Page 74 of Big Island Weddings
“Let’s get married!” Rory jumped up and down in her excitement, then caught the oversized haku before it tumbled to the ground.
Hand in hand with both their girls, Lani crossed the black-sand beach.
Mano stood waiting, ready to officiate his second wedding of the month. Mahina and ‘Olena had walked ahead; they stood to one side with Nate and Kekoa. Emma was next to them, hand in hand with Kai, watching with a tearful smile. Juniper, Nell, Tara, and a few of Tenn’s closest friends rounded out the crowd.
Tenn’s parents stood to the left, slightly uphill from the others. She let her gaze pass quickly over the stony expression on Sonya’s face and rest for a moment on Ken, who was watching her with genuine warmth in his smile and a gleam in his eyes.
Finally, she looked at Tenn. As she had suspected, once she looked at him, she couldn’t look away. He stood with his back to the sun, his expression awed as he watched her walk towards him.
When she was close enough, she released the girls’ hands and reached for him. Olivia and Rory went to stand with ‘Olena’s girls as Tenn clasped both of Lani’s hands in his.
They stood barefoot, staring at each other for a long moment before Tenn remembered his vows.
“Lani King, I’ve been madly in love with you since I was fourteen years old. We grew up, and you moved away, and I kept waiting to meet a woman who could eclipse my memories of you… but no one ever did. No one ever could.
“When you walked into my cafe years later, it was like the cloud parted and the angels sang. We had both lived through so much over those intervening years, but there you were, as beautiful as ever. And still drawing all over whatever piece of paper you could get your hands on, just like you did in our highschool math class.
“Everything about you – your beauty, your talent, your kindness and your strength – has grown and deepened over the years. I’m honored to be the man who stands beside you and supports you for the rest of our lives.
“I promise to love you unconditionally. I promise to cook you breakfast every morning and bring you lunch when you forget to eat. I promise to make you and our children my first priority, always. You are the love of my life, and that will never change.”
As if to punctuate his speech, he brought his hands up and kissed her fingers.
“Every time I look at you,” Lani said, “I can hardly believe my own luck.” She spoke in a normal voice, not pitching her speech out to the small crowd but speaking directly to him.
“I might never fully understand what I did to deserve you, but I will spend the rest of my life trying to live up to it. Our journey as a family has just begun, and I’m so grateful that we found each other in time to raise our daughters together.
“Doing life with you feelsrightin a way that I never could have imagined. I promise to love you when life feels easy and to love you even harder when life feels hard, to support you and grow alongside you all the days of our lives.
“I choose you, and I promise to keep choosing you forever. I love you.”
“I love you,” Tenn echoed. His eyes shone with tears, and his smile lit up his whole face.
He slipped his grandmother’s ring onto her finger, and she did the same with a simple golden band that she had bought for him. Mano pronounced them man and wife, and Tenn pulled Lani to him with a kiss that lifted her feet from the sand.
When he released her, the cheers and applause of their friends and family filtered into her consciousness. Rory crashed into her with a hug that would have knocked her over if Tenn hadn’t still had one arm around her, and Olivia joined them a moment later.
People snapped pictures on cell phones before the sun got any higher, and then they went to the tents and blankets that had been set up to enjoy a long day at the beach.
Tenn caught her hand as they walked and pulled her back out of the crowd.
“What is it, husband?” she asked playfully.
“Do you want to go surfing?”
“Now?” She laughed in surprise, looking out at the lineup and then back into Tenn’s deep brown eyes.
“Yeah, now.”
“Sure.” She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, then dropped her heels back into the soft sand. “Let’s go.”
28
‘Olena
‘Olena wiggled her toes in the warm black sand and rolled her shoulders backward and forward, working out the knots that had settled in between her shoulder blades.
She watched the surfers take turns on the long ways that rolled towards the rivermouth, enjoying the cool wind in her face and the sun on her back.
