The Land Beneath Us (Sunrise at Normandy #3) - Sarah Sundin Page 0,23

can be hot tempered, don’t you?”

“Oh, not Clay.”

Then Darlene giggled. “Of course, you’re also getting a Latin lover. That might make it all worthwhile.”

Leah felt ill, and not from the tiny life growing inside. Why did people assume things about Clay just because his skin was brown? More than one of the nurses had thought Clay was the rapist for that reason.

“It’s time,” the chaplain’s assistant said.

It was indeed. Leah and Darlene followed him into the foyer.

In a second, Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March” resounded from the organ on the balcony overhead. Leah tightened her grip on her bouquet. This was happening to her. To her?

The chaplain’s assistant beckoned, and Darlene sashayed down the aisle.

Behind her bouquet, Leah pressed her hand to her belly. By marrying Clay, Leah could give her baby a home with her own mother and the name of a good father. For you, little girl.

Somehow she knew the baby was a girl. If a boy was born, she’d love him as dearly, but she was a girl and her name was Helen. The name meant light, because this child was light shining from Leah’s darkest days.

The chaplain’s assistant nodded to her.

Leah drew a deep breath. If only her father were there, offering his arm with his brown eyes twinkling. If only her mother were waiting in the sanctuary, dabbing at tears. If only Callie and Polly were her bridesmaids instead of Darlene, her twin sisters in matching floral dresses.

“Miss Jones?”

Leah blinked at the chaplain’s assistant and stepped into the doorway alone.

She peered through the filmy veil. The sanctuary was so large, with dozens of wooden benches under the peaked roof. Everyone stood and looked at her.

To her right stood a dozen Rangers in olive drab dress uniform, a few with girlfriends or wives. To her left stood the Bellamy family and the four other girls from the boardinghouse.

And Clay stood at the altar, grinning at her.

The chaplain’s assistant cleared his throat.

Oh yes, she was supposed to walk down the aisle.

She did so, past rows and rows of empty pews. The attention unnerved her, so she focused on Clay, beside the chaplain and Gene Mayer.

Clay stood straight and solid in his olive drab jacket, trousers, and service cap, with his khaki tie knotted at the collar of his olive drab shirt. He was such a nice-looking man. He was handsome too, but she preferred nice looking to handsome.

Anyone would think Clay smiled out of love, but he smiled from the joy of giving.

Despite what he said, this was charity, but Leah would accept it with gratitude as she’d accepted it all her life. At the orphanage, they said God provided for every need.

If only God didn’t always choose to provide for her through charity.

At the altar, she took Clay’s offered arm and faced the chaplain. Leah hadn’t held a lot of arms, but Clay’s was thick and hard with strength she wanted to bend toward. Those arms had fought off the wolf, bandaged her wounds, and carried her to the hospital.

The chaplain greeted Clay and Leah and the congregation. He also had a nice face, long and narrow with gray-blue eyes that curved when he smiled, which was often.

He spoke from 1 Corinthians 13 about charity. In the King James Version, charity meant love, and the Lord’s sense of humor warmed Leah inside.

In this chapel, everyone but Clay, Leah, and Rita Sue thought this marriage was based on romantic love. Instead it was based on biblical charitable love.

Since her parents died, she hadn’t had anyone to love. She loved her sisters, but in a nebulous way, only remembering them as babies. She’d been fond of Miss Tilletson at the school library and of her friends. But true love? She hadn’t given it or received it.

Now she had a baby to love. She glanced up out of the corner of her eye at Clay’s strong profile. She had Clay to love too.

Not romantic love, but the kind of love in 1 Corinthians—long-suffering, kind, not seeking her own way, not easily provoked, not thinking evil of the other—“Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth.”

“Please face each other and repeat your vows.”

Leah handed Darlene her bouquet.

Clay wrapped his hands around Leah’s. His eyes were so warm, and he smelled good this close, of coffee and aftershave.

He spoke his vows with assurance, even though many of the words didn’t apply to them. They’d never have and hold each other as married couples did, but he