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It was one thing to say “let’s get married!” but it was quite another to actually follow through on it. Sam had only taken the week off for Sophie’s wedding, not expecting to be gone longer than that. He certainly hadn’t expected to inherit a daughter, and he certainly hadn’t expected to get married! The week after a wedding was supposed to be the honeymoon, but neither he nor Donna had made plans for that.
Sam had an investor meeting on Wednesday, and a site tour on Thursday, and Davey was coming to dinner on Saturday with his girlfriend. But it wasn’t like he could ask Donna to up and move to Ireland. She had her own life here; her own responsibilities. What was more, Sam didn’t want her to come to Ireland. This island, here in Greece, had been their dream. If anything, Sam wanted to join her here, rather than the other way around.
But it couldn’t happen right away.
Though a vacation was probably the thing Donna needed most in the world right now, Sam didn’t think it was practical to just toss her over his shoulder and carry her back to Ireland for the week. But at the same time, he had to go back, at least to put his things together and postpone a number of meetings. He couldn’t clear his schedule this week, but the next week should be doable.
And, unlike Donna, Sam had assistants, and a site foreman, and others who could take on some of his responsibilities while he was gone. One week, and then Sam could come back and figure out a way to whisk Donna away for that much deserved honeymoon.
oOo
It wasn’t exactly normal to have a wedding and then go back to work the next morning, but Donna’s life had never exactly been normal. And, in a way, going to work each day was normal; the normal Donna had been living for the last fifteen years.
What was different was that Harry’s check - which the jerk had simply refused to take back, irrespective of the fact that it hadn’t ended up being Sophie’s wedding, or the fact that they still weren’t sure of her paternity - Harry’s check had to be cashed. Bill had also chipped in a check - Harry had probably suggested it - for back support of Sophie. Donna wanted to refuse to accept either one, but the concerted efforts of Tanya, Rosie, Harry, Sam, Bill, and Sophie had convinced her otherwise. With the money, Donna could pay off the worst of her debts, and cover all of the repairs that the hotel needed. She might even be able to afford to take a day off every so often!
Also different was that Rosie had promised to stick around for a few weeks to help Donna run the hotel when Sophie left. Harry was returning to London, but Bill would probably also stick around for a little while, given how Rosie had started dating him. Of course, as both were writers, they were both easily able to do their work from anywhere.
In some ways, Donna envied them that freedom. In other ways, she would never give up the hotel. It had been her dream - her and Sam’s dream - and it was almost as much their baby as Sophie was. Probably.
Sam very much had a permanent kind of job, Donna knew, but he hadn’t said a word about her coming back home with him. In fact, everything he had said suggested that he intended to move here. Donna wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She loved Sam - of course she did, despite denying it for twenty-one years - but she’d taken care of herself and Sophie for that same twenty-one years without some man hovering. It wasn’t like she needed one now.
oOo
“I designed a fountain,” Sam said, once he was done greeting Donna. The morning after the wedding, Sophie’s best friends had had some of Sky’s friends put a stop-gap on the site of a few large rocks, so that the water trickled instead of exploded from the ground, but it was no permanent measure. Still, it was better to have a lake, instead of a geyser, in the courtyard. Seeing that the lake was still there, with sandbags against the railings to keep it from spawning a few waterfalls, Sam felt he should lead with this news.
“A what?”
“A fountain!” he began digging through his bag. “Sophie told me that this island was supposed to be the site of Aphrodite’s fountain, and on the plane back, it occured to me that you’d need to do something about that spring. If we turned it into a fountain, Sky could do a whole part of the webpage about the history of Aphrodite’s fountain, and it could be a big tourist attraction. But it will take some work.”
“I did some research,” Sam continued, “into the fountain myth, and dashed off some quick sketches. But the look of the thing is only half of the project. The big problem is that what you’ve got here is actually a spring. A fountain has a set amount of water in it that just cycles around, and you have to add a little for evaporation every so often. A spring, though, provides new water all the time. You can’t just build a fountain around it, or it would overflow and continue to flood the place.”
Sam finally found the folder he wanted in his bag and pulled out the sketches and several diagrams. “I had a client wanting to convert a spring several years back, and I dug out my notes from that site. Now, you need an outlet for the water, and a fountain is a good start. But the best scenario is to rig it into your existing plumbing and-”
“Sam!” Donna finally yelled. “I don’t need you to fix this right now!”
Mouth still open, Sam froze, blinking rapidly at his new wife. “I’m sorry, what?” he finally managed to ask.
“I don’t need you to come swooping in like- like- like a man and fix all of my problems!” Donna huffed.
“I’m not swooping in like a man!” Sam insisted. “I’m swooping in like an architect. If you leave all the water pooling everywhere you’re going to have even more structural damage soon. You could just put a plug in it and hope for the best, but then odds are it would create a new water table directly beneath the hotel and in a few years you’d just disappear into a sinkhole!”
“I know that!” Donna snapped back.
“Oh you do?” Sam quirked an eyebrow at that.
Donna huffed and spun away. “I know all about burst plumbing and floods. For all we know, that’s what this is! A burst pipe, not some mythical fountain!” The plumber is coming out here in two days to fix it!”
“Two days-”
“He’s working on the mainland - it was the earliest he could get here,” Donna snapped. “I had it handled!”
Sam rocked back on his heels. It wasn’t a slap in the face, but from Donna’s tone of voice it well could be. Of course, back in the day, Donna had had a pretty wicked slap, as he had discovered when he explained about his engagement. He took a deep breath so that he could speak calmly. “I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t have it handled,” he said. “I’m an architect: I see an architecture problem and my mind starts thinking of ways to build it.”
Donna appeared to calm slightly, and Sam risked taking her hand. “It’s a hazard of the job, not a commentary on your skills to take care of this place.” He rubbed his thumb over the back of her hand. “I’m sorry.”
In a move he remembered well, Donna sniffed and looked away. “Alright, I understand that you have architect... impulses.” At least she wasn’t yelling anymore. Then her sharp slate blue eyes fixated on him. “Just... reign them in, will you?”
Sam tentatively wrapped his arms around Donna, and she didn’t pull away, which alone counted as a win, as far as he was concerned. “I promise. If you will promise not to immediately shut me out. Deal?”
There was that penetrating Donna gaze again, but Sam would like to think he was made of sterner stuff than twenty-one years ago. Finally, she sighed and sagged slightly in his arms. “Okaaaay.”
Sam gave her a quick kiss, hoping that the rest of their new life together would go slightly smoother, but knowing that it wouldn’t. Not with Donna. At least he had hope that most of their negotiations would be settled this quickly.