Beautiful With You

by Jen Andrews

  I asked the girls at the spa to take a few pictures of Iria and me while they were doing our hair and makeup. I sent them to my friends and family back home since they were missing my wedding day.

  They pretty much freaked when I’d called them the week before to tell them about the wedding. They weren’t upset about us getting married, but they were surprised we were doing it right away, and in New Zealand.

  After I explained to them how excited we were to be getting married on the beach in front of Andy’s home, they understood and were happy for us. They made me promise to let them throw us a party when we came home.

  Iria and I arrived at the house to see Andy and Tamati down on the beach. Iria and I looked at each other curiously, wondering aloud what they were doing down there.

  We dressed in Andy’s bedroom while the guys dressed in Tamati and Iria’s room. As Iria fastened the veil to my hair, I heard the marriage celebrant knock on the door. She was right on time.

  We stood at the window and watched Andy, Tamati and the marriage celebrant walk down the path to the beach. From what I could see of Andy, he looked gorgeous.

  I could not wait to meet him on that beach and become Mrs. Andrew James Tate.

  “Zoey, it’s time,” Iria said. “You look absolutely breathtaking.”

  “You look stunning too, Iria. Your dress is gorgeous. Tamati is going to be thrilled when he sees you.” She looked so pretty in a floor length dress similar to mine, but in a light peach color that looked amazing with her dark hair and skin. I smiled. “Thank you so much for everything. I wouldn’t be here without you.”

  We walked out of the house and down the path toward the beach where Andy, Tamati, and the marriage celebrant were waiting for us.

  My delicate, white dress and long veil were simple, yet ideal for a beach wedding. I went barefoot, as did everyone else, so I felt relaxed and free when I paused at the edge of the beach. Iria gave me a friendly hug and walked down to join the others.

  Tamati and Andy were dressed similarly too—Andy in natural colored linen pants, and white long-sleeved shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Tamati was dressed in khaki pants, and also wearing a long-sleeved white linen button up shirt.

  I could not take my eyes off Andy. He was smiling like I’d never seen him smile before. He looked truly happy, with not a care in the world. I could honestly say I had never seen him like that. I smiled and made my way across the beach toward him.

  Apparently, he couldn’t wait any longer for me, because he met me halfway.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered when he stopped in front of me.

  “Your dad is supposed to be walking you down the aisle today. Will you let me do it?” he asked and offered me his hand.

  A surprised smile spread across my face at his thoughtfulness, so I placed my hand in his and we walked the rest of the way together.

  “Just Say Yes” played quietly in the background and I realized I’d been clueless at how he’d gone all out to make our day special.

  “Zoey, you look beautiful,” he said quietly. “You’re glowing.”

  “Thank you. You are quite handsome yourself, Mr. Tate.”

  After I passed my flower bouquet to Iria, we faced each other hand in hand. The celebrant spoke about love and commitment to one another. She asked if we understood the ties that bound us together, the true meaning of unconditional love and forgiveness required of us both, and if we chose to love each other through good times and bad.

  We both responded with a contented, “Yes.”

  Nope, no traditional “I do’s” for us.

  My eyes welled up with tears, as did his while we held each other’s gaze.

  “Zoey, please repeat after me,” I heard the celebrant say from somewhere outside our bubble.

  I listened to her and repeated: “I, Zoey Lynn James, take you, Andrew James Tate, to be my legal husband.”

  She smiled and nodded, letting me know to continue with my own personal vows I had written to him.

  “Andy, I choose you to be my husband, my best friend, my lover, and the father of my children. I promise to trust and respect you, to laugh and cry with you. But above all, I promise to love you, with all that I am, unconditionally, forever.”

  When we had talked about writing our own vows, we had decided not to speak of death in them. There would be no “till death do us part” or anything like that. There had been too much death already.

  We wanted to concentrate on life. Our beautiful life.

  Andy smiled shyly and brushed a single tear off his cheek as the celebrant asked him to repeat after her.

  His voice trembled when he spoke: “I, Andrew James Tate, take you, Zoey Lynn James, to be my legal wife.”

  I loved the happy, peaceful grin that eased over his face as the words left his lips.

  The celebrant gave him a nod to continue with the vows he had written.

  “My beautiful Zoey . . . today I take you to be my wife. I promise to trust you, respect you, and love you with all my heart. I will be a loving and kind husband to you, and father to our children. Today, I have everything I’ve ever wanted in my life, and to share it all with you, is a gift. Thank you for saying yes.”

  We both smiled at the last part, and with shaking hands, we exchanged rings.

  The celebrant asked us to rejoin our hands.

  “Zoey and Andrew, cherish each other, respect each other, and above all, love each other. I now pronounce you husband and wife. Andrew, you may kiss your bride.”

  He held my face in his big hands and kissed me gently on the lips. When our wedding kiss ended, we pressed our foreheads together, eyes closed, to savor the moment.

  It was something we had done several times during our relationship. When either of us was having a bad day, or we needed to take a moment to gather our thoughts, it was our secret, silent way of leaning on each other for support or whatever else we happened to need at the time.

  “I love you Zoey,” he whispered.

  “I love you too.”

  We kissed again, and then held each other on that sandy beach until someone finally cleared their throat and brought us back to reality.

  Andy bent over and placed a kiss on my belly. “I love you too, Hannah.”

  It wasn’t until then that I noticed a photographer taking photos. Andy turned up the volume on his iPod dock, and for the next hour, we posed for photos as all of the songs that held special meaning to us played.

  He even threw in “Bad Romance”—the song I had been singing when we met. Andy asked me to dance on the beach with him when a song that I’d never heard came on. Andy said it was “In Her Eyes” by Joshua Radin. The melody was beautiful and the lyrics brought tears to my eyes as he sang the words to me while we danced. He couldn’t have chosen a better wedding song to suit us.

  Afterward, Iria and Tamati joined us for a few dances. I danced with Tamati and talked with him quite a bit since I hadn’t met him yet. I quietly thanked him for watching out for Andy. He was a good man, loyal friend, and treated his wife like a queen.

  Not to disappoint my family, I asked Iria to take a few pictures of Andy and me to text to our families and friends. With the photos finished, and a bit of dancing, the weather was getting chilly so we went inside the house.

  Andy led me up the stairs and into his bedroom where he sat down on the edge of the bed, and pulled me onto his lap. Our arms wrapped around each other, we sat in silence and enjoyed the moment together.

  “Thank you for today, Andy. It was perfect,” I said quietly as he stared up at me.

  “Stand up and let me look at you, Beautiful.” When I stood, Andy took my hand and twirled me around. “Wow,” he said. “You’re gorgeous. The dress and veil, your hair, your flower and jewelry, my wife is exquisite.”

  I picked his left hand up and kissed his wedding ring. “You are gorgeous, husband.” I couldn’t help but smile. “I knew you were handsome before, but when I saw you down on the beach waiting for m
e.” I paused. Of course, he was handsome, but today, he was so much more than that. “Andy, you looked so . . . serene. I’ve never seen you like that before.”

  He smiled and kissed my cheek. “It was because of you and Hannah, Zoey. When I saw you standing there in your wedding dress, with my child growing inside you . . .” He paused, shook his head, and his eyes filled with tears.

  I took off my veil and returned to his lap. “Hey, I thought we were going to try and stop crying for a while?”

  Andy wiped the tears from his eyes with the backs of his hands, and sat there looking completely vulnerable. “I can’t help it,” he admitted. “When I saw you, I knew this was where I was meant to be. Like you said, I was spared from dying in the accident for a reason. I knew the second I saw you on the beach, you were right. You and Hannah are the reason.”

  “Thank you for saying that, my love. We only get one life, and we need to live it to the fullest. No looking back.”

  We sat silently for a while longer before he spoke. “So, Mrs. Tate, would you like to go out to a nice dinner tonight to celebrate?”

  “On one condition, we take Iria and Tamati too.”

  He smiled. “I already made the reservation for the four of us. Let’s go.”

  “When did you have time to do all of this? A photographer, music at our wedding, dinner reservations, spa day for Iria and me. That’s a lot of work.”

  He laughed heartily. “It’s a secret . . . and you sleep . . . a lot.”

  I smiled and rolled my eyes at him.

  A few days later, I was pulled from a wonderful dream I was having about our wedding by Andy rubbing my bare belly with his big, warm hands. I opened my eyes and looked at his pillow, but he wasn’t there. He had scooted down the bed, so his face was level with my stomach. He was kissing my belly and talking softly.

  “Do you know how adorable it is that you are down there talking to our baby while I’m sleeping?” I propped myself up on my elbow.

  He looked up at me and grinned contentedly. “I can’t wait till she can talk back to me, Zoey.”

  I smirked. “You won’t be saying that when she’s a teenager. Especially if she takes after me, she’ll be talking back all the time, and it won’t be pretty. She’s probably going to cuss constantly, just like I did.”

  I had been good lately with my language, though. I tried to be more aware of what I was saying because we did not need a two-year-old Hannah telling someone to fuck off.

  Andy sat up and moved to lay down next to me with his head on my pillow. “We’ll figure it out together.” He smirked at me. “By the way, I love your filthy language. It’s kinda hot.”

  I laughed and slipped out of bed.

  After we showered together and had breakfast, we took a blanket and walked down to the beach. We settled on the blanket, me lying on my back staring up at the sky and Andy on his side, facing me. I noticed him reach out to touch my belly, but he pulled his hand back after giving me a shy smile.

  “It’s okay,” I said, giving him the go-ahead, but also curious as to why he pulled back. “I don’t mind. She’s your baby too, you know?”

  “I know. I just don’t want to drive you crazy. Every time I see her there—where she’s growing inside you . . .” He trailed off to gather his thoughts. “I just want to hold her in my arms Zoey. I can’t believe this is really happening.”

  My man had rendered me speechless with his sweet words and all I wanted to do was kiss him. So I did.

  He kissed me back slowly, his tongue sneaking in to meet mine. The sweet, innocent kiss on the beach could easily turn hot and steamy.

  “Mmm, you keep that up and we’re going back inside,” I whispered when he eventually pulled away from me. I rolled onto my side to face him, and scooted right up next to him until I couldn’t get any closer. I draped my arm over him and nestled down in the crook of his neck and shoulder.

  “You alright?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes. I just wanted to be closer to you.”

  We laid silently on the beach a while longer before he stirred and spoke. “Zoey, do you want to go on a honeymoon?”

  “We’re kind of on one already aren’t we?” I nuzzled in to his neck more and tried to scoot even closer. “We’re in New Zealand, not working, and lounging on the beach. That counts right?”

  He chuckled. “I suppose so, but do you want to see more of En Zed? Maybe go to Oz?”

  Even though I knew he meant Australia when he said Oz, I still laughed. “Oz? I seem to have left my ruby slippers back in Sacramento.”

  He shook his head and chuckled. “Very funny, smartass. Do you want to go to Oz or not?”

  I thought about it for a few minutes. When I started to speak, Hannah decided to have some sort of a spaz attack where it felt like she was kicking and wrestling, which in turn, reminded me of Andy’s love of rugby. I reached down and rubbed my belly, giggling. My decision had been made for me by someone on the inside. “No Oz,” I said as I met Andy’s curious eyes. “I think I want to stay here and see where my husband grew up, and for you to show me all there is to see of New Zealand. And maybe catch a few rugby games along the way.”

  “It would be my honor to show you.” He picked me up and carried me back to the house, then stopped at the door and opened it wide. “Mrs. Tate, when we got married I forgot to do something very important.”

  I grinned up at his smiling face. “What did you forget to do, Mr. Tate?”

  After a smoldering kiss that lit every nerve ending in my body on fire, he said, “I never carried you across the threshold into our house.” With that, he stepped through the door, pushed it closed with his foot, and took me up to bed.

  After a beautiful two-week journey to see the sites of the New Zealand islands, we were back in Auckland at my doctor’s appointment, the first one for Andy. I was twenty-two weeks along and seemed to be getting bigger by the day.

  When the doctor told us what I might be experiencing, he mentioned I could have an increased libido and I almost laughed out loud. Just one glance over at Andy told me he was happy about that information. Not that it would be any different; we couldn’t keep our hands off each other as it was.

  Eventually, I would find out how wrong I was. When I felt the urge, I had to have him right then. There was no waiting. It was time when I said it was, and he never complained once about it.

  Finally it was time for my ultrasound—the part Andy was looking forward to the most since he had only seen sonogram pictures and DVD’s. Pictures and DVD’s that were already weeks old by the time I arrived in Auckland.

  When the doctor pressed the wand to my stomach, the whooshing sound of Hannah’s rapid heartbeat filled the room. An immediate grin lit my face when I glanced at Andy. He was smiling, and his blue eyes came to life at the sound. I took his hand, and together we turned to face the screen where Andy saw his daughter for the very first time on a live screen.

  During the ultrasound, the doctor pointed out Hannah’s head, her arms and legs, her little hands and feet. The doctor explained to us how our baby was currently developing and that she could hear us if we spoke to her. I told the doctor I was having some discomfort in my pelvic area. He assured me, and a very concerned Andy, the mild pain was completely normal, because my body was stretching to accommodate the size of Hannah as she grew.

  Andy asked the doctor a hundred questions. He was curious about everything. I enjoyed every second. I loved seeing the excitement on his face and in his eyes.

  He was thrilled when she moved and seemed to stretch her little arms over her head. “Zoey, look at that!” he said in complete amazement when she did it again.

  I laughed. “Oh, I can feel it. Pretty soon you’ll be able to feel it too.”

  That very night, he did feel it. Little Hannah woke me up at about two thirty in the morning. I swore she was in there playing rugby or something. I shook Andy. He didn’t wake up, so I shook him a little harder.

  “Baby, wake up.” Excited for
him to feel her move, I yanked off the blanket and smacked him on the bare ass cheek.

  He jumped a bit. “What the—”

  “Get up!” I gave his butt cheek a pinch.

  He groaned as he lifted his head. “What’s wrong?” he mumbled. “Are you sick?”

  Laughing, I picked up his hand and placed it on my stomach where I’d felt the movement. Not thirty seconds later, she rolled over or something. I wasn’t sure, but it felt both miraculous and scary at the same time.

  Andy sat up quickly and reached over and turned on the lamp, but didn’t move his hand from me.

  “Did you feel that?”

  “Yeah, Zoey. She’s amazing.” He grinned from ear to ear as he watched my stomach intently.

  Now that the light was on, I propped myself up on my elbows, and we both watched my belly to see if we could actually see her move. She moved again, and he quickly removed his hand.

  “Keep watching the same spot and see if she does it again,” I whispered. Sure enough, my stomach shook slightly as she repositioned herself inside me. “Talk to your daughter, Daddy.”

  He smiled when I called him “Daddy,” scooted down the bed, and kissed right where we’d last seen her move.

  The excitement in his eyes should have been a joyful moment for me, finally seeing him so happy, but honestly, my heart was breaking.

  He was so ecstatic about becoming a father, but he had missed it the first time. If he had known about Emma, and then had to watch her die, it would have killed him. How he was with our growing baby, and me, showed me he would have never been able to cope with the loss. Especially after watching her grow for nine months, be born, and then die.

  I hated what Michelle did, but I honestly sympathized with why she didn’t tell him. She had been married to him. She had to have known how it would affect him. At least I hoped she did.