Miss Julia Meets Her Match (37 page)

“I might be, if I wouldn’t have to walk down an aisle and have everybody holding their breath to see if I’d make it.”

Sam threw back his head and laughed, while I continued to enumerate my objections to the act of marrying. “And what about all the rigamarole we’d have to go through? Invitations and lists and flowers and parties and I-don’t-know-what-all.”

I paused, picturing in my mind such inappropriate celebrations. “Can’t you just see me at a wedding shower, opening gifts that neither of us needs while everybody watched? Sam, I tell you, I am not going to go through all that foolishness at my age.”

“You don’t have to, sweetheart. Just say the word, and I’ll fix it so it’ll be nice and private.”

“You don’t know Hazel Marie,” I said, frowning darkly. “There’s no way in the world she’d let us do something small and quiet. You remember how excited she was about Binkie and Coleman’s wedding. She could hardly contain herself, and I know she and Lillian would just blow everything all out of proportion.”

“How about this, then? We’ll swear Ledbetter to secrecy and do it in his office. Then if Hazel Marie wants to throw a big party, she can.”

Alarmed, I untangled myself from his arms. “No, no, a thousand times, no. If I have to be married by Pastor Ledbetter, I just won’t do it. That man thinks we’ve already been up to something, Sam, and I’m not about to let him think he’s pushed us into legitimacy. Besides,” I went on, my eyes narrowing at the thought of all I had against my own pastor, “he’s the one who was hellbent to hold me up for public condemnation. So, if you want him to do the honors, you’ll have to trade me in.”

“Oh, Julia, I wouldn’t trade you for anything in the world. You make me happy, woman.” From the looks of him, he was speaking the truth, and it just warmed me all over to know I was the cause of it. I thought I might kiss him pretty soon.

“Now, listen,” he said, “I thought you’d want to have Hazel Marie and Pickens, and Binkie and Coleman, and Lillian and certainly Lloyd at a small ceremony, either here or at my house or in the pastor’s office. It certainly suits me to bypass Ledbetter, but we’d never hear the end of it if we asked another minister in town. We’d offend not only Ledbetter, but the whole church.”

“I wouldn’t care if we did,” I mumbled, as I twisted my friendship ring around my finger, just about ready to call the whole thing off. It was getting too complicated, what with wondering what I would wear and if a hat with a veil was appropriate and how binding a marriage would be if the bride had malice in her heart toward the presiding minister.

“It’s too much trouble,” I said, deciding I wasn’t going to have it. “Let’s just keep on like we’re doing, and not fiddle around with anything else.”

“Oh, no,” Sam said, firmly enough to make a shiver run up my back. “You’re not backing out on me now.

“Come on,” he said, standing up and urging me with him. Before I knew it, we were through the dining room and into the kitchen, heading for the door.

“What’re you doing?”

“I’m getting married and so are you.”

“Tonight? Sam, have you lost your mind!”

“Get your sweater, sweetheart, we’re going to tie the knot tonight.”

Then he whispered something that made me lose my composure completely. We stood together, laughing there in the kitchen, as I gave in to the joy that swept through me, his suggestion taking my breath away. He drew me close again and told me in wondrous detail what he had in mind. I stepped back from him in amazement. It was so outrageous that I laughed until he had to hold me steady.

“A
theme
park?” I sputtered, hardly believing him. “And at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee? Sam, I have had my fill of theme parks near or far, and I’m not about to get married in or near one.”

“But it’s just the thing,” he said. “You’ll love it.”

“No, Sam,” I said, trying to stop laughing, but having little success. “We can’t, we’d never live it down. How did you come up with such a thing?”

“Latisha gave me the idea. Come on, and I’ll let you ride the log flume. And, listen, we won’t have to worry with a big wedding and all the trappings. Just think, no need to make a reservation, much less send invitations. They welcome walk-ins, Julia. And listen to this, you won’t even have to get out of the car. There’s a Drive-Thru Special for sixty-nine dollars.”

“Sam,” I said, choking with laughter at the thought of eloping on the cheap, “that is the tackiest, most tasteless thing I’ve ever heard! Hazel Marie will just die if we get married at Pigeon Forge. And Latisha! My goodness, I can’t go to a theme park without taking that child.”

“Maybe after a little honeymoon time, we’ll call them all to come over and join us. Now, Julia, I know that an all-night wedding chapel doesn’t exactly fit with tradition as you know it, and it’s not at all what I had in mind for us, but think about this: You’ll be my wife by sun-up tomorrow. Do you really want to pass that up?”

Well, no, I didn’t, as the thought of it made me weak inside. “Well,” I murmured against his shirt, “when you put it that way, and since we’re not inviting Emily Post . . .”

I felt him laugh against my hair. Then he put a hand on each side of my face and tilted it up so that we were only inches apart. “I want to marry you, Julia. I want to share your life, and make you happy as long as I live. I don’t care how we get married, just so we do.”

Happiness filled my soul, and set all the nerves in my system tingling. I banished every thought of what was appropriate and what was correct and what was traditional, along with every concern of what people would say. There was nothing in my mind but the desire to hold on to this man and, if it took flying off with him to Pigeon Forge or wherever he wanted to go, that’s what I would do.

“That’s all I care about, too,” I said, and joyfully sealed my fate.

“I’m taking that as a yes.” He opened the back door. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s hit the road.”

“Wait, wait just a minute. I have to leave a note. If I’m not here when Lillian and Hazel Marie get up, they’ll have every law enforcement agency in the state looking for us.”

“They’ll have to do better than that, because I’m taking you across the state line. We’ll have it done before they know you’re gone.”

“I need to pack something,” I said, as more and more practical matters came to the fore.

“We’ll buy what we need. Now write your note, and let’s go before I change my mind.”

“Oh, you,” I said, snatching up a pad and pen with trembling hands and laughing, in spite of myself. If life with Sam was going to be this good from now on, I had surely made a fine match—at least for once in my life.

Leaning over the table, I hurriedly scribbled a note, so excited and happy I hardly knew what I was writing. This is what Lillian and Hazel Marie would find the next morning:

Sam took the pen from my hand and scrawled
Mr. and Mrs. Sam Murdoch
across the bottom. Then, with my hand in his, we ran out into the night.

Well, actually we just walked fast, since neither of us was quite as spry as we once were.