Chapter 2 'I've been planning this trip for a long time…'

'I've been planning this for a long time…' He'd heard her say that. He grinned to himself as he looked out the passenger window. He'd thought about this moment for a long time, but to think that Mac had shared those same dreams for so many years made him absolutely beam. He reached out his hand to gently caress hers as she steered the SUV. She looked over at him, just a flicker of a smile in her eyes. Those chocolate eyes he could practically melt in were now his. But he had to ask…

"So how long have you been planning this, Marine?" he said in that playful tone he always used when he was baiting her. Not that he really needed the question answered. She had given him the answer he had needed the night before when she told him she would marry him. And if she chose not to answer he would not force the issue.

"And how long have you been saving that dress that was in your living room?" he asked her in his most 'serious' teasing voice.

"I'll have you know, Captain Rabb, that dress was a gift from Harriet and Bud," she responded. She glanced over at him to see a very puzzled look on his face. He was having trouble grasping that idea, and she could see it all over his face. She was going to have fun with this.

"A gift…how did they do that? I can understand Harriet knowing your size and all, but the stores were all closed by the time they knew what we were doing. Something's not right about this. Harriet has always been really good about pulling off some really…Do I really want to know the answer to all this?" He could tell there was going to be a really good story here. There always was when Harriet and Bud were involved.

Mac just shook her head and smiled at him before she answered. "Suffice it to say, Harriet has been holding on to the dress for a long time…she bought it when I was TAD on the Guadalcanal. Something about you telling Bud that you tried to tell me that you would give up Renee for me. She said she knew that once we finished our 'dance', our wedding plans would be the same tornado that our 'courtship' had been. So she took it upon herself to have a few things prepared for us." Mac looked at Harm with just a hint of tears in her eyes as she smiled at him. He reached over and wiped that one small tear from her eye, smiling at her as he did so.

"And what would she have done if we never stopped 'dancing'?" Harm asked with a disbelieving grin coming across his face. He ran both his hands through his hair, leaned his head back against his seat and started to laugh. Not a quiet little laugh, but one full of understanding, the understanding that his little family at JAG had struggled along with both he and Mac as they struggled with their relationship over the years. "They knew all along, didn't they, Sweet Thing? They knew that we were always supposed to be together."

"They hoped, Harm.I think they must have had enough faith for both of us. And Harriet said a lot of prayers." Mac looked down at the fuel gauge on the instrument panel and shook her head. "And talking about prayers, we'd better stop for gas soon or we'll be needing some more answered prayers to get us to the chapel. Do you ever check the fuel in this thing, or do you just wait until I'm the one driving?"

Harm looked at her lovingly, shrugged his shoulders and sheepishly replied, "I like pumping gas for my wife?"

"I'm not yet, but you can still pump the gas while I go in and get a couple of cold drinks.Oh, Husband, I need some money." She leaned over, kissing him coyly, as she pulled his wallet from the console between the front seats. "Diet Coke, right?" she asked as she thumbed through the cash in his wallet. "I think I like this 'married' stuff already," she smiled at him over her shoulder as she walked into the store.

When Mac walked out the front door of the store, she found him sitting behind the steering wheel. "Hey, Harm, I thought I got to drive?"

He just flashed her a 'Flyboy' grin and replied, "Wife, you are now in for the ride of you life…"