True Love (14 page)

She touched his arm, half to reassure herself that he was still flesh and blood. “Enough of
this talk, Luke. Why don’t we talk about lunch instead?”

He grinned. “Okay, so I got a little heavy. But I’ve been thinking more and more about things I never thought about before I got sick. I don’t mean to be gloomy or to scare you.”

“No problem. I guess it’s only natural to think about this stuff when you’ve had a close call, or a serious illness, but you’re fine now and so I think you should be considering next football season and how hard my father’s going to be pushing you. Now
that’s
scary.”

“True. He’s expecting me to take our team to the state finals. I hope I can.”

“I know you will.” She offered him a dazzling smile and took his hand. “Why don’t you say good-bye to Marilyn and let’s blow this place. Steve and Diedra promised to be home in time to take us to the Hard Rock Cafe for supper.”

He draped his arm over her shoulders and, without so much as a backward glance, he led her away from the grave of Marilyn, away from the cemetery, and away from all the images of death that haunted him. Julie felt relief. For now, it seemed that he had closed the book on his shadowy thoughts of nonexistence
and was content to walk in the light of the sun.

That weekend, Steve and Diedra took them hiking in the foothills. They left the city before daylight and were on the trail as the sun began to rise. Eastward, the indigo-blue sky faded to a paler shade of blue and streaks of pink heralded the dawn. Stars began to disappear, and slowly light reached brightening fingers across the rugged landscape and lit dark rock formations, one by one, like candles on a cake.

Julie was cold, but in an hour, as the day chased away the night, warmth spread over her like butter on warm toast. “I’m hungry,” she announced finally.

“We’re just about to stop and fix breakfast,” Steve said, removing his backpack. “We’ll need some firewood. Diedra, Luke, fan out and collect some sticks.”

Wearily, Julie sat on a nearby rock. “What are we going to eat? Roadkill?”

“Bacon and eggs,” Steve said, taking utensils out of his knapsack.

“You’re kidding!” Julie exclaimed, pleased.

“
Powdered
eggs,” Diedra said. “Sometimes not as good-tasting as roadkill.”

“Do you doubt my culinary skills, woman?”

“Never.” Diedra winked at Julie and Luke, who had dumped an armload of sticks and twigs at Steve’s feet. “Actually, he’s fed me before, and he does a passable job.”

“I hope so,” Luke said. “I’m hungry enough to eat the dirt off my boots.”

“Which is one of our chef’s most famous delicacies,” Diedra joked. “And one of his best-kept secrets as to how he makes people believe he’s a skilled chef. He allows his guests to get so hungry that no matter what he serves, they think it’s wonderful.”

“Talent such as mine doesn’t need your grief,” Steve announced, feigning hurt.

“Just cook,” Diedra said.

In no time, Steve had the fire built, fresh coffee boiling, and bacon frying. Julie never remembered anything smelling so delicious, and she cleaned her plate greedily once breakfast was served.

“Where do we go from here?” Luke wanted to know as they put out the fire and packed up the utensils.

Steve pointed toward a flat stretch of land. Beyond it, rocks rose in jagged patterns. “In those canyons is some of the most beautiful
wilderness on the face of the earth. We’ll spend two hours going in, two coming out. Then back to the Jeep, and home.”

The Jeep was parked at a communal parking area, miles away. “Why don’t you go on and pick me up on the way back,” Julie said with a yawn.

“This from a female who practically walked my legs off on Rodeo Drive,” Diedra teased.

“That was different.”

Luke grinned. “Yeah … out here there aren’t any ‘Sale’ signs.”

“Very funny.” She rose to her feet. “All right, I’ll show you all how tough I am.” She marched off toward the canyons. Luke followed.

An hour later, she was very tired, but the stark beauty of the terrain held her interest. The four of them began to climb. The going was slow and the footing difficult, mostly because the ground was loose and Julie’s boots kept sinking. Pebbles splattered behind her with every step.

“The view at the top is worth it,” Steve insisted.

Winded, Julie muttered, “It had better be.”

Luke, obviously in good shape again, didn’t seem to mind the climb one bit. When at last
Julie hoisted herself onto level ground, she heaved a breath, then stared at the view below. Gullies and ravines wound through magnificent rock formations as far as her eye could see. In the bright sunlight, the rocks looked gardenlike, blooming in red and gold and white. Purple shadows cut swaths along the ravines and faded to black when the sunlight failed to penetrate the twists and turns.

“Wow,” Julie said.

“Unbelievable,” Luke said, standing next to her.

Wind, moaning in the ghostly gullies, was the only sound.

“If a person got lost in there, how’d he ever find his way out?” Luke asked.

“He might not,” Diedra said. “That’s why it’s safest to climb up and look down on it.”

“Shout something,” Steve said. “Go ahead. Don’t be shy.”

Luke stepped forward and, cupping a hand around his mouth, yelled, “Luke loves Julie!”

The sound bounced off the canyon walls, reverberated, slid into the ravines, and finally evaporated into the air. Julie smiled at him, stepped closer to the rim, and shouted, “Julie loves Luke!”

Again, the words ricocheted back, rolling
waves of sound on a river of wind. “Julie and Luke forever!” Luke yelled. The words leaped back toward them, loud, then soft, then softer and softer before fading away.

“One more time, together?” Luke asked, taking her hand.

They lifted their arms and shouted “I love you” in unison, blending their voices and words until the two became as one. And they listened as their words returned to them, until the echoes of their words became as embedded in the memory of the canyon as the colors of the sun.

W
hen Luke and Julie were four days away from leaving Los Angeles, Steve and Diedra made the final preparations for their wedding. The day before the ceremony, the four of them drove north along the coastal highway, toward Monterey and the centuries-old chapel that Steve had reserved for the wedding.

The road hugged the shoreline and, from the backseat of the Mercedes, Julie watched the ocean sweep across coarse-grained beaches of sand and, where there was no beach, watched the salty water smash into soaring, craggy cliffs of rugged granite. Steve turned east, into the hills, and drove over a ridge into a sunny, sleepy valley, seemingly untouched by time, that cradled a quiet town.

The chapel, in the center of the town, was a
rectangular adobe building with a bell tower and an ancient mission bell that monks rang every morning and at twilight. There was a single main street, lined with boutiques, gourmet food shops, and colorful craft stores selling Native American and Mexican artwork.

Steve had arranged for two rooms at a quaint bed-and-breakfast inn—Julie and Diedra in one room, he and Luke in another. They ate supper on the back patio, under trellises draped with night-blooming jasmine and moonflowers. A man playing a Spanish guitar strolled among the tables, serenading the diners.

They ate leisurely, lingering over coffee and dessert, enjoying the balmy night breeze that gently stirred the petals of the flowers and sent sweet, subtle scents across the patio. Julie kept gazing up at the stars, which were spread out across the sky like jewels on black velvet. She could hardly believe that in two days, she and Luke would fly back home and California would be only a memory. She heard Luke ask, “You two going to go on a honeymoon?”

“We head for Europe at the end of next month for our next film project,” Steve replied. “We thought we’d grab our honeymoon before we have to start work.”

“Where?” Julie asked, thinking how romantic it sounded to honeymoon in Europe.

“London, first,” Diedra said. “Then Paris and Madrid. We’ll be filming in Spain, so that’s where we’ll end up.”

“How long will you be gone?” Luke asked.

“Almost four months,” Steve said. “We’ve got to hunt out locations before we start filming. And once we wrap up the European project, we head on to Japan for the next one. We probably won’t be back in the States until next spring.”

Julie sighed. “High school sounds so boring by comparison.”

“It’s a long time to be away from home,” Diedra said. “Especially when all we really want to do is settle down and have kids.”

Steve took her hand. “And that’s just what we’re going to do once the Japanese project is over.”

Diedra smiled at him and, sensing their tender bond, Julie reached for Luke’s hand. She was surprised to see Luke studying his uncle with an expression of sadness. She wondered what he was thinking and feeling, but she didn’t get the opportunity to ask because as soon as dinner was finished, she and Diedra
returned to their room amid talk of tomorrow being the “big day.”

While Diedra took a shower, Julie lay on her bed staring moodily into space, wondering about Luke. The phone rang and she grabbed the receiver. Luke’s voice said, “Julie, meet me in the chapel tomorrow morning at ten.”

“The wedding’s not until one.”

“I know, but I want to talk to you before the wedding. And I don’t want to be rushed.”

The inn wasn’t far from the chapel. According to local legend, in olden days a bride would walk barefoot from the center of town to the church, where her groom would be waiting. “Is something wrong?” Julie asked, feeling a flutter of fear.

“I just want to talk to you,” Luke said. “Please. It’s important.”

Wild horses couldn’t have kept her away. And so the next morning, promising a nervous Diedra she’d be back in time for lunch, Julie hurried down the quiet street to the chapel. She pushed open the timeworn wooden door. Inside, the air was cool, candles glowed on the altar, and small rectangular windows allowed sunlight to filter into the darkness. She waited for her eyes to adjust and saw Luke sitting in a pew near the front.

She slid in beside him. “Hi,” she whispered, for although they were alone, she hesitated to break the reverent quiet. “What’s up?”

He turned to her and took her in his arms. “I wanted to be alone with you here, before the wedding and all.”

She returned his hug and felt her anxiety evaporate. “Well, here I am.”

Luke shifted in the pew, and Julie could tell that something was troubling him. All at once, he asked, “What if you could never have babies, Julie? Would that make you not want to marry someone?”

Caught totally off guard by his question, Julie fumbled for an answer. “Gee, Luke, I haven’t even decided what college I want to attend. It’s hard to think about having babies and what I might want years and years from now.”

“But it’s important. I—I need to know.”

“Did all of Steve’s talk about kids make you think too much about your future? You know, like the day we went to Marilyn Monroe’s grave?”

He shook his head. “It started me thinking about what my doctor told us about the radiation possibly making me sterile. It made me wonder if getting married knowing I might
not be able to give a woman kids would make her not want to marry me in the first place.”

“If having kids is the most important thing, then maybe it would make a difference. But no one knows if they’re able to have kids until they start trying. I guess if babies are
that
important to a couple, and they can’t have their own, then they adopt. It seems like the world’s full of unwanted babies.”

“That’s true, but I want to know how important having children is to
you
.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you, Julie.”

“I love you too.”

“Because I want to marry you.”

The atmosphere in the chapel became charged, and Julie could scarcely hold in her breath. Her heart hammered against her rib cage. “Didn’t you ask me that in sixth grade?”

He smiled at the memory, easing the tension. “Yes, and you said, ‘Get lost, bozo.’ ”

“Ouch! Was I that mean?”

“You’ve made up for it.”

“So is this a bona fide marriage proposal?”

He took her hand. “There’s never been anybody else for me except you, Julie Ellis. And there never will be.”

Her heart melted. “And you’re afraid I
might not want to marry you if I know you might not be able to have children?”

“You should have a choice.”

“
You’re
my choice,” she said softly.

A smile of joy and relief lit his face. “That’s what I wanted you to say. You already told me that the cancer didn’t matter to you, but I had to know for sure how you felt about this baby thing.”

“Now you know.”

He straightened his leg, dug in the pocket of his jeans, and withdrew a small box. “This is for you.”

Heart pounding, she opened it and saw a ring of fine silver, intricately carved, with a turquoise set in its center. “It’s gorgeous,” she whispered.

“It’s Mexican. According to folklore, long ago, before soldiers went off to war, they gave this kind of ring to their special girl as a signal to others she was taken.”