It wasn’t what I expected, but I refused to look a gift horse in the mouth. If this was my way out of Pelican Bay, I would take it.
Epilogue
Oliver
Ispotted Mari at the end of the dock in her long flowing white dress and chuckled as the videographer my mother forced us to hire followed her down the path right on her heels.
It took what felt like forever for my gorgeous bride to make her way to the end where I waited with the pastor at the edge of the ocean. Mari and I sailed together for ten months before we decided one warm spring day to get married in the Bahamas. We hadn’t found a permanent place to stay and the lack of temporary residence seemed fine to Mari, who had grown to enjoy the open ocean. We were meant for one another.
Our first three months together were spent completing the details of Mari’s project in Guatemala while I circled back to Pelican Bay to check on the factory and make sure Pierce was still alive while he dealt with the fallout over Mari’s quick departure. She tore up the two-million-dollar check from Pierce, but he just had to go and be a hero promising her the money. She refused and finally I managed to get them to split the difference. One million of her funding came from Pierce and I covered the balance.
Mari planned to spend three months helping install the equipment in Guatemala, and then after that we had an open schedule. At least for the time being. Our new factory in Clearwater would be up and running by the end of the year, and I assumed we’d have product rolling and out be busy with installation at various sites around the world.
I worried a quickie wedding in the Bahamas wasn’t the event Mari always planned. The setting was spectacular, but was it the wedding every little girl wanted? She assured me multiple times that with no real family to call her own she was okay with the decision. We planned to send a copy of the video to her favorite aunt. My mother cried at the news, saying she couldn’t miss her son’s wedding day.
Her guilt trick almost worked. I considered postponing the event for them to fly in, but Mari agreed to marry me, and I wasn’t about to let the opportunity pass us by. We compromised on the videographer, and it would have to be enough because Mari would soon be the newest Mrs. Kensington.
A fake fiancée agreement may have originally brought Mari to my attention, but nothing was fake in our relationship or marriage. We never technically had an engagement. Her ring was purchased last week, a two-carat island gem that sparkled in the light as she walked down the dock smiling at me, but we’d last a lifetime.
Her steps picked up, and she dropped her bouquet to her side letting the flowers sway with her movements as she worked to get to me as quickly as possible. Who in their right mind made a damn dock this long? She reached me a full minute later, and I caught her up in my arms placing a soft kiss to her cheek.
The pastor laughed. “That doesn’t happen until later.”
I placed my hand around hers and squeezed as we started the brief wedding ceremony. It still stretched on forever as I stared into her eyes and waited until it was my turn to recite the vows which would bind us to one another.
The world stood still as I listen to Mari repeat each word after the pastor and then time sped up as quickly as possible. I folded her up in a kiss, which turned almost indecent for my mother’s camera, when he pronounced us man and wife.
I didn’t visit Pelican Bay on that fateful day looking for a new wife, but the one I selfishly stole from my cousin turned out to be the woman of my dreams. She didn’t consider me a failure for choosing a different life path and not locking myself away in an office trying to create more money to take over the world. That had never been the life for me and it never would.
I wanted to freely share what I had to offer and leave this world a better place because of my commitments. In the past it sounded like a lonely career choice, but with Mari by my side, I finally had the perfect woman to help with that endeavor.
Mari often talked about her life in San Francisco and how I wouldn’t recognize the person she once was, but isn’t that what life is about? Facing despair and yet growing to become the person you were always meant to be. Caterpillars don’t grow wings overnight.
“Where to now, Mrs. Kensington?” I asked when I finally pulled my lips from hers.
She looked up at me and smiled. “Anywhere you want.”
There is only one place I planned to take my future wife.
To bed.
