It was a small wedding by most standards, with only Fergus as his best man and Eimear as Niamh’s maid of honor. They’d become close in the last few months, Eimear being a great comfort to a very scared first-time mother like Niamh. The guest list was very select, consisting of only members of their clan and a few associates that were considered close to the family. It had been Niamh’s request to keep it small. She’d cited no need for a big wedding, but Olcan had suspected it had a lot to do with not really having anyone to invite.
Her parents had been the last of her family in Ireland, so she had no one here other than those she felt comfortable with in his own clan and a few of the moms she’d met in her Lamaze classes. Though she’d need to go to their own doctor and have a midwife for the birth of their children, she’d been able to join several human preparation classes for when the time would come.
A lot of her limited circle of friends and family had been deliberate on her part. In her brief time here, she’d been through a lot and she was still sticking close to her shell, ready to crawl back in at the hint of any danger. It had kept her from reaching out to people and he was okay with that, for now, but he didn’t want her to miss out on the closeness he shared with his family and friends.
He suspected it was just still shell shock and that she’d open up a bit more when she started college classes once the babies were born. She been fascinated with Tom’s ability to move money as needed and wanted to learn to do what he did, though she expressed that she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to do it nearly as well.
Olcan thought differently; he honestly believed that the woman in front of him could do anything she set her mind to. She was smart, brave, and strong. She was going to make a great wife and mother, an incredible partner in life. He was once again struck by how much he loved her and had to fight back tears of joy. It was foreign for him to feel so emotional, but this tiny woman had brought a gruff bear like himself wholly to his knees.
He continued to stand there watching her as they waited for the ceremony to begin. It seemed like it was taking forever and he was suddenly in a huge hurry to make her his wife and whisk her away for a some much needed alone time where they could do nothing but sit around on the beach watching the sunset and making love as the moonlight spilled in through the windows of their tropical bungalow.
His thoughts were finally interrupted as the priest cleared his throat and began to speak.
“Shall we begin?” the priest asked.
Olcan and Niamh turned more fully toward one another, each looking deep into one another’s eyes as if no one existed in this space but the two of them. Olcan believed the wedding could have been twice this size and they would have not been aware of anyone beyond the two of them as they stood there waiting to recite their vows.
They had each written their own words, and he struggled once again to contain his emotions as she read hers aloud, never once looking away as she spoke the carefully prepared and memorized words of what she’d written for him.
“Olcan McNally, you are the most incredible man I have ever known. I had no idea when I came here that things would end with my finding the love of my life and having his children. I came to you broken, and you mended me. I came to you disenchanted, and you charmed me. I came here unloved, and you loved me. I will spend the rest of my life trying to give you even an ounce of the happiness you’ve given to me. You are mo anam cara, my soul mate. You are and always will be my forever.”
Olcan smiled at her, barely able to speak when it came his time to do so. His words weren’t as eloquent, but they were heartfelt as he promised her his faith, his trust, his love. She beamed as he spoke his truth to her, finishing with the one thing that mattered to him most in this life.
“I will protect you from anything that dares darken our doorstep. I’d lay down my life for you and our children, gladly breathing my last breath so that you might continue on to another day. You are my hope, my dreams, my love. You’ll never feel alone again.”
There were tears in her eyes as they finished exchanging their final vows, both pledging to honor, cherish, and obey one another until their death might part them until they met again on another shore. It all seemed to go by so fast, even as time stood still. It went by in a fog for them, no sooner started than it seemed to end, as the priest pronounced them man and wife.