On the morning after their wedding, Genevieve sat with Jack on the South Park beach towel to watch the sun come up over the rim of the ocean. They’d wrapped themselves in Genevieve’s favorite wedding present, an orange and yellow afghan. Turns out Jack’s grandmother hadn’t sold it, after all. She’d only told Jack that she had, hoping someday he’d grow up and realize his mistake.

They were honeymooning where it had all begun, except the hideout had been spruced up a tad. Genevieve, busy with wedding plans, hadn’t been a part of the improvement project. Matt and Jack had come out several times in Matt’s financed-to-the-limit new boat. Much beer had been consumed, some construction materials had been added, and now the hideout was reasonably watertight and had new fixings like straw mats on the floor and a canvas flap for the door.

Even so, it was only a temporary honeymoon cottage. Genevieve and Jack had a special permit to use the spot for this weekend, and then the hideout would be torn down. Genevieve thought that was fitting. Besides all the ecological stuff to think about, she wouldn’t want someone else staying in it.

Matt had ferried them out here yesterday after the wedding. On the way Genevieve had tried her best to learn whether he was fixing to pop the question to Mama. Matt wouldn’t tell, but Genevieve thought he might be working up to a proposal. Even though he was never getting back the money that jailbird Nick had embezzled, he surely realized that Mama didn’t give a care whether he had money or not. Besides, Jack believed the company would be in high cotton before long, once the new software program came out.

Genevieve hoped that Rainbow would recover, because she and Jack both needed jobs. But sitting here on the beach watching the sunrise, she couldn’t seem to worry about such things. She’d just finished telling Jack about Elvis’s Jockey shorts. Mama had said she could, once Jack was officially in the family.

This was as official as it got, with Genevieve wearing a diamond the size of a black-eyed pea on the fourth finger of her left hand. She’d tried to talk Jack into something smaller, but he had a pile of money in his savings account, enough for the ring plus a down payment on a house.

Genevieve had been worried about moving out of Mama’s house and leaving her shy of the rent money, but Matt had told Genevieve not to fret about that. She considered it more evidence that Matt would propose to Mama very soon.

“That’s some story about the notches and your Granny Neville,” Jack said.

“You can’t tell Lincoln. Mama doesn’t think he’s ready to hear this yet.”

“Was his hair really purple yesterday? Because it looked black to me.”

“Trust me, it was purple.” Genevieve smiled as she remembered Lincoln walking her down the aisle in his rented tux and purple hair. “Mama thinks as long as he goes on doing that, he can’t hear about the Jockey shorts. He might spread it around school or something.”

“Okay, I won’t tell Lincoln.” Jack hugged her closer as he gazed at the horizon. He had on his extended-wear contacts for the honeymoon, but he’d promised to keep his glasses forever, for the sentimental value. “What color are those clouds?” he asked.

“Bright pink. Fuchsia.” In the weeks since finding out he was color blind, she’d invented a way to help him “see" the colors. “Let’s say you’re moseying down the highway, enjoying the scenery in your Corolla. That would be your garden-variety pink. Then let’s say you come to a straight patch and decide to go lickety-split, pretending you’re in one of those Formula One cars on your computer. That’s fuchsia. It’s chock-a-block full of excitement.”

Jack laughed. “Or let’s say you give me a little kiss on the cheek. That would be your ordinary pink. But if you rip off my clothes and throw me down on the sand, that would be fuchsia.”

“Actually, that might be fire-engine red.” Genevieve began to heat up like a kerosene stove. They’d had a real jamboree of a honeymoon night, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have a mud-wrestle on the morning-after, too.

Jack turned to her and gave her his best pirate’s leer. “It’s fire-engine red I want, then, lassie.”

“Then it’s fire-engine red you’ll get!” Tossing aside the afghan, she grabbed the hem of his soft T-shirt and ripped it right up the middle. She’d always had a hankering to do that.

Jack’s eyes bugged out a little, as if he hadn’t expected such goings-on, but it didn’t take him long to start popping the buttons on her shirt. Jack was really learning how to jump in and enjoy the moment.

As they proceeded to get quickly naked, she took a second to make a wish that they’d be ripping each other’s clothes off for a long, long time to come. Of course that wouldn’t happen all by itself. It would take a heap of love and buckets of luck—the good kind.

The love was a sure thing. And bad luck was just a part of living, like boll weevils and chigger bites. But she had to say that good luck had been following her around like a hungry coon dog most of her life. She had no reason to believe the next fifty years with Jack would turn out any different.