ATC Wedding Day?
"I'm sure I have you to thank for the pearls."
"If I were alive, they'd be emeralds and diamonds -- and palaces --" the Captain answered, transfixed by the emotion lying just beneath the surface.
"If you were alive, Captain, Gull Cottage would be a palace."
They stood there, awkwardly. Martha blinked the porch lights then tactfully turned them off. With the Williams' off for a second honeymoon, Jonathan and Candy farmed out to friends, and Claymore en route to Schooner Bay, happily picking his fake beard off, the house was suddenly quiet. Even the waves pounding the beach below seemed caught off guard, their steady assault slowing, their roar muted.
"I suppose if I were alive, I'd kiss you now," the ghost said huskily.
"Suppose Captain?" Carolyn sighed, and bent to remove her shoes. She sat on the top step, and resting her elbows on her knees, covered her face with her hands. "Suppose is a little too speculative for me. What am I going to do with you?"
She laughed, but the Captain could tell she was near tears. She pitched her corsage into the bushes and ran her hands through her specially coiffed hair. "You know, I don't think I can stand the embarrassment of trying to convince one more relative I'm actually in love with Claymore. He tries, he does. But does anyone really think I could kiss him? Or tolerate his inane pitter-patter? You should have seen the look on my Dad's face. I think he was embarrassed for me."
Another silence. Daniel Gregg could feel what passed for blood rushing to his face. Unable to move, he stood petrified, trying to hear her over the sudden and wholly novel experience of his heart thumping loudly in his ears. Just a fortnight ago, they'd both agreed neither gave a bilge rat's ass about anyone else's opinion. Now he was wondering whether the last two years were simply the creator's last laugh on him instead of a prelude to unfinished business.
Carolyn continued, unperturbed. "And me? The one I would madly kiss and make passionate love to in every room of Gull Cottage and on the beach, in the surf . . .Daniel. Do you know what it costs me every night to change in the closet and emerge, knowing you will bow somewhat formally and disappear to the bridge or alcove. To work on sea charts?" She snorted derisively. "I'm in bed, fantasizing that any moment you might appear. I roll over and think I feel the mattress sinking behind me and wonder if you're finally going to join me, naked and aroused. Instead, a lucky night for me is waking up at 2 a.m. and knowing you're watching me from afar."
"What am I going to do?" She murmured, largely to herself. "Do you suppose you could materialize us some Scotch?"
Captain Gregg rose to full attention, shoulders back, chest out, legs planted squarely on the walk. "Perhaps it is best if I dematerialize, Madame, and surrender any claim to your affection, as any spectre in my position should rightly and most nobly do. After all..."
To his amazement, Carolyn burst out laughing. "Dear Daniel, you really are human. Stop acting like a man and bring me a drink!" Again to his surprise she reached into her purse and pulled out a pack of Pall Mall's. "And a match."
He returned quickly, bottle on tray, Waterford glasses carefully placed and a book of matches from Norrie's Lobster House lying inelegantly atop a cloth napkin. Placing the tray between them on the stoop, he picked up the matches. "Blast it, Madame, in my day blasted women did not smoke. I've never lit a smoke for a lady."
"You're very endearing, but I'm not in the mood." She placed the cigarette in her mouth and raised her lips expectantly to the Captain. For a second, he thought about just lighting the damn thing with force of will, then realized she was calling his bluff. Match struck, he lit her cigarette, reaching instinctively to cup her hand as she shielded the light from the sea breeze. They froze, his hand a hair's breadth from hers. He saw her tremble slightly, and it gave him courage. He plucked the cigarette from between her lips and flicked it into the grass.
"Allow me," he began in time-honored tradition, as he poured her a drink. "Straight up?"
"Cheers," she replied, as they clinked glasses and downed their first shot of single-malt. "I thought a cigarette might prevent me from reaching for your hand. That worked out."
"My dear, we are steering a course through very uncharted waters."
"No, Captain, we're clinging to a sinking ship."
He wasn't about to encourage her drinking at this point, so she shrugged and poured herself what the Captain once heard Norrie describe as a "stiff one."
"You know I could never leave you." Her voice shook. "Never, ever. And if you even think about trying to tell me this was all a dream, in a dream, I swear I will make your afterlife living hell."
She glared at him, and he knew the Scotch was kicking in, its warmth spreading throughout her body, giving her the confidence she sought to continue the conversation forthrightly.
"I heard you, you know, that first night in Gull Cottage, when you said you'd met your match in me. You certainly did! I heard the whole thing, pretending to be asleep. I wasn't frightened. I mean, I've come to realize you can, on occasion, be a very difficult and stubborn man. But I love you, Daniel. You make me feel wanted, desired, safe and loved, all at the same time. That's more than any woman has a right to ask for, in a lifetime or beyond. As you put it, in my lifetime or yours."
Now Daniel was the one doing the crying, and he tried to cover for himself instead of waiting for her to finish. "My dear, I have been far too selfish, demanded more than I had any right to from a living human being with her entire life ahead of her. But when it comes to you, I can't be noble. I've tried -- "
"I'm not asking you to be noble, Goddamn it Daniel!" They were both crying now. "I only know we can't keep on doing what we're doing, pretending there are safeguards and limits to what we say or do so we don't cross some invisible line that could scuttle everything."
"I don't want you to be noble," she sobbed. "I want you to sleep with me! I want to know the noises you make when you make love to a woman, I want to see you without clothes, I want the familiarity that comes with a solid relationship of giving and taking of each other's full measure."
"My darling, what brought this on? Was it me, when I said, 'I do, Carolyn?'" Desperate yet relieved at the same time, knowing she truly did not want what he most feared he might have to give, he lowered his face to hers.
"Claymore," she said so quietly he could barely hear her. "Claymore told me he decided to enjoy life after you told him you could neither touch nor be touched." She stared at his lips, wondering whether she would part hers immediately or make his tongue work for the honor of kissing her fully -- if it were possible. "I realized I've just been daydreaming my way through the last two years here, wanting something that just isn't, well, physically possible."
She tilted her head and closed her eyes anyway. Her lips parted and he could see her tongue, waiting hesitantly, expectantly, for his, in this, their only reality.
Carolyn didn't seem at all surprised by the brush of his beard on her face or the softness of his mouth as it gently laid claim to hers.
"I have a wedding present for you, Mrs. Muir," he spoke softly into her mouth, his tongue beginning to play with hers.
"Better not be emeralds and diamonds," she sighed and wrapped her arms as tightly as she could around his head. She felt herself lifted into the air, and carried across the threshold in true storybook fashion.
The Captain winked at Martha, who stood quietly in the shadows, spying on the two as he carried his bride up the stairs. She winked back, yawned, tossed a handful of rice at him, and crept to her own nuptial bed in the palace, where Ed Peevey lay snoring.