Roger was perfectly content to let Cass handle returning the farm to Hart. Given the restraining order Roger and Holly had against Hart, and Roger's general feelings toward Hart, he told Cass, this was the wisest course of action. Cass agreed, not only because he was Roger and Holly's attorney but because he was their friend as well.
Hart, predictably, thought it was another scam on Roger's part, that Roger was trying to get into his good graces somehow, until Cass informed him that Roger expected and wanted nothing in return, and was transferring the title deed to the farm to Hart permanently. Had it not been for Dinah, Hart probably wouldn't have taken back ownership of the farm, but whatever she said to Hart when she asked Cass and their lawyer, the same lawyer who had represented them in court, to excuse them for a moment worked, because when they returned, Hart was still visibly tense, but he signed what he needed to sign.
Of course, the news of Roger and Holly's marriage and move to Bay City, Holly selling her house, and the two of them being in court with Dinah and Hart and no one actually going to jail set tongues to wagging all over Springfield. Roger and Holly were roundly criticized, gossiped about, and judged harshly, but since they weren't there to hear it, and people were at least bright enough to shut up about them when Blake was within earshot, the gossip and the criticism and the judgment had no effect on them.
They were too busy to spare Springfield or its residents, other than Blake and her family, much thought, anyway.
They each had their work, and when they weren't working, they were spending time with their friends or family or alone together.
Holly sold her house in Springfield, and she and Roger looked at several houses in Bay City, but all the houses they saw were either too small, too big, or too far out of their price range. Roger was starting to get a bit discouraged after they saw 39 houses (he counted) that didn't meet their requirements, but Holly insisted the house for them was somewhere in Bay City, and they would find it in good time.
When they weren't looking at houses, they planned their trip to Tahiti, which got delayed until the end of February, first because of February sweeps at KBAY, then because of pressing business Roger and Michael had to attend to in Chicago regarding Yahoo, and then because of very bad winter weather, consisting of blizzards, ice storms, blowing and drifting, subzero temperatures, and subzero wind chills, stretching from the Midwest straight across to New York.
But finally, they caught a break in the weather, spent a day in New York shopping for their trip, and then flew off to the island of Tahiti.
Their ten-day stay in Tahiti would have been an incredible honeymoon for anyone, but it was especially so for Roger and Holly. This was the honeymoon they could never have had at any other point in their relationship. They and their relationship were finally at a place where they could truly enjoy and appreciate this trip as a celebration of their marriage. Having been through the crucible of the past...well, nearly thirty years, in all honesty...and emerged from it stronger as individuals and, more than that, stronger together than they had ever dreamed they could be, this trip to Tahiti would turn out to be only the first of many trips they would take all over the world in the years to come, during which they would have new adventures, and the occasional misadventure, together, strengthen their ever-deepening bond with one another, and take the time to stop and smell the roses, metaphorically speaking.
In Tahiti, they stayed at the InterContinental Resort, where they had their own private suite on the ground floor, with a terrace overlooking the ocean. The hotel was quiet and hidden from the hustle and bustle of the city of Papeete, which was perfect for the times they wanted to just be alone together.
(Or, as Donna would irreverently phrase it when she pressed Holly for details about the honeymoon after Holly and Roger got back and Holly wasn't very forthcoming, Donna said, "I'm guessing you spent your days exploring the island and your nights exploring each other." Holly's only reply was a Mona Lisa smile and a half-amused shake of her head, accustomed as she now was to the way Donna spoke and thought.
"And they say a woman hits her sexual peak at 35. They're wrong about that, at least in my case, and apparently yours as well," Donna continued before raising a glass to the permanent banishment of celibacy.
Holly countered with her own toast: "To getting marriage right with the right man, no matter how long it takes," which Donna heartily agreed with.)
During their trip to Tahiti, Roger and Holly explored every corner of the island, sometimes alone, and sometimes with a tour guide and/or a group of people. Their first day in Tahiti, they went on a circle island tour with a guide and a group of people. A single loop road went all along the wild and rocky east coast of Tahiti, with its famous and spectacular black sand beaches, joyful surfers riding their boards in the crashing waves, and several waterfalls. The east coast was also home to the famous Trou du Souffleur, the Arahoho Blowhole. The Arahoho Blowhole is a lava tunnel that opens into the sea, and when the ocean waves rush into the tunnel, they also compress the air inside, causing a mix of air and water to be violently blown out of the hole that's on the ground, next to the cliff.
When they were at Point Venus, with its lighthouse, also on the east coast of the island, as the tour guide droned on about Captain James Cook first shoring there in the 1760s, and the lighthouse having been built in 1867 and still being in use today, the lighthouse couldn't help but remind Roger and Holly both of Springfield. Roger took Holly's hand in his and when she looked from their hands to him, she followed his gaze to the lighthouse. "It makes me think of how far we've come," he whispered in her ear.
"Me too," she said, squeezing his hand.
"And I can't help but notice it's bigger than the one in Springfield," he added mischievously. Holly just rolled her eyes and shook her head at that, but it was such a wifely reaction to have that it gave Holly a thrill she felt to the depths of her soul, and made Roger's eyes light up.
The west coast of Tahiti, by contrast, was tamer than the east coast, with peaceful lagoons, white sand beaches, and fewer rock formations. Their hotel was on the west coast, and while they saw all that the east coast of the island had to offer, they both preferred the more obvious tranquility of the west coast.
When they went kayaking in the lagoon, they went alone, just the two of them, renting kayaks from their hotel. Neither of them fell in the water this time.
They went horseback riding at the Gauguin Ranch. Holly did better than Roger, who managed to fall off his horse twice, though at least he wasn't hurt.
They went to The Museum of Tahiti and Her Islands, saw the paintings at The Paul Gauguin Museum, and visited The Marae Temples and the botanical garden, where they also saw Galapagos tortoises.
They took several walks on the beach at night, the rolling tide lapping at their bare feet as they strolled hand in hand under the full moon, reveling in being together in such a beautiful place.
And when they retreated to their room for the night, they spent their hours soaking each other in in a variety of ways, whether it was lying in bed or on the couch together while Holly read aloud to Roger, sharing a hot bath, making love, or just lying in bed holding each other tightly and talking in hushed voices about anything and everything that crossed their minds.
One night, near the end of the trip, Holly surprised Roger by taking him to the observatory of the Astronomers' Society of Tahiti, where they saw a meteor shower through the observatory's powerful telescope, and then they had a late picnic supper on the beach. Sitting on the picnic blanket after they had finished eating, sipping the remnants of their wine, Roger was still talking about how astounding he found the meteor shower. Holly grinned. "I'm glad you enjoyed it so much," she said. "It's not easy coming up with gift ideas for the man who has everything."
"I'm still getting used to that. Having everything," Roger mused. "I only got everything when I married you. The last three months have been the best of my life."
"Mine too," Holly replied, setting her empty wineglass back in the picnic basket and moving closer to Roger on the blanket. "And it just keeps getting better."
"It really does," Roger agreed, setting his own empty wineglass aside and pulling Holly into his embrace. She put her arms around him and they lay back on the blanket, her chin resting in the middle of his chest so they could see each other by the light of the full moon above.
"Do you remember the night we got back together?" Holly asked after a few beats of silence.
"I'll never forget it," Roger said. "That night was the first time I ever felt whole in my life."
Holly touched his face tenderly. "Me too," she said. "That night you said that you felt a sense of security about us that you'd never felt before."
"I still feel it. In fact, it's more pronounced now," Roger replied.
"Well, I feel that security now too," she told him. "I believed for so long that we could do this, that we could be married to each other and it wouldn't be a terrible disaster or one argument after another. And I wanted this for us for such a long time. Now that we're actually living it, day by day..." She trailed off. "The knowledge that we're in this together for the rest of our lives no matter what is the best and truest thing I've ever known. Being with you, Roger, being married to you...I am happier than I ever thought I could be."
He rubbed one hand up and down her arm. "You said that night that you felt a peace that you'd never known before. I feel that peace now too. Being married to you...Everything good that happens is magnified now, and when something bad happens, it won't be as bad as it could be, because we'll get through it together. The comfort I feel in that, and the joy I feel... It's just so...right. I belong by your side, and now I get to be there for the rest of my life, I get to be your husband for the rest of my life." He beamed at her now, his smile lighting up the darkness.
She beamed back at him. "I know that Tahiti is considered paradise," she said, "and I'm not disagreeing with that. But I also know that, for me, there's more than one definition of paradise."
"And what is your definition of paradise?" Roger asked.
"Being in your arms like this," Holly replied. "That's my favorite kind of paradise."
Roger gently tugged Holly closer and kissed her, and as always, it took mere seconds for them to get all caught up in each other. He couldn't hold back a soft moan when she gently sucked on his bottom lip before darting her tongue into his mouth. He tore himself away from her mouth to trail kisses down her neck to her shoulder, nudging aside the thin shoulder strap of the white dress with blue flowers on it that she wore to kiss her bare shoulder, breathing deeply of her scent before lifting his head to find her heated gaze fastened on him as she drew little circles on his shirt with her fingertips. "Do you want to take paradise back to our room?" he asked softly.
"I thought you'd never ask," she replied, kissing him once more before they returned to their room to make love far into the night.
Lying in each other's arms near sleep, Holly's head resting on Roger's chest, one of his arms wrapped around her back and the other wrapped around her waist, Roger dusted feather light kisses across Holly's temple and cheek as she languidly ran her fingers through his chest hair. "I love falling asleep with you like this," Roger said softly into the darkness.
"I love it too," Holly said, her breath whispering across his bare chest. "I didn't sleep half as well as I do now that I sleep in your arms every night."
Closing her eyes, she felt Roger kiss the top of her head. She snuggled closer to him, and he tightened his hold on her, reveling, as he did every night, in being able to curl himself around her to sleep, knowing that when he opened his eyes in the middle of the night, as he still did sometimes, she would be there with him, cuddled against him. "I sleep better with you too," he said. "Everything is better with you, Hol." He closed his eyes and concentrated on the way Holly felt in his arms, her body molded to his, and unconsciously he matched his breathing to hers. Within moments, they were both peacefully, contentedly asleep in their favorite version of paradise.