Seventeen
Colson Hunter rose at five o’clock on Valentine’s Day to find the countryside buried in a thick blanket of snow. He dialed the Haydon’s number, where Daria was staying, while he measured coffee into the coffeemaker.
Daria answered with an uninterpretable mumble. “Hey, sleepyhead. Do you know what day this is?”
“Valentine’s Day,” she said archly, that impish grin of hers coming through the line as clearly as if she’d been in the room.
“So what do you want for Valentine’s Day?” he played along. But she turned serious. “I just want you. Oh, Cole, I just want you. I can’t wait.”
“Me neither. But, um, have you by any chance looked outside?”
“Why?” He heard her stumbling out of bed and raising the blinds at her window. He waited for her response, fully expecting her to moan in dismay. But she surprised him.
“Cole! It’s gorgeous! What a beautiful day for a wedding.”
“Yeah, if anyone can get there. The roads are pretty bad, Dar.”
“As long as you and the minister show up, I really don’t care if anyone else makes it.”
“Are you nervous?”
“No, just excited. I just want it to be tomorrow!” He laughed his pleasure at her comment. “Well, my love, you just snuggle under those warm blankets for a few more hours. I, on the other hand, have to get out in this white stuff and plow my way through to the clinic. The animals don’t really give two hoots that it’s my wedding day.”
“But Cole, can’t Travis do it?”
“I don’t mind. I’m too nervous to sleep anyway.”
“Are you? Nervous, I mean.”
“A little,” he admitted. “Now go back to sleep. The next time I see you, you’ll be just minutes away from being Mrs. Colson Hunter.”
“Mmm,” she sighed. “I like the sound of that.”
“I love you.”
“Not as much as I love you.” It was her standard response, but he never tired of hearing it.
Still smiling, he hung up the phone and poured himself a cup of coffee. He was almost afraid to think about how happy he was. Since Bridgette’s death he hadn’t dared to hope for this kind of happiness again. And now he’d been blessed not only with the most wonderful woman in the world to love and who’d loved him in return, but with a little girl who called him Daddy. He thought of God’s promise to “restore what the locust hath eaten,” and he was humbled to realize how amazingly that had been borne out in his own life.
At one time he had lost everything that was precious to him. No one, not even Daria, knew just how much he had lost. But he had decided long ago not to dwell on the past. Nothing could ever change the fact that things had happened as they had. It had all been forgiven and mostly forgotten. And now here he sat on a beautiful winter morning about to have the blessing of love restored to him. He felt unworthy. Deep gratitude welled up inside him, and he bowed his head and gave thanks—though it seemed there were no adequate words.
He drained his coffee cup and went to the mud room to pull on his coveralls and boots. He stepped off the back porch into almost a foot of snow. Crunching around to the front of the house, he saw that the snowplow had yet to make it down the dirt road. He would have to clear the driveway and the short stretch of road to the highway himself. He trudged down the lane that led to the barn and went in to hook the snow blade to his little farm tractor.
Two hours later the road was clear, the clinic chores were done, and he was back home to shower and eat a quick breakfast.
He pulled on blue jeans and a sweater, grabbed the black pinstriped suit—the one he hadn’t removed from the cleaner’s bag since he’d worn it in his cousin’s wedding three years before—and headed for the church.
The country church where Cole and Daria were to be married looked like something out of a fairy tale. The county road grader had already been down the side roads to the highway. Most of the family members who lived nearby would be able to get there, but Cole doubted if anyone would come from a distance on such a day.
Inside the church, Cole stamped the snow off his boots and peeked into the sanctuary. The snow gave it a hushed atmosphere. The organist was quietly running through the songs one last time, and Daria’s mother and her friend Beth were fussing with the garlands of ivy and the hurricane lamps that decorated the altar and the ends of the oak pews.
Margo Haydon looked up, distracted. “Oh, hi Cole.”
“Hi, Mom,” he said. He’d begun calling her that teasingly when he and Daria announced their engagement. She smiled at him. It was nice to have someone to call Mom and Dad again.
“Is Daria here yet?” he asked, even though the two women had already gone back to an intent discussion about the satin ribbon twined among the ivy.
Margo looked at her friend with mock disgust. “Just listen to that, Beth. ‘Is Daria here yet?’” She turned to Cole, wagging a finger. “You’ve got a lot to learn, buddy. Daria has been here for an hour. She’s doing her hair in the nursery. We women are not so lucky as to simply hop in the shower, jump into a suit, and show up at the altar. And don’t you dare go in there. You do know that the groom is not allowed to see the bride until she comes down the aisle?”
“So I’ve heard.” He laughed and held up the bag from the cleaners. “Well, I’m going to go jump into a suit.”
The two women laughed loudly. Rolling his eyes, he headed down the darkened hallway that led to the Sunday-school classrooms and the rest rooms. The door marked Nursery popped open, and Daria stepped into the hallway wearing a simple, ivory-colored satin sheath gown. In spite of the fact that she was barefoot and had two bright red hair curlers sprouting from the top of her head, she looked stunningly beautiful.
She let out a little scream when she saw him. “Cole!”
“Are you superstitious?”
“I guess not.” She gave him that smile that melted his heart.
“Then come here.”
He took her into his arms, amazed all over again that after today she would belong to him. “You look gorgeous,” he whispered.
“Thank you, sir. But don’t wrinkle me,” she teased.
He held her at arm’s length and pretended to smooth the creases from the shoulders of her dress. “I think we’re going to have an even smaller wedding than we originally planned. The roads are still pretty bad.”
“I know,” she sighed. “But you know what? I don’t care.”
“So you said. Me neither,” he said, unable to resist kissing her.
She returned his kiss, then reached up and wiped a smudge of her lipstick from his mouth. “You better go get ready, Dr. Hunter.”
He saluted her. “Yes ma’am.” He turned on his heel and then remembered something. “Hey,” he called after her.
She turned, looking up at him expectantly.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart.”
Barely two hours later the cake had been cut and the wedding toasts made. Hand in hand, Cole and Daria mingled with the few friends and family members who still lingered at the reception. Natalie, enjoying birthday-girl status, toddled stocking-footed among the guests, modeling her miniature pink satin dress, the soles of her white tights sticky with punch and cake crumbs.
Finally Cole grew impatient. He leaned down and whispered in his bride’s ear, “Let’s blow this pop stand.”
She giggled and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Patience, my love, patience.”
A few minutes later, Margo saved the day. She sauntered over to the newlyweds and in a husky stage whisper told them, “Why don’t you two get out of here so these people will go home?”
They didn’t have to be asked twice. They ran down the hallway to change into warm clothes, and a few minutes later—among heartfelt good wishes, repeated goodbye waves to Natalie, and much teasing about their secret honeymoon location—they piled into Cole’s four-wheel-drive pickup and plowed through the snow back to Cole’s house. No, their house.
They pulled into the lane that led to the farmhouse, and Cole parked the truck and went around to open Daria’s door for her. She jumped into his arms and he held her, laughing.
The night stretched out ahead of them full of promise. They would build a fire in the hearth and share supper on the sofa. Snow had begun to fall anew, and Cole relished the fact that it would barricade them from the world. They had so much love to share that a lifetime didn’t seem enough, let alone these next few precious days.
As Cole carried his wife through the doorway, he knew that he would always look back on this moment—this instant when the woman he loved more than life itself crossed the threshold to share his home and his life—as one of the happiest he would ever know.