Just Married! by Shirley Jump Cara Colter Page A

magical than the first huge renovation and successful sale.
    Ethan, a man who could afford many pleasures, was being constantly awakened to the joy in the simplest of things: a freshening breeze stirring beach grass and her hair, watching her play tag with the dog.
    Ethan knew it was getting late and he should take her home, but he had the feeling he’d had every day since he had met her, of not wanting to let go.
    Sunday and Monday her business had been closed, but after that he had talked her into playing hooky. Amanda had moved home with her parents and was still holding out against Charlie. Despite her own romantic disaster, Amanda was taking absolute delight in he and Samantha’s deepening relationship, and had volunteered to look after Groom to Grow for a couple of days. It was good for his cousin. She obviously needed something to do otherthan think about Charlie, and she had given them the gift of allowing them to have these wonderful first days of July together.
    Today had been the most perfect day he could remember in a long time. Samantha had taken him for his first sailing lesson this morning on her beautiful little boat, the Hall Way. He’d been in awe of her expertise and agility, but mostly in awe of the look on her face as the wind caught in the sails: joy, freedom, connection with this world she lived in.
    They’d had a long lunch, driven down the coast, explored parts of the Cape Cod National Seashore. She had taken him to a beach after, where they had dug clams for their supper. The day had been playful, honest, intense.
    Just like this woman he was with, that he was coming to know, even as he felt a thirst to know her better.
    He kissed her hair, ran his fingers through it. “I love your hair,” he whispered, but he heard a deeper whisper, and didn’t speak it.
    Her hand covered his where he touched her hair, and he marveled at this comfort they had in each other.
    “My hair is what reminded me I was a girl all those years growing up with my brothers. It would have been so much easier to cut it, and I remember coming close so many times, but in a way, it was what I had left of my mom.”
    Her voice went very soft as she continued, and heknew he was being given another gift, maybe more spectacular than all the others.
    She was giving him her trust.
    “I could remember Mom brushing my hair, our bedtime routine. She would sit behind me and brush my hair until it crackled around my head, and she would tell me what a beautiful girl I was and how glad she was that I was hers, and how glad she was we had each other in our household full of men.”
    He touched her cheek, and found a tear had strayed down it. And he felt an enormous sense of gratitude for this gift of Sam’s trust. After all these days of playing, she was going to show him her more vulnerable side, and he felt honored by her moving effortlessly into the next step between them.
    “What happened to your parents?” he asked softly, stroking her hair.
    “This is a beautiful place,” she said quietly, nodding toward the sea, “and a hard place, too. It’s unforgiving out there. And the more time you spend on the sea, the greater your chances of making the one mistake that it won’t forgive.
    “They loved to sail. They never lost that, even with all the hectic activity of raising four kids, they always carved out time for each other. It was almost as if that time alone with each other was sacred to them. They were very experienced, and they knew these waters, but a sudden storm blew in.”
    “I’m so sorry, Samantha.”
    “Thank you. Sometimes, now, all these years later, I feel moments of gratitude that they went together, because I really cannot imagine one of them being able to survive without the other, or one having to watch the other getting sick and dying a slow, painful death.”
    He realized, then, that Sam had seen real love, deep and abiding, and that was a part of who she really was as much as anything else. He had known