Promises in Paradise

by Sandra Kitt

  “I can’t help the way I feel about you, Di. It sure didn’t happen right away. I’ve cared about you for a long time. You made me wait a very long time to say I love you.”

  Diane swallowed and her eyes brightened. “Does that mean…” She stopped, wanting him to fill in the blank.

  “What should it mean?”

  He was relentless, and she loved him all the more for making her say it out loud.

  She hesitated and suddenly frowned. “Did you just say you loved me?”

  “Yes,” Hale said simply.

  She stared with her mouth gaping at him, as if she couldn’t believe it or expected him to vanish in a puff of smoke. Diane gave an enormous, ear-piercing scream and propelled herself clear off the floor into Hale’s arms, wrapping her legs around his waist.

  “Will you marry me, Hale Cameron?” she asked, the question muffled and lost in his neck as she hugged him. Held on to him as though her life depended on it.

  “Thank God! Enough, already,” someone groused in the crowd of witnesses. People laughed.

  Diane never let go of her hold around Hale’s neck, but she loosened her leg wrap and put her feet back on the floor.

  “You mean it?” Diane asked, staring at him, knowing her own love was written all over her face.

  “I better. I’m tired of fighting. I just want to love you.”

  “Hale…me, too,” Diane said, her voice thin and high.

  She was glad when he finally stopped her from talking and just kissed her, much to the entertainment of the entire airport waiting room, who whistled and wolfed them.

  It was the best medicine for what had ailed both of them.

  Chapter 12

  “It’s really going to happen,” Diane murmured, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

  Behind her Eva chuckled. She was slightly bent over as she carefully attached one more flower to the colorful arrangement pinned to her hair.

  “Are you excited? You and I have hardly had any time to talk since you told Adam and me that you were getting married.”

  “Excited?” Diane repeated. “It took an awful long time to get here. I’m very happy. And I finally feel quiet inside. Does that make sense?”

  Eva stood, barely able to see over the top of Diane’s head as Diane sat in front of the vanity. She cupped her shoulders and squeezed.

  “Honey, it makes perfect sense. Everything does when you’re in love. What do you think?”

  Diane turned her head slowly left and right, and then smiled. “It’s beautiful. Just what I wanted.”

  “Come on, we have to hurry. I think Simon is waiting with the car to drive you to the pier. You need to be on board before Hale gets there, and the guests.”

  Diane stood and let her white dress fall and drape gracefully around her slender body. She again turned this way and that.

  “You look beautiful,” Eva told her.

  “Maybe it’s too simple. Maybe I should have…”

  “You picked the dress that’s comfortable for you, and I really think it’s a great choice. The wide boat neckline really shows your long neck and face and hair. And I like that the dress isn’t fussy.”

  “Me, too.” Diane sighed, reassured.

  “Where’s your mother?” Eva asked placidly, her back turned to Diane as she bent to pick up her purse from an ottoman.

  “Probably outside complaining about anything and everything. You know if it’s not her way it’s wrong.”

  “I’m sorry, honey but don’t let it upset you. Especially not today.”

  “I won’t. Believe me, I know my mother and how to say no to her. She’s really a smart, beautiful woman. But she requires a lot of patience.” Diane faced the mirror again. “Am I missing anything?”

  “Just this.”

  Eva approached her and reached up her arms to Diane. Diane had to bend over to accommodate her stepmother’s petite height, but they hugged one another with great affection and warmth.

  “I’m so happy for you and Hale. Your father and I believed for years that you two would be good for each other.”

  “I wish I’d seen it sooner. Think of all that time we lost because of me.”

  “Things happen when they’re supposed to happen. You know, after my husband and daughter were killed you could not have convinced me that I’d ever marry again. When I came down to St. John for that vacation Adam was the last person I was looking to meet. And he didn’t make it easy to love him.”

  “I know. He told me. He said he was scared. So was I, Eva. I wanted a perfect relationship, a perfect marriage like you and Daddy.”

  Eva laughed merrily. “Forget that. Ain’t no such thing as perfect. You have to work on it every day. Your father and I, we’ve been blessed, it’s true.”

  “That’s what I want, Eva. I want Hale and I to look at each other twenty, thirty years from now and still feel the same way.”

  Eva looked at her watch. “Well, those twenty or thirty years are due to start in about an hour. Let’s go.”

  Diane and Hale wanted to break all the rules. And they did.

  They first agreed that they wanted their wedding, admittedly the second for both of them, to be memorably different. There was instant agreement that the wedding would be held on St. John. They eschewed tradition and decided that everyone, family and friends alike, should wear white.

  They took an additional risk and planned the event at the end of July, before the known start of hurricane season in the Caribbean. There was a very short window of opportunity and they decided to go for it.

  The ceremony was going to be aboard the Paradise, and Adam had arranged for two locals to crew the sloop so that he would not have to. A route had been charted along the Windward Passage to The Narrows and Great Thatch Island, where it would turn and make the journey back. The single-mast sloop could only legally carry a small number of passengers when under sail, so the ceremony guests were pretty much immediate family.

  Diane and Eva were helped into the Jeep by Simon. He was dressed in white linen pants and a short-sleeved white shirt as, it turned out, would nearly all of the men that day. They drove down to the marina to take the first skiff ride out to the Paradise. Word had quickly spread, as it is wont to do on a small island, that there was going to be a wedding. Everyone knew Adam and Eva Maxwell. And just by their presence they honored the marriage of his daughter, Diane, whom many had known since she was a small girl coming down for vacations and school break.

  Anchored just beyond the shore, the Paradise stood out with its lines, railings and trim decorated with white flowing streams of ribbons and flowers and balloons. Hayden and Bailey were already waiting, as were Diane’s mother, Maron, and her stepfather. One of the hired ship crew ferried them to the sloop.

  Diane was relieved to see that the local minister, a middle-aged woman originally from St. Croix, was to perform the ceremony. Wood instruments do not fair well in sea air, and the decision was made to use a trio of horns for the music on board. Nautical law also forbade any furniture that was not secured to the vessel, so plush cushions were provided so that guests could sit wherever there was a space.

  In a few hours the Paradise would dock again and the wedding dinner would take place at the Turtle Bay Estate House at Caneel. She and Hale knew that Ron had come down. Another added surprise was Jenna and Colby, her husband, whom Diane had yet to meet as he’d returned from overseas just a month earlier.

  Diane went below for one last look at herself. Her stomach was beginning to flutter. She wanted to marry Hale more than anything but she was nervous.

  She admitted to herself that having Hale as her husband meant everything to her. Together they could create their own lives, future and happiness. She wanted to do it right this time. It could not be about her, but about them.

  There was a quiet knock on the below cabin door. She thought it was Eva or Bailey or someone letting her know it was time. But she didn’t have a chance to open the door or even to answer. It quickly opene
d and Hale slipped inside.

  She gasped. “What are you doing here? You’re not supposed to see me yet. The ceremony is going…”

  That’s as far as she got before Hale gathered her in his arms and embraced and kissed her. Complaints died in her throat. Her arms slipped around his neck and she leaned into him.

  “Hale…” she whispered when she could talk.

  “We’re making up our own rules, remember? This is our party. I wanted to kiss you. Period.”

  “Yes.” She nodded, angling her mouth toward his again.

  They were well into a satisfying foray of lips and tongues when there was another knock.

  “Hale, are you in there?”

  “I love you,” Hale whispered against her lips. “Yeah. Coming,” he said louder, blowing her one more kiss and ducking out the door again.

  She stood grinning, ear to ear, touching her fingers to her mouth.

  The flutters stopped.

  Bailey was the maid of honor, eliminating any disappointment from her mother or Eva that they would be matron of honor. They were both okay with the break in tradition. But there was no question that Adam was to be Hale’s best man. Hale decided that Eva would be the flower girl and Maron would carry the wedding bands.

  Diane and Hale wrote their own vows.

  They were under sail when the horns began to play, in royal blasts, the wedding march. It was a picture-perfect day, the air clean and clear, a slight sea breeze bellowing the sails and carrying the sounds of the music across the water. Boaters up and down the passage shouted and waved or blew their horns.

  Diane thought she might cry, and Hale looked mesmerized and emotional. He absorbed the minister’s prayers and their shared scripted vows. Hale spoke first.

  “I, Hale, come here today to join my life to yours before our family and friends. You are all I could ever want in my life. I promise to be faithful to you, to love you, honor you and cherish you. This is my solemn vow.”

  And then it was Diane’s turn.

  “I, Diane…Di…promise to give you the best of myself. I promise to accept you the way you are. I promise to keep myself open to you. Life has given us a second chance at happiness. I vow that this will be my only love, from this day forward.”

  Diane could see in Hale’s eyes that he meant to honor his vows. And when they were announced man and wife everything and everyone around them faded away and, in their first kiss as a blessed couple, she believed with her whole heart that they both felt the same thing.

  They had found paradise in each other.

  “Does anyone know where we are?” Diane asked in a lazy, sated voice.

  Hale kissed the top of her head. “Nope. Adam and Eva swore their lips were sealed. It was pretty generous of that couple who own the chain of stores on Puerto Rico to let us honeymoon in their guesthouse.”

  “Some guesthouse.” She sighed, in her mind recounting the six bedrooms and as many baths, an outdoor disappearing pool, an indoor and outdoor dining area, a kitchen as large as one of the bedrooms. They’d even been given the services of a cook, which was a good thing. They had far better things to do with their time. Most of it was spent alone together in the master suite, with its sweeping panoramic view of the Caribbean Sea. But the best part was the isolation. High atop a hill overlooking Francis and Cinnamon Bay, where during the day they could see a dozen islands dotting the sea and a true horizon beyond.

  Diane shifted and Hale accommodated her so that she could get comfortable and snuggle against him. They were lounging together on a Balinese daybed, the huge square structure with its thick covered mattress and at least a dozen large pillows was set up on the terrace next to the pool. They had turned out all of the outdoor lights and lit hurricane lamps all around the terrace. It made the space exotic and romantic.

  Hale was more or less stretched out, reclining on some of those pillows, while Diane lay atop him, her back to his chest. He cradled her with his arm around her.

  “I could stay like this forever.”

  “No. I don’t think so. Sooner or later I want to go home.”

  “Home.” She turned her head on his chest to grin at him “Our home.”

  Hale remained silent but smiled at her as he stroked her arm. “Are you disappointed we didn’t plan a real honeymoon?”

  “This is a real honeymoon together. You mean that we didn’t do a trip or something? No. I don’t miss it. As long as I can be with you it’s a honeymoon.”

  “Very nice, Mrs. Cameron.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Cameron.”

  She began kissing his chest, little butterfly touches of her lips. He began to grow hard beneath her, the length of him pulsing.

  “Do you think there’s such a thing as dying from too much love?” Hale asked, his voice suddenly rich and deeper with growing desire.

  She giggled, turning over to lick a nipple and wiggle her hips seductively against his. “Well…there was Romeo and Juliet.”

  He put his hands on either side of her head, tilting her face so that he could kiss her. “Yeah. I heard about them. Kids.”

  She began to laugh, his comment so funny and so true. Hale took the opportunity to gently flip her onto her back, kissing down her neck and chest, his hand caressing and kneading her breasts, making its way to her mons veneris, and further. Her laugh caught in her throat and became a soft, drawn-out moan. She lay submissive, delirious.

  “Hale…I…I’m so glad…you love me.”

  He removed his hand and replaced it with another, more fitting part of his anatomy. She welcomed him.

  “Forever,” he whispered, quickly bringing them both to a state of utter delight. “I promise.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-6034-8

  PROMISES IN PARADISE

  Copyright © 2010 by Sandra Kitt

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