Chapter 44: Nighttime Bath

We named him Lucian after Jared’s father, and he was baptized the day we got married. The ceremony was small with only Mom, Dad, and my aunts and uncles, together with a few of my cousins.

Keesha and Brad were maid of honor and best man. Simon was invited, too, but chose not to come, and I was fine with that.

“I can’t believe you’re married!” Keesha squealed and gave me a hug for the umpteenth time that day. I just giggled. Truth was that I couldn’t believe it myself, either.

Looking at myself in the mirror this morning, dressed in the most gorgeous dress I’d seen, was like a dream.

It was made of silk satin with a delicate lace overlay, and it wrapped tightly around my torso and flared out just below my hips and all the way to the ground without being too wide.

It had a V-neckline that showed my collarbones and the necklace I got from my mom. She’d worn it at her own wedding, and hoped it brought me as much happiness as it’d brought her. I already knew it would.

“Just think about it. One year ago, you were so much of a virgin that you made the pope look like a stud.”

“Keesha!” I huffed and squinted at her, and I instantly looked around to see if anyone heard. All I saw was Jared, who gave me a wink from the other side of the room, where he was talking to Dad and my uncle.

He looked so incredibly handsome in his gray tuxedo with a low-cut vest and untraditional ruffled tie.

His hair was tied into a somewhat messy half ponytail that left the rest of his loose curls like a drape around his shoulders, and the best of all: the ring on his finger that proved that he was mine.

“I’d rather forget about the past.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. But you’re fucking married, and you’ve got the world’s cutest baby ever. I always thought I was the one who would get married first.” She pouted, but she was far from mad.

“So did I.”

“Your gown is amazing, though. I love the veil. It is so different from all the others I’ve seen.”

She reached out and touched the corkscrews that were fastened at the beginning of my braid with a clip.

It was a French braid with an extra twist of smaller braids and pearls, and it hung over my shoulder to cover the ugly scar from the bear.

The veil didn’t reach longer than to the middle of my back, but it was the perfect detail that completed it like a piece of art.

“Thank you, but you’ve already said that a few times. I’m almost starting to think that you’re going senile, repeating yourself over and over.”

I laughed when Keesha put on a fake offended face.

“How rude!”

“I’m just kidding! And you know I’m going to throw my bouquet to you later, right? You’ll be married soon enough. You’ve just got to make Brad propose.”

I smirked but was surprised to see that she wasn’t smiling anymore.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, and she took a deep breath.

“I don’t know,” she muttered. “I’m just not sure if I want to marry him.”

Both of us looked at Brad, who now had joined Jared, Dad, and my uncle.

“Really? Why not?”

Keesha shrugged. “Because when I see how happy you and Jared are together, I’m not sure if he’s right for me.”

We were silent for a moment and studied the light-haired, slender man. Unlike Jared, he was too engulfed in their conversation to even look in Keesha’s direction.

Even though he was kind and caring, I could actually understand what Keesha meant.

“Oh well,” she said and smirked. “So…you never really answered when I asked. ~Does~ Jared have a brother?”

***

We left early. Not because we were especially tired, but because we had a plane to catch.

When the airline heard that it was our honeymoon, they upgraded our tickets to business class for the price of economy.

To say Mom was skeptical that we were taking Lucian, a three-month-old baby, with us on a plane was a solid understatement, but there was just no way we would leave him behind, even though I knew he would be safe with them.

He was a part of us now. We were a little family, and nothing could ever separate us. Besides, it turned out that the flight itself was worse than taking a baby into the wilderness.

Because that was where we were going. Deep into the forest somewhere in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska.

And now, since I knew Jared’s physical strength, I didn’t feel too bad about letting him carry us part of the way to the camp, simply because he walked a lot faster than me, even with me and Lucian in his arms.

So instead of spending five whole days walking, we spent two. But not only because he walked fast, but because…

“You’ve moved the camp?” I exclaimed when I saw the familiar tent at an entirely different place than before. When Jared put me down, my eyes scanned our surroundings. I recognized it.

“Isn’t this…?”

Jared nodded. “The day you left. We slept over there.”

He pointed at a flat spot next to where he’d placed the bonfire. It was exactly where we’d lit the fire last time. Next to us was the little lake in which I’d taken my morning bath.

Jared looked at me with eyes that told me he recalled that time as vividly as me. But then he looked sad.

“I wanted to remember you like that. You looked so incredibly beautiful that morning that it took all my willpower to leave you. But I knew it was the right thing to do.”

I carefully put Lucian down on the ground. He was tucked into a thick blanket my mom had bought the day after I told her where we were going for our honeymoon.

“I’m not sure if it ~was~ the right thing,” I said. Then I wrapped myself into his arms and hugged him tightly before I stood up on my toes and kissed him softly.

My hands snaked up his chest and neck and dug into his hair by themselves. But just as our kiss deepened, and I moaned, he pulled away with flushed cheeks. Then he cleared his voice.

“You have no idea how much I want to make love to you, Louve. But we’ll do that later.”

Both of us looked at Lucian, who was sleeping on the ground right next to us.

“We have some stuff to do first. Will you take care of him while I do the rest?”

I nodded and believed he was only talking about lighting the fire and maybe collecting some wood. But he already had quite a large, neatly stacked pile of firewood behind his tent, so he didn’t need to do that.

Just a few minutes later, the bonfire was roaring, and I sat down next to it to breastfeed. I giggled to myself when I remembered how long ~I~ had struggled to make fire.

But right after I’d picked up Lucian to breastfeed, I saw Jared come out of his tent with a piece from a trunk. I raised an eyebrow.

“What’s that?”

The second I asked, he turned it around, and I could see it was carved out, so it looked like a little boat. The edge was rounded, and Jared had made a special pattern around it.

I could tell Jared had put effort into making sure it was steady yet still possible to rock from side to side.

“Lucian’s bed,” Jared said, and bit his lip nervously. I was too stunned to speak and looked from Jared to the bed, and to Lucian and back with a mouth shaped like an O.

“You made that?” I asked even though the answer was obvious. I just couldn’t believe how he was able to make such a beautiful piece of what was our only piece of furniture, except for the bench in front of the bonfire.

It wasn’t like he had a lot of tools to choose from out here. But Jared nodded and stared at the ground with a little smile before he stuck his hands into his pockets because he didn’t know where else to put them.

“That’s incredible!” I exclaimed and got up to study it closer.

Lucian protested, annoyed to be interrupted in the middle of his meal, but he didn’t cry. Then Jared disappeared into the tent again and returned with a blanket I immediately recognized.

“Wait. Isn’t that the one you gave me?”

Jared nodded and seemed relieved. Maybe he’d been worried that I didn’t like the crib? But how could I not? It was made from his heart, it was practical, and it was beautiful.

The sides weren’t especially high, but it didn’t matter since it was made to sit on the ground where we slept, so when Lucian became big enough to crawl, he wouldn’t hurt himself if he fell out.

It was perfect. Now with the blanket that had been my moral shield? I thought I’d lost it in the demon house. Obviously, I’d lost it before that. Perhaps where I’d slept when the ghost girl startled me.

“Yeah, I found it when I tracked your way to the river,” he explained. Then he folded it and placed it in the bottom of the little bed like a mattress and made a face when he was done.

“I envisioned something like this, only with another blanket. One that doesn’t…uhm…stink.”

He sucked on his cheeks and looked away.

“Maybe we should buy some soap so I can clean it, then?” I giggled, and Jared chuckled a bit too.

“Yeah. Probably.”

We made dinner together and took care of Lucian. Afterwards, we just relaxed and enjoyed our new home.

The sound of the popping and crackling from the bonfire brought me back to the moments Jared and I had together when I still was lost and confused, and it made me smile.

However, it was a bit strange that I, a girl from the suburbs of Chicago who hated being in the wilderness a year ago, wanted nothing more than to be right here in the middle of nowhere with my husband.

Now I was sitting in the crook of his arm with our son sleeping in his new crib right next to us and admired the beautiful nature around us.

It was getting dark, and the sun was about to set in the mountains far, far away, leaving a furor of red, orange, and pink as it said farewell to the day, and I knew it would soon be replaced by a magnificent sky of stars.

The moon was only half, and everything was peaceful and quiet. Just a lonesome owl hooting in the distance and the quiet bird sounds from the lake was heard, seasoned with the crisp sizzling sound of the fire.

It was the epitome of paradise.

“Do you want to take a night bath?” I said and turned my gaze to Jared. He looked surprised.

“You know… Like I did last time we were here, only you’ll join me?”

I smiled and blushed, a bit embarrassed about being the one who literally invited him to go skinny dipping with me. I didn’t even know why, because he’d seen every part of me plenty of times before.

It was probably the surroundings that brought me back to the beginning of our journey. Luckily, he wasn’t difficult to ask, because in the blink of an eye, he stood up, carried Lucian into the tent, and closed it safely.

Then he pulled off his clothes piece by piece at an impressively quick speed.

“Last one there is a rotten egg!” he snickered with his most mischievous smirk. Then he started jogging toward the lake.

“Hey! You’re cheating! That’s…”

But instead of continuing to talk, I started pulling my clothes off too, and we left a trail of stuff thrown on the ground here and there all the way to the water.

I squealed and laughed together with Jared when I felt the cold water engulf my body. Jared had disappeared somewhere under the surface, but since he swam like a dog, it wasn’t especially difficult to locate him.

When he tried to scare me by jumping up right in front of me, I just laughed.

“You’ll have to practice a bit more on that surprise moment, mister,” I said playfully, then screamed when he wrapped his arms around my waist and spun us around in the water.

Then we splashed and chased each other until we finally calmed down when Jared embraced me from the behind and kissed my neck.

Together we looked at the camp that was vaguely colored by the fading sunlight. I smiled when I thought of our little heart that was asleep in the tent and turned in Jared’s arms and searched for the soul in his eyes. I found it.

“It’s August again,” I whispered, and he nodded. “It’s about a year since we first met.”

We both smiled.

“It’s been pretty intense, huh?” Jared said with a little hum, and I turned in his arms so I could see his face.

“Yeah, I guess you could say so.”

There was a little pause before I continued.

“I regretted leaving,” I finally said. “I didn’t realize it at first, but a while after I came home, all I could think of was going back. Strange, isn’t it?”

Jared smiled and kissed my forehead before he cradled the back of my head and pulled me to his chest, both of us still facing the camp.

“And now that I’m finally here again, how about…,” I started, and I felt Jared hold his breath. Maybe he already knew what I was going to say?

“How about if I don’t leave this time?”