What had happened – and whatever else happened – between Chuck and Bianca that evening was a mystery to Rick and Jane, not that they were paying very much attention to what was going on outside anyway. They had far more interesting things to do in the shower and their bed. They got up a little early for them the next morning, or at least didn’t spend as much time in bed after they woke up as they usually did. It was still a little early to take a shower since the sun wouldn’t have warmed the water tank very much, so they went over to the house for a quick dip in the pool, then settled in to coffee and doughnuts.

They’d been seated for a short time when Sabrina came over to them. “So how are the two of you this morning?” she asked.

“Can’t complain,” Rick smiled. It was just a little surprising to Jane; usually he let her do the talking.

“I hope the little fracas last night didn’t bother you,” Sabrina said conversationally.

“We heard a little yelling,” Jane replied. “I couldn’t make out what it was all about, but it didn’t bother us any. What happened?”

“Bianca and Chuck got into it. I mean, they really got into it. Chuck got Lee and me up a little before midnight and had Lee drive him into the airport. We told him there wouldn’t be any flights out until morning, but he said that he was willing to sleep in a chair in the terminal. They hadn’t much more than left when Bianca showed up, mad as hell. She said he wouldn’t listen to her about something he wanted to do but I didn’t make much more sense out of it than that.”

“It sounds to me like both of them were more than a little upset,” Jane said.

“No fooling,” Sabrina agreed. “Maybe I read too many murder mysteries, but I was happy to see that she was still alive after Chuck and Lee left. I could see that getting real stinky.”

“Well, you’re probably right about that. Does that kind of thing happen very often?”

“Oh, we get the odd little lover’s spat now and then, but that is the first time we’ve had a honeymoon break up like that. I’m just glad it doesn’t happen more often. She’s still here, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see her get out of here later today. So how are things going with you?”

“Just fine,” Rick told her. “I couldn’t ask for things to be much better.”

After talking about it a little more Sabrina changed the subject on them. “If you’re interested, Lee or I could take you and maybe some others out to Barking Sands this afternoon. I need to get some groceries, and I try to get what I can out there since they’re cheaper than in town. Besides, you’ll get more out of a trip there if someone who knows what they’re doing shows you around.”

It sounded like a reasonable idea to them, and it did to Bert and Pat when they showed up a little later. It proved to be an interesting trip, and they learned a lot about Kauai from Lee. When they returned, they learned from Sabrina that she’d taken Bianca to the airport, where there had been no sign of Chuck.

There was no further discussion of Chuck and Bianca at dinner in the evenings; apparently Lee or Sabrina had told each couple among the guests what they needed to know, and that was that. For that matter, Jane and Rick didn’t discuss it much between themselves, either, other than to note that the source of tension was gone.

But privately, Jane thought about the two, at least a little bit. Knowing what Bianca had said, it seemed likely to Jane that Bianca had pushed a little too hard, a little too soon – and that Chuck hadn’t exactly been the pushover that Bianca had taken him to be. If nothing else, it was a lesson to her – it was possible to push too hard, and she was sure of it where Rick was concerned. While even Rick agreed that she was working toward some changes in him that he welcomed deep down inside, it clearly was possible to push him too hard. What was more, with Rick’s fragile social skills, it might even be easier for her to push him over the top than it had been for Bianca to do it to Chuck.

Things were going all right for now, but things would be different when they got back to Boulder. On the other hand, Sophia had said that she’d have to work hard on him right at the beginning, and Jane felt she’d done that. She liked the changes she was seeing in Rick, and he seemed to like them, too. But that was here, at Lunahilo Bay, and the stresses of everything including work and no work when they got back to their real lives, however changed they might be, were going to make things a whole new ball game. Hopefully they would have built their relationship to the point where a little inertia could carry them over the rough spots. Working on that was, as far as she could see, the thing that most needed to be accomplished on their honeymoon. So far, so good.

Their lives settled down over the next several days. Most days Rick and Jane did some tourist-type activities, including a helicopter trip over the spectacular scenery of the Na Pali coast, and they visited a few beaches other than the one at Lunahilo Bay. One day when the surf was up in the bay a little, Lee gave them, along with Bert and Pat, some instruction in surfing. Though they fell in a lot, it was fun, but there was no point in trying to get good at it, since they would be a long way from surf in Boulder.

Rick shot a lot more photos of Jane in various states of dress, or undress as the case might be; it made her feel sexy and like she was starting to get to him a little. From what she could see on the screen of the laptop, he was getting some good pictures, too – they didn’t make her feel like the “Plain Jane” she’d often been accused of being. If Rick saw her as being that sexy . . . well, maybe she was, at least in his eyes, and that was what counted.

And, over the course of the next few days, they spent a lot of time being intimate with each other, just enjoying it, feeling the building love between them, as well as working on their techniques. Jane could see that Sophia had been right, that sex was going to be a big tool to influence Rick, and fortunately it was a tool she enjoyed using.

One lazy, enjoyable day flowed into the next, and in a way Jane wished that it would never end – but at the same time, she knew that it had to, and that there were going to be new challenges to meet when they got back to Boulder.

All too soon their lazy, enjoyable time at the resort came to an end. One afternoon they had to say goodbye to their friends Bert and Pat, and to their hosts Lee and Sabrina, then get in the rental car for the sad trip to the airport and on to Honolulu.

As always, Jane was driving – she’d never ridden in the car with him driving – and from what he said about his driving skills she wasn’t sure if she ever wanted to. It was bound to happen sometime though, and she hoped she wouldn’t be too scared when it did. “I sure hate to leave there,” he said as she drove down the long lane to the public road. “We had an awful good time there.”

“There will be other good times,” she replied. “But I agree, that was a nice place, and maybe we can go back there sometime. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

“I sure wouldn’t mind seeing Bert and Pat again,” he said. “We got to be pretty good friends with them.”

“Yeah, we did. They really are pretty nice, if not the kind of people I would normally hang out with, at least back home.”

“Well, me either,” he said. “But then, I haven’t been much to hang out with anyone who’s not about as much into computers as I am, and then we mostly talk coding. But then, until Sophia got involved, you aren’t the kind of person I would have hung out with, either. I’m glad that worked out as well as it has.”

“I am too,” she agreed. “But it’s nice to know it’s possible to make friends who are different, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, it is, and it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t been with me to make it work. I don’t know if I could have done it if it hadn’t been you. I probably wouldn’t have tried.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “We’re moving forward, and that counts for a lot. Bert and Pat made a perfectly good place to get started.”

“It would be nice to see them again, but there’s something about them that makes me think they wouldn’t be the same people if we were to catch them at home.”

“I don’t think so either. I sure would like to know how things come out with them. They’re good kids even if they got off to a rough start. I can’t imagine how tough it’s going to be for them with their parents breathing down their necks all the time. It seemed to me like they came out of their shells a lot the last few days, I just hope that their parents don’t drive them right back in.”

“Yeah, me too. At least that’s one problem we don’t have. All we have to deal with is Sophia, and she’s not quite the same thing.”

“No, she’s not,” Jane agreed. “Not that Sophia won’t be leaning on us probably more than we want. I’m surprised that we didn’t get a phone call or two from her while we were there. I know Sabrina had that one right when we first got there, but if she got any more she didn’t say anything about it.”

“That doesn’t mean Sophia didn’t call.”

“Probably not, but I’d be willing to bet she’s just about to burst wondering what’s happened with us.”

“Maybe we ought to think about giving her a call from Honolulu.”

“It might get her blood pressure down a little, but I think if we do call her we’d be better off ourselves to not tell her much of anything.”

“I think we’ve been able to manage things pretty well so far without her being involved. I can’t help but wonder what it’s going to be like when we get back. I’ll be working with her every day and I’m sure she’ll be calling you every chance she gets.”

“You’re probably right,” Jane sighed. “And really, it’s not all bad. She is a friend, after all, and she did us a hell of a favor in putting us together. But we’re going to have to build something of a life that doesn’t include her meddling all the time.”

“True,” Rick nodded. “On the other hand, it may not be all bad. If we do run into some problems along the way, and I mean not necessarily between us, she has ways of solving things. Jane, in the last few days I’ve come to realize that I take a rather narrow view of things, at least when it comes to people. You’ve helped me learn to deal with that. I haven’t finished learning about it and maybe I never will. But thanks to you I’m making a start.”

When they got on the plane to fly to Honolulu, Jane noticed that Rick was a lot less nervous than the last time they’d been on a plane a few days before. As much as anything, that told Jane that she was making some progress with him.

The flight was short – they were barely in the air before they were letting down for landing. The airport at Honolulu, and the city itself, were a lot bigger and more bustling than things had been on Kauai. Jane was not about to deal with a rental car there; they were glad to take a taxi to their hotel, where they had a nice view of the narrow sand beach at Waikiki from high above. “Darn shame,” Rick commented after a glance out the window.

“What’s that?”

“I really doubt we’re going to be taking any midnight skinny dips around here. I’m going to miss them.”

“In case you’re wondering, I’m going to miss them, too. But things are not all bad. We don’t have to depend on solar heated showers, so we can spend as much time as we want taking long, hot showers together anytime.”

“You’re right, there are compensations,” he agreed. “I don’t know about you, but after that long, tiring flight from Kauai I think I need a good, healthy shower with you to knock off the dust of the trip.”

“Rick, you have a one-track mind.”

“No, I don’t. A two-track mind, maybe, but one of them is coding, and that one is closed for repairs.”

“All right,” she smiled. “I’m up for it. At least we won’t have to worry about finishing up in time for dinner.”

As it turned out, they both forgot about calling Sophia, or at least if one of them did not, they didn’t say anything to each other about it, and it never really came up again.

When they finally got to dinner, Jane was less than totally impressed. The dinner was not as good as what they’d been eating at Lunahilo Bay, and the cooking was nowhere as good as Sabrina could manage. There were a lot more people around, and they couldn’t make casual conversation like they’d gotten used to doing with Bert and Pat and the others around the table in the previous several days.

One advantage the hotel did have over Lunahilo Bay was that bed was bigger and more comfortable, if such a thing were possible. They put it to good use, and not just for sleeping.

There was a considerable amount more to see and do in Honolulu, and they did much of it. They signed up for a guided tour of the island on a bus, just to get a better feel of the place, and among the places they went on the day-long trip were the well-known surfing beaches on the windward shore. While they’d played around a little with surfing at Lunahilo Bay, it only took one look at Oahu’s waves to realize that neither of them was anywhere near good enough to try riding them, and they never would be.

On another day they signed up for a tour of Pearl Harbor – given their friendship with Rob, there wasn’t any way they could avoid it. Jane still hadn’t gotten through the book on the Pacific War she’d bought in Las Vegas, but she was making progress and hoped to finish it on the way home.

Pearl Harbor proved to be interesting, although it had to be considerably different than it must have been back in December of 1941. The Arizona memorial was sobering, as was the visit to the Missouri. By now Jane had picked up enough knowledge about World War II in the Pacific to appreciate the point that Rob had made: “It started there and it ended there.” Life must have been difficult and challenging in those days, she thought, very different from the way they are today. If nothing else, it gave her a little understanding of Rob’s interest in the war.

They did other things, too. They spent a little time just sitting out on the beach, taking in the action, checking things out. They hit some nightspots, which was interesting in its way if only to point out that neither one of them were nightclub people. The best part of the evening was after they left the noise of the club and went back to their room. “I suppose there must be some people who enjoy that kind of thing,” Rick commented in the elevator. “But Jane, I’ll tell you what, I think I’m just as glad that I’m not one of them.”

“I could stand to sit around a quiet little club with a fun band for a drink or two once in a while, but I wouldn’t care to make a life of it. When we get back, I don’t think we’re going to be big on the club scene in Boulder. A nice restaurant every now and then is one thing, but I’ve gotten up with a hangover enough to hold me for one life.”

“Once in a while would be fine with me. I’m not anything big on exotic restaurants, either. Umberto’s Steak House is about the limit for me.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” she agreed. “Look, Rick, that’s something we need to talk about. I am not the world’s greatest cook. I’ve never done very much of it, and what little I have done has been mostly been for myself, and I’m not real fussy about what I eat. But I’ll work on it and I don’t intend to let us starve.”

“That’s good to know,” he shook his head. “My knowledge of cooking is limited to being able to order a pizza.”

“I can do better than that. Rick, I promise you, I will.”

The days passed quickly in Honolulu, which probably was just as well, because they were rapidly running out of things that interested them and more and more were looking forward to getting back to Boulder and confronting the real challenges that faced them. When she’d set up the trip Sophia had planned that a majority of the time had been spent on Kauai, which had forced them together for the time spent there, and Jane soon realized that it probably had been a good idea. But still, on the trips around Honolulu, they didn’t have the support of the presence of people they knew like Bert and Pat. If anything, that isolated them even more.

If Jane had been by herself on this trip – not that she could have afforded to be – she probably wouldn’t have done some of the things she and Rick did, and she might have spent more time on other things. As it was, she was just as happy to see the day come when they got in a taxi and rode out to the airport for the flight back to the mainland, two full weeks after she’d married Rick.

A lot had happened in those two weeks. They’d gotten to know each other pretty well in that time. Rick was still pretty shy and introverted, but he seemed to be much better than the night she’d first met him. He did have a wry sense of humor, although it didn’t come out very often. He’d proved to be a nice guy – really, much nicer than she could have expected, and she had yet to uncover any disgusting habits he had. They were still learning about each other, but that was to be expected, too. While there would be challenges to come when they got to Boulder, and she could see potential problems ahead, she thought they’d built a pretty good basis for staying together.

What was more as far as she could tell Rick liked her, too. He had gotten past the point of being amazed that a woman could take an interest in him, and so far it seemed as if they’d become friends as well as being spouses, something that didn’t always happen or didn’t hold up in the long run.

When she got right down to it, she couldn’t help but believe that Sophia had come up with a pretty good idea. From Jane’s viewpoint, she and Rick seemed to be a pretty good match for each other, considering that if Sophia hadn’t gotten involved they probably wouldn’t have ever met each other, let alone become friends. Through her machinations, they’d managed all of that. Maybe it wasn’t a stupid idea after all.

In time they were called to their seats in the first-class section of the airliner. “I hate to say it,” Rick said as he fastened the lap belt, “but I guess the fun part of our honeymoon is over with. Now it’s just getting back to Boulder and making things work.”

“I think we can manage it. Some of it may not be easy, but some of it ought to be fun, too.”

“I hope so,” he sighed.

It seemed as if they sat on the ground forever before the airliner was pushed away from the gate and got moving. In a few minutes more it was racing down the runway, heading for the sky and for California. Rick held her hand as they climbed out, but this time she didn’t think it was out of fear – it seemed to her it was if he enjoyed holding her hand, and she enjoyed being hand in hand with him, too.

It was hard to believe that the future was going to work out anything near as well as the last two weeks had gone, but at least Jane was looking forward to seeing how everything would come out. It seemed like there was a pretty good chance that things could actually work out for them.

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