It was almost midnight when Micah left the house, bound for Red's laboratory.
Lainey was a nervous wreck the whole time he was gone. Her imagination, always active, went into overdrive. She had chewed all the fingernails on her left hand and was starting on her right when Micah returned to the house.
"Where are the pictures?" Lainey asked anxiously. "Couldn't you find them?"
"They're gone."
"Gone?"
"Everything's gone," Micah said. "The building, everything. It looks like there was a fire."
Lainey looked at Micah, frowning. "A fire? Did you..."
"No, I didn't start it."
"Well, then, I guess we don't have anything to worry about," Lainey exclaimed. "I say we celebrate." She looked up at Micah, her eyes luminous. "By getting married."
Las Vegaswas nothing like what Micah had expected. A million glowing lights turned the night to day. The hotel was filled with people. And noise. The constant hum of conversation punctuated by excited shouts. Bells ringing. The seemingly endless confusion at the crap table, waitresses calling drink orders, the harsh clatter of silver pouring out of slot machines. And above it all a haze of drifting gray smoke.
The bright lights bothered his eyes; the noise was overwhelming.
They made arrangements to be married the following morning. Then Dolores and Ralph took the baby up to their room so that Lainey could show Micah around.
Lainey found a quarter machine she liked and Micah stood behind her, mildly fascinated by the slot machine, intrigued by Lainey's enthusiasm whenever the machine dropped a few quarters into the tray.
"Darn!" Lainey exclaimed. "One more seven and I'd have won."
Micah grunted softly, and the next time Lainey pulled the handle, he leaned forward and touched the side of the machine with the tip of his forefinger.
When three sevens appeared, Lainey's excited shout nearly deafened him. Jumping up from her seat, she threw her arms around him. "We won! We won!"
With a grin, he gathered her into his arms while bells rang and people stopped to watch.
"Would you like to win again?" he asked, leaning close to her ear.
Lainey stared up at him, a shocked expression on her face. "You did that?"
Micah shrugged. "You said you wanted to win."
"Shhh." Lainey looked around. "Micah, that's cheating."
"Cheating?"
"You did something to the machine to make it pay off. That's cheating. How did you do it? Never mind, don't tell me. Just don't do it again."
She glanced around, wondering if anyone had seen him manipulate the machine. She couldn't keep the money. It wasn't right. She should give the money back to the casino, but how could she explain what had happened?
"You're an idiot, Lainey St. John," she muttered under her breath. She didn't have to explain anything to anybody. All she had to do was keep playing the machine. Sooner or later, she'd lose it all back, she thought, but to her dismay, the machine continued to pay off.
"Micah, stop it," she whispered.
"Stop what?"
"Whatever it is you're doing. I'm trying to lose."
Micah shook his head. "I'm not doing anything."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure. I have to touch the machine to manipulate it."
"But I'm winning. I never win!"
"Maybe your luck has changed."
Lainey glanced over her shoulder, her gaze moving over Micah in a long, slow glance. Dressed in navy-blue slacks and a light-blue sweater, he looked good enough to eat.
"My luck changed the day I met you," Lainey purred with a seductive smile, and they both knew she wasn't talking about her sudden run of good luck at the slot machine.
They were married the next morning at a small white wedding chapel. Lainey wore a pale pink suit with a frothy white blouse and pink heels; Micah wore a dark gray suit and tie.
There was a moment of confusion when they filled out the marriage license. Micah couldn't use his Xanthian surname and after a hushed conference, it was decided he should use Dolores's maiden name, Forrester.
The ceremony was short, the words were simple, the baby cried through the whole thing, and yet Micah wouldn't have changed a thing. Lainey looked beautiful, like a star flower in full bloom. Their son's soft cries filled him with a sense of wonder as he realized anew that he had helped to create a new life.
He held Lainey's hand in his, blind to everything else as she promised to love, honor and cherish him in sickness and in health so long as they lived. Simple words. Powerful words that bound them together, body and soul, heart to heart. It was with a feeling of reverence that he placed the ring he had bought the night before on her finger, remembering the holy man's words:
The ring is an outward symbol of your union, which from this day forward will have no beginning and no end. May your love always shine as brightly as this token of your devotion to one another.
After the ceremony, they went to lunch at the Tropicana, and then they took a cab out to the airport to catch a flight home.
On the plane, Lainey sat beside Micah. Her husband. She glanced down at the wide, plain gold band on her finger, then lifted her gaze to his face, only to find him watching her through troubled eyes.
"What's wrong?" Lainey asked. "You're not sorry you married me already, are you?"
"No." He took her hand, his long fingers curling around hers. "I was just wondering if maybe you were sorry you had married me."
"Micah, why would you think that?"
"There are so many problems ahead of us, so many things that can go wrong. I never realized how much my presence would complicate your life."
"Micah..."
"What if the child needs a doctor? How will you explain the odd composition of his blood, the difference in his body temperature?"
"I don't know." Lainey threaded her fingers through his. "Let's not look for trouble. Maybe the baby won't get sick. Maybe no abnormalities will show up in his blood or anywhere else." Tenderly, she caressed his cheek with her free hand. "I love you, Micah. Nothing will change that."
Oblivious to the fact that they weren't alone, Micah leaned across the seat and kissed her deeply, possessively. "And I love you," he whispered.
"Hey, that's enough, you two," came a low voice from the seat behind them. "Save it until you get home."
"Oh, Dad, don't be such a prude," Lainey retorted. Glancing over the back of the seat, she made a face at her father. "We're on our honeymoon, for goodness sake."
"Yeah, yeah," Ralph grumbled good-naturedly.
"Leave them alone," Dolores scolded, shifting the baby onto her shoulder, "or I'll tell Micah how you behaved onour wedding day."
Lainey grinned as a dull red flush crept up her father's neck. "Tell, Mom," she urged.
"Don't you dare, Margaret Dolores Maria Forrester St. John."
"Mom, you're not going to let him bully you!"
Dolores nodded. "I am when he usesthat tone, and calls me Margaret."
"Chicken."
"Guilty as charged," Dolores said, laughing.
Shaking her head with mock disappointment, Lainey settled back in her seat again.
"I'll find out one way or another," she muttered, resting her head on Micah's shoulder.
Micah breathed in the scent of her hair, a little bewildered by the relationship between Lainey and her parents. There was respect, but there was also a sense of playfulness that disturbed him even though he found it charming. Would he have that same kind of easy, caring relationship with his son?
Lowering his head, he pressed a kiss to Lainey's hair, wondering if they would have other children, perhaps a daughter with Lainey's beautiful black hair and earth-brown eyes. Maybe another son.
He was still surprised by the powerful emotions that had boiled up inside him the first time he held his son. Were such feelings abnormal, and if not, why did the people of Xanthia agree to let others raise their children? Why would anyone deny himself the joy of holding his offspring, the sense of wonder, of awe, that came from cradling a newborn child? It was beyond comprehension.
And if he had felt the bond of fatherhood so strongly, what must the bond of motherhood be like for Lainey, who had carried the child within her body, gone through pain he could not begin to imagine to give his son life?
His heart swelled with love for this woman who was now his wife as he contemplated all she had gone through since she met him. He knew that if he spent his whole life trying, he could never repay her for her love, her trust.