well.”

“I remember you’d been stood up,” Savannah inserted, eager to get to the details of their romance.

“No, dear,” her mother intervened, picking up the story, “that was me. So I was in no mood to be at any social function. The only reason I decided to go was to make sure Lenny Walton knew I hadn’t sat home mooning over him, but in reality I was at the dance mooning over him.”

“I wasn’t particularly keen on being at this dance, either,” Marcus added. “I thought, mistakenly, that we were going to play pool at a local hall. I’ve never been much of a dancer, but my buddies were. They disappeared onto the dance floor almost immediately. I was bored and wandered around the hall for a while. I kept looking at my watch, eager to be on my way.”

“As you can imagine, I wasn’t dancing much myself,” Joyce said.

“Then it happened.” Savannah pressed her palms together and leaned forward. “This is my favorite part,” she told Nash.

“I saw Joyce.” Her father’s voice dropped slightly. “When I first caught sight of her, my heart seized. I thought I might be having a reaction to the shots we’d been given earlier in the day. I swear I’d never seen a more beautiful woman. She wore this white dress and she looked like an angel. For a moment I was convinced she was.” He reached for her mother’s hand.

“I saw Marcus at that precise second, as well,” Joyce whispered. “My friends were chatting and their voices faded until the only sound I heard was the pounding of my own heart. I don’t remember walking toward him and yet I must have, because when I looked up Marcus was standing there.”

“The funny part is, I don’t remember moving, either.”

Savannah propped her elbows on the table, her dinner forgotten. This story never failed to move her, although she’d heard it dozens of times over the years.

“We danced,” her mother continued.

“All night.”

“We didn’t say a word. I think we must’ve been afraid the other would vanish if we spoke.”

“While we were on the dance floor I kept pinching myself to be sure this was real, that Joyce was real. It was like we were both in a dream. These sorts of things only happen in the movies.

“When the music stopped, I looked around and realized my buddies were gone. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Joyce.”

“Oh, Dad, I never get tired of hearing this story.”

Joyce smiled as if she, too, was eager to relive the events of that night. “As we were walking out of the hall, I kept thinking I was never going to see Marcus again. I knew he was in the army—his haircut was a dead giveaway. I was well aware that my parents didn’t want me dating anyone in the military, and up until then I’d abided by their wishes.”

“I was afraid I wasn’t going to see her again,” Savannah’s father went on. “But Joyce gave me her name and phone number and then ran off to catch up with her ride home.”

“I didn’t sleep at all that night. I was convinced I’d imagined everything.”

“I couldn’t sleep, either,” Marcus confessed. “Here I was with my shipping orders in my pocket—this was not the time to get involved with a woman.”

“I’m glad you changed your mind,” Nash said, studying Savannah.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t think I had much of a choice. It was as if our relationship was preordained. By the end of the following week, I knew Joyce was the woman I’d marry. I knew I’d love her all my life, and both have held true.”

“Did you leave for Germany?”

“Of course. I had no alternative. We wrote back and forth for two years and then were married three months after I was discharged. There was never another woman for me after I met Joyce.”

“There was never another man for me,” her mother said quietly.

Savannah tossed Nash a triumphant look and was disappointed to see that he wasn’t looking her way.