Lone eagle

It was lovely and romantic, and they were both exhausted after the wedding. They didn't even make love until the next morning. Andy didn't want to rush her, they had the rest of their lives. They had never made love to each other before the wedding, and he hadn't wanted to ask her if she was a virgin. He had never wanted to know the details of her long involvement with Joe and still did not. And she didn't offer any. It wasn't the sort of thing she felt she should talk about with her husband, and he wasn't sure if it was painful for her or not, but they enjoyed making love.

She seemed innocent and shy and somewhat cautious, which he assumed was lack of experience on her part. In truth, it was more that it seemed odd to Kate to be in bed with him. They had always been friends. But with a little time and effort, she found that she was surprisingly comfortable with him. He was gentle and playful and tender, and desperately in love with her. And by the time they left for the airport that morning, they seemed less like young lovers than old friends. But it meant a lot to Kate to be at ease with him. What they shared had none of the pain or the passion or the fire of what she and Joe had shared. It was easy and friendly and funny, she trusted Andy completely, and her heart was far less at risk with him than it had been with Joe.

Her mother had suspected that Kate wasn't madly in love with Andy when she'd agreed to marry him, and it didn't worry her at all. She had said something to Kate about it during one of the fittings and told her that passion of the kind she'd had for Joe was a dangerous thing.

If you let it, it owned and controlled you. She would be better off, her mother assured her, married to her best friend, and Andy was.

Their honeymoon was everything it should have been. They had romantic dinners at Maxim's and little bistros on the Left Bank, explored the Louvre, did lots of shopping, and went for long walks along the Seine.

It was the perfect time, the perfect season, the weather was warm and sunny, and Kate realized she had never been happier in her life. And Andy was proving to be a gentle and skilled lover. By the time they got to Venice, she felt as though they had been married for years. He suspected by then that she hadn't been a virgin, but he never asked her about it. He preferred not knowing, and he didn't like asking her about things that reminded her of Joe.