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many of them. Since she’d turned thirteen, Ginny had always been generous with her favors.
    “What you got there, Ginny?” The groom sidled up to her, smelling of something stronger than the wine Tad was serving. A few of the men had been drinking whiskey in the barn, and Tom had, as always, been quick to join them. He eyed her now with obvious interest as he squeezed her close to him, and let his hand slip under her jacket. She was holding Becky’s bouquet, but he wasn’t referring to the flowers. He was looking straight into her cleavage. “Did you catch the bouquet? Guess you’re next.” He laughed raucously, displaying good teeth and the smile that had won Becky’s heart years before. But Ginny knew more of him than that, which to some, was no secret.
    “I told you I’d be getting married pretty soon, Tom Parker.” She giggled at him, and he pulled her even closer, as Boyd blushed and looked away from his sisterand his friend, catching sight of his tiny ivory bride, watching them from the distance. Boyd felt a pang as he looked at Hiroko then. It was rare that he left her side, but today, as Tom’s best man, it was hard to be as attentive to her as he would have liked. But as Ginny and Tom teased and laughed, Boyd quietly slipped away, and went to find Hiroko. She smiled as he approached, and he felt his heart tug as it always did when he looked into her gentle eyes. She had brought him comfort a long way from home, and she had been devoted to him every moment since she’d arrived in the valley. It broke his heart to see how unkind people were to her. Despite his friends’ warnings in Japan, he hadn’t been prepared for the viciousness of their words, or the doors that had slammed in their faces. More than once, he had thought of moving away, but this was his home, and he wasn’t going to run away, no matter what they said or did to him. It was only Hiroko he worried about. The women were so unkind to her, and the men were worse. They called her a gook and a Jap, even the children wouldn’t talk to her, having been told not to by their parents. It was a far cry from her gentle loving family in Japan.
    “You okay?” He smiled down at her, and she bent her head and nodded and then looked up at him shyly in the way that always made his heart melt.
    “I’m fine, Boyd-san. It is very handsome party.” He laughed at her choice of words and she looked embarrassed and then giggled. “No?”
    “Yes.” He leaned over and kissed her gently, not giving a damn who was watching. He loved her and she was his wife, and to hell with them if they couldn’t understand it. His red hair and freckles stood out in sharp contrast to her ivory skin and jet-black hair which she wore in a neat bun at the nape of her neck. Everything about her was simple and neat and nicely put together. And her familyhad been just as shocked as his own when they had told them they were getting married. Her father had forbidden her to see Boyd again, but in the end, in the face of Boyd’s kindness and gentle ways and obvious love for the girl, in spite of themselves and her mother’s tears, they had relented. Hiroko had told them nothing in her letters of the brutal reception she had met in the Alexander Valley, she told them only about the little shack where they lived, the beautiful countryside, and her love for Boyd, making it all sound simple and easy. When she first arrived she had known nothing of the internment camps for the Japanese during the war, or the fury and scorn she would meet in California.
    “Did you eat?” He felt guilty, realizing how long he had left her alone, and he suddenly suspected, correctly, that she hadn’t eaten. She had been too shy to approach any of the long tables surrounded by their neighbors. “I am not very hungry,
Boyd-san.
It is warm.”
    “I’ll get you something right now.” She was slowly growing accustomed to Western food, although most of what she cooked for them was the Japanese style