Part 9
"Jamie Caldwell, as I live and breath!" Billie called out and hurried to greet the young woman who had been living away from Salem for six or seven years. But Sami was only a few steps behind the singer, clutching Lucas' hand as she brought him along to welcome her childhood friend.
"You said you might be late." Sami scolded and hugged Jamie all at once. "But until a couple minutes ago, I didn't realize what great timing you still have. Grrrlfrnd, I have only two other questions to ask you."
"What?" the slim brunette asked, grinning as she tried to return the bouquet. .
"Did you bring him and where the heck is he if you did?" Sami demanded.
"He's ... " Jamie looked around, and then smiled brightly as she beckoned a dark man with an intense expression over to her side. "He's right here. Sami, Billie, Lucas, this gorgeous guy has been my... best friend for nearly five years, Sean MacRoberts, and last month when I was directing a play at my community college, he proposed in front of the whole company and the dress rehearsal audience! And it was the same day I got your invitation, so I just have to say thanks for inspiring him, guys. We're engaged. Sean, love, these are my three best friends from when I still lived in Salem, Lucas Roberts, Sami ... Roberts and Billie Reed."
"Very glad I am to meet you." MacRoberts said, shaking hands with Lucas, and venturing to chastely kiss both Billie and the new bride. "Possibly we're related." he added, turning back to Lucas. "Have ye any ancestors in Scotland?"
"None that I know of." Lucas replied, thinking that Jamie looked as happy as Sami, and that couldn't be a bad thing. "Some in Ireland now, though, by marriage, at least. Jamie, you look great. I'm really glad you made it back."
"I couldn't have missed this day!" Jamie laughed, erasing any lingering concern Lucas had about her long ago crush on him. "I think I always knew it would happen."
"Then I wish you would have told us!" Sami laughed back. "Think of all the time and energy we could have saved."
"Okay, Sami, I just told you my good news, when before you leave for the honeymoon are you going to tell me yours?" Jamie demanded.
"My ...Omigosh!" Sami exclaimed, "Not you too!" tired nearly to exhaustion but happy. the bride sighed dramatically and went down the often repeated list. "We think so, probably early next July, twins. Will and Lucas want two boys, I'd like two girls, but nobody really cares as long as they are safe and healthy."
"Jamie, these two are going to be out of town as of tomorrow ni ... I mean as of tonight." Billie told the newcomer. "But I'd be glad to have lunch or dinner with you two if you're staying over. We can compare notes."
"Compare notes on what?" Mike Horton demanded, walking up to claim Billie's left arm and the rest of her. "Jamie, Its wonderful to see you! You look terrific!"
Now the remaining wedding guests began to crowd around the last arrived pair and those who had known Jamie while she grew up in Salem welcomed her and Sean warmly. This caused the party to go on until the first glimmerings of dawn. Will was once again going to spend a few days with his LA cousins, and made a great show of disappointment, which noone believed. With that settled, the newlyweds were chased out of the club and into their waiting car, in a shower of rice and confetti. Cuddling in the backseat, oblivious to the likely crushing of her silk outfit, Sami suddenly realized she had no idea where Lucas was taking her.
"Relax, Mrs Brady-Roberts." Lucas grinned. "I have everything under control. This is the grooms' part of the planning, remember?"'
"Just promise me one thing."
"Okay?"
"No two things, Promise we aren't going either to Chicago or to the GML, please, Lucas."
"Sami, Sami, Sami, do you really think I want to tempt fate? Oh ye of little faith."
"Faith is your cousin, technically, not mine." Sami joked.
"Then why won't you tell me where ..."
"Because we're already where we're going ... for the rest of the day, anyhow. I'm amazed that you forgot our first idea. Well, you've had a bit of a day."
"Ya think?" Sami would have rolled down the window, but the early November morning was as breezy as it was sunlit. Fighting her native impatience, she waited as Lucas walked around the car and opened the door, holding out his arm. They were standing at the end of a walk, that led to a rambling, shingle roofed Victorian style house, with bric-a-brac and gingerbread carvings for decoration along the porch, the doorway and the shutters. And the clapboard style siding was painted a refreshing soft green. But what finally got Sami's attention away from her admiration of the snow-dusted yard, the trees and the house itself, was Lucas. He was walking over to and pulling something out of the front lawn. It was, on closer examination, a realtor's sign, with a narrow placard fixed to the top.
"Lucas Brady-Roberts, put that back!" Sami worried. "I don't know what you're up to, but this house is obviously for sale and you can't just ..."
"This houseobviously was for sale." Lucas contradicted her. "It was just sold seven days ago, as the sign here in my hands indicates. "And I can do just about anything I want here, cos I bought it. The Wesley's needed a place with space for a playroom and more, so they picked out a duplex closer to the hospital. And I lucked out cos they really needed to close the sale here to be able to deal with the fees and costs there. So, with that being the case, don't you think we should get inside? It's not exactly warm out here."
"But the Pub, the loft ... what? Who?"
"The Pub is running like clockwork, the loft is Rivka's, we talked about that. And the rooms below the loft are going to be crash space for the people who work too hard and too long there to return home at night. But my wife is not going to be one of them. No way."
"Lucas, my grandparents lived over the Pub from the time they opened it, and before that they lived over their Market. And I partly grew up, up there."
"And all the lovely and not so lovely scents from a working kitchen have been steaming up through those floor boards for how long?" Lucas asked, marveling at her decision to debate this matter, here and now.
"Are you saying there's something wrong ..."
"With the way your grandparents raised your father, your aunts and uncles, and you and Eric and Carrie? No. I'm just saying you told me a long time ago that you wanted a house of your own. And I thought about buying Roman's but then I thought no, too many of the unhappy kinds of memories there. So, let's at least go in for the night and have a look see."
"Lucas ...I've seen the inside of ..." Sami started and then realized that she was so tired and so happily surprised that she couldn't think of anything to say, for nearly half a minute. "Lucas, yes, please, take me home."
"Just as you say, my dear." Lucas laughed and proceeded to lift and carry his new bride up the step to the porch and into their new home.
Later Sami would recall getting only brief impressions of the redecorating and refurnishing that must have gone on while she was busy with flowers, gowns, suits and the Pub. And she knew she would want to investigate every inch of the place Lucas had chosen. But most of all she wanted to make sure her newly coined husband knew exactly how much this surprise meant to his newly coined wife.
"Wife." she said out loud as Lucas led her into their bedroom. "Lucas, I'm your wife."
"That's what Todd said." Lucas agreed, setting the lights low. "He said he pronounced us husband and wife. And then he said I could do this."
Lucas claimed her mouth warmly and kissed Sami so ardently that she could feel it to the tips of her toes, and elsewhere.
"Funny, " she said when she came up for air. "I thought he said I could do this."
Sami answered and returned the kiss, with feeling.
"Be my guest." Lucas smirked "But don't you think you're still a little over dressed?" He had started caressing and kissing her neck and shoulders making a lovely warmth spread through her.
"Lucas, are you seriously trying to ravish a probably pregnant, married woman?" Sami giggled, as her hands started to roam over his shoulders and down his back of their own accord.
"Only the one I just married." he answered, "She's all I want."
"Oh good answer."
"I've got a better one, But this suit has got to go."
"In that case, so does your tux, your shirt and that tie!." Sami laughed and set to work eagerly. It was full morning again by the time the newly marrieds woke up in each other's arms. And it wasn't because of anything inside their new home. Instead, outside the window Sami had left open only a smidgen, a clanging, clattering, howling noise was rising.
"Did it snow this morning?" Sami muttered. "Is that a snow blower?"
"No, no, that's voices." Lucas groaned. " And I recognize some of them! How the heck did they find out ..."
"Wake up, you slugabeds!" Carrie, Scott, Hope, Billie, Mike, Rivka, Phillip, Cassie, Jamie, Sean, Jeannie, Andrew and Belle were hollering, from the walk outside. "You forgot something!"
"We forgot ... No, I don't think we forgot anything important." Lucas turned a completely puzzled gaze to Sami.
"Definitely not anything important," She grinned. "Oh wait a minute! We did!"
"Sami, what?"
"Lucas, I tossed my bouquet to the ladies, but you were supposed to throw something else to the guys, Lucas, my garter?"
"Oh ..ah ... great, Where is the darn thing?"
"Wherever you threw it earlier this morning when you decided to ..." Sami felt her face grow hot. "When you kept insisting I was wearing too much clothing."
"Oh, okay. Then I know just where it went." Lucas laughed. He raised his eyes to the brass coat rack by the bedroom door and pointed out to Sami where the satin ribbon and lace-bordered item had landed. In another moment, he held it in his left hand. Then realizing he was running around the room in his skivvies, the new husband pulled a wool blanket around himself and crossed to the window. Just his appearance drew a wild cheer from the laughing crowd below. When he opened the window wider, they went into clanging, clapping and catcalling, until Sami, gathering Lucas tux jacket around her shoulders, stood next to Lucas there.
"Don't you have anything better to do the day after Thanksgiving? Shopping? Tree cutting? Shopping? Leftovers? Football? Shopping?" she laughed.
"Not till we get what we came for!" Jamie answered.
"Jamie, the tradition is for one of the guys to catch the garter. Don't be greedy, you already caught my bouquet."
"Yeah, she's right, guys, up front, and you ... ladies, if that applies here, back up." Lucas insisted.
"Let's find out who's got the best pitching arm in this family, here and now. One, Two, Three!"
An early morning breeze caught the lightweight object and five strong arms reached for the prize. But only one hand caught it and Lucas grinned brightly.
"You go, Mike!" he called, as the doctor turned back towards Billie. Sami laughed along with the rest as Billie gave her guy his well-earned reward. This led to another cheer that was only silenced by more embracing throughout the small group. Then Cassie waved to the newlyweds and called.
"Hey. let us in, we brought breakfast from the Pub and its ffffreezing out here!"
"What?" Sami and Lucas chorused, laughing as they realized they were ravenous, for each other, but for edibles as well.
"Waffles. cantelope," Belle began to recite. "Juice, Toast, Tea, Eggs, Cream Cheese and Bagels."
"Perfect!" was the answer, and as fast as they could get into something warm, the slacks and sweaters a thoughtful friend had stashed in the new house, Lucas and Sami were opening the door to their first guests.
"Sami," Lucas asked her hours later, when they were flying south and west over the Rockies. "You didn't mind spending so much time today with half a house full instead of just you and me?"
"Something you don't know about me, at last." Sami smiled, kissing the furrow worry set in his forehead. "I grew up in a house big enough for probably ten people. And when I wasn't there, I was with one pair or the others of my grandparents, and they had these huge places too. Well they seemed huge to me, and empty. So empty. Even when I was too young to know what and who was missing, Lucas, I knew something was wrong, something was missing. I want our house, our home to be as full of the people we love as we can squeeze in without it bursting."
"So, you're really okay about moving away from upstairs of the Pub? "He asked.
"At least until our kids need a place to send their kids when they're out battling the world." she answered, laughing at and loving his concern..
"Our kids ... their ..." Lucas pretended to mourn. "What have I got myself into?"
"A family, Lucas." Sami answered, leaning in to a kiss. "Our very own family."
