Honeymooning by Rachael Herron

 
     
      “Just tell me how lost we are, darling,” Janet said, pulling the passenger side mirror down to check her lipstick. “Are we find-a-cappuccino lost? Because I think we may have to be if we don’t get to this resort soon.” She looked at Tom, his cowboy hat pushed back on his head as he craned his neck to get a glance at a street sign.
    Finding their way to their final destination had been the most difficult part of their honeymoon so far. Janet Morgan, who’d been married to Tom Morgan for the last seventeen hours, was blissfully happy, or would be as soon as Tom looked like he knew where he was going. But everything else had gone perfectly so far. The fact that Tom had wanted to plan their honeymoon, and the argument they’d had over that fact, was in the distant past.
    The plane ride from San Francisco to Oahu had been smooth—Tom had even splurged on business class, which Janet hadn’t expected but had appreciated. She’d had room to lazily knit the scarf she was making, and had napped with it bundled against Tom’s shoulder. The rental car was nice and roomy, with all the amenities. He said he’d gotten a great deal on the resort, and seemed proud that he’d done it all on the computer. Being on the internet—that wasn’t Tom. Being up on a horse, herding sheep through rolling hills, feeding livestock in the barn, that was Tom. Kissing her with two-day stubble so that her cheeks burned, and laughing when she complained half-heartedly that he smelled like a wet horse, that was Tom, too.
      And those huge dark eyes, and the way they’d filled yesterday when he’d said in a voice meant just for her, “I do,” that was her Tom. Janet’s heart swelled. Even now, she couldn’t believe her luck that this man, six foot three and broad, smelling of the wind and sun instead of cloying expensive aftershave,   had fallen in love with her as hard as she’d fallen for him.
      This wasn’t her first marriage. She’d been here, done this before. But not with Tom, and that made all the difference. Her first husband…well. She’d loved him in her way, she supposed, and he’d taught her so many things: how to enter a room and expect attention, how to build a business,   how to chill Veuve Cliquot and under what circumstances it should be drunk. She learned to use her intelligence to become the woman she was now, a woman that people admired. She commanded any room she was in, thanks to his tutelage. He’d even taught her not to show the pain she felt every time he cheated on her. She’d absorbed his lessons so well that, after she’d left the bastard and taken the client list, her cashmere imports became the best in the nation. She wasn’t the only woman who’d learned to appreciate luxury.
    She had expected that her future lovers would continue to be attorneys, doctors, stock-market racketeers; people who spoke her language. And then along came Tom. Maybe he didn’t know Veuve Cliquot from Asti Spumanti, and after working on the ranch he had to shake hands with a box of Boraxo as soon as he came in the house, but his heart was first-class all the way. He had the biggest brown eyes she’d ever seen, with lashes that would make a woman jealous, but his jaw was as chiseled as the cliffs of the coastline, as if all the years he’d spent working Cade MacArthur’s sheep farm had carved grooves into him, too. He drove a Ford truck, not a Mercedes, but he could fix a flat tire on her Saab in under ten minutes, something she bet the other men she’d dated would never have even dreamed of trying. They’d have called AAA and told her to buy better tires next time.
    Tom was perfect for her. Her lips twitched upward. Yes, dammit. She was smiling again. She was always smiling now.
      “We’re fine. We’re on the right road. At least, I think we are.” Tom lifted her hand distractedly and kissed the back of it before returning it to her lap. Her ring, a small diamond solitaire, winked at her and