Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d danced before coming to Silver Falls, but he had no doubt, he’d danced with every woman who lived in and around the area and his aching feet were proof of it.
Thankfully, everyone was headed home now and he could stop pretending to be the happily married groom they all thought he was.
Violet had ridden home in the wagon with her family, to say a proper goodbye to them, or so she’d told everyone who commented on her not riding back into town with him, and neither of them spoke as he bedded down his horse at the livery stable before helping her unload their wagon and unhitch the horse attached to it.
Even as he walked her home, neither said a word. Not until they reached the gate leading up the sidewalk to her house to find Edwin and Reverend Poole waiting on her front porch.
“Well,” Edwin said, “I suppose congratulations are in order.”
Violet took a step closer to him. “Why, thank you, Edwin. Although I would have preferred more time to prepare a proper wedding, everything turned out well enough.” She grabbed his hand and laced their fingers together. “We’re married now, and that’s all that matters.”
Edwin’s face turned red, his lips pinched as he eyed them both. He straightened as Reverend Peele ambled across the porch to them.
“I needs my bed, boy.” The old man looked so glassy-eyed, he wondered if he’d gotten into the moonshine after marrying them. “You promised me a big meal and a soft bed and since I’ve eaten more today than I have in the last week, I’m ready to retire.”
Edwin glanced at his pocket watch before nodding his head down the road. “We’ll be staying at the boarding house.” He grinned before saying, “Let’s get the marriage license signed and you can go on down there and wait for me.”
“Marriage license?” Violet said.
Edwin grinned. “Of course. Reverend Peele will file it with the courts in Elkin first thing when we get back into town.”
Josiah watched as Edwin fumbled in his coat pocket, producing a folded piece of paper a moment later. He smoothed it out before producing a pen and handing it to Reverend Peele. “You sign first,” he said.
The Reverend signed the paper before handing it over to him. Josiah took the time to read it. It was a simple marriage contract with a place for them to sign at the bottom, already dated.
Had Edwin planned on his own name being on this piece of paper?
Seeing the hatred in the mans eyes now, and the fact he even had the document in his possession, he thought maybe he had.
Signing this would complicate things. It wouldn’t be so easy to just—walk away. Even if they didn’t consummate the marriage, this piece of paper would make it harder to just un-do everything.
“What’s wrong?” Edwin said. “Having second thoughts?”
Josiah lifted his eyes and met the man’s gaze. Something in his expression looked—smug, and he hated it. “I’m just wondering why this is necessary.”
“You want it to be legal, don’t you?”
“It would be legal without this piece of paper.”
“Maybe, but no one can dispute it with this.”
No one would have been able to dispute Edwin’s marriage to Violet, is what he meant.
Josiah snatched the pen from him and laid the paper against the porch railing and signed his name, then handed it to Violet. All this did was complicate things. It was still fixable. He’d just go to Elkin and get the marriage annulled, and that would be that.
When the marriage license was signed, Reverend Peele left without a word. They watched him go, the old man muttering to himself as he headed down the sidewalk.
He’d hoped the two of them would ride out the first chance they got but if they were staying the night at the boarding house, it looked as if he and Violet had to play their parts, at least for tonight, which meant, Violet needed to come home with him.
He wasn’t sure why, but he’d thought once they’d left the creek, this entire thing would be over with. They’d come up with some lie, or fake a fight, and that would be the end of it, but if Edwin wasn’t leaving, then they couldn’t go their separate ways.
Was that why Violet looked so tense? Because she’d already figured that out?
He was so lost in his thoughts, he hadn’t heard any of Edwin and Violet’s conversation and never moved until he saw Edwin walk away.
When they were alone, Violet said, “What a mess.” She ran a hand over her face and stilled when a group of men and women came toward them.
“You’ve walked her to the wrong door, Marshal!”
Josiah wasn’t sure who said it, but the laughter that followed only brought more comments.
Thanks to the moonshine, the jokes about their wedding night turned downright salacious before he and Violet both were ushered away from the Campbell house and down the street, the merriment not stopping until they stood by the door to the little room behind the jail.
“All right,” he said, laughing to keep up appearances. “Get on home.”
“Not until you’ve carried her over the threshold. It's tradition.”
Violet gave him the slightest nod before he reached down and picked her up. Her arm went around his neck and he was suddenly drowning in her scent. It was the same as the day she’d leaned over him in the jail and he inhaled deeply, taking it into his lungs and forcing himself not to get lost in it.
She weighed next to nothing and felt so right in his arms. For a brief moment, he thought maybe he should keep her.
Common sense returned a moment later when someone had opened the door for him. He carried her up the two steps and walked inside, turning to the onlookers. “Thanks for seeing us home,” he said. “Now, goodnight.”
He didn’t wait for a reply and stuck out his foot to push the door closed. When it banged shut, and the voices and laugher of those outside faded away, he reluctantly set Violet on her feet.
The silence that followed was awkward. Neither of them moved as they stood staring at the door until someone outside on the street yelled something he didn’t quite hear, and the riot of laughter increased.
He let out a breath and glanced at Violet. She was still staring at the door. She must have felt him watching her and looked up.
“Don’t say it,” she groaned.
“Say what?”
“Whatever it is you want to say. I know this is a huge mess and it's all my fault.”
She turned to survey the room. He looked at it, too. It wasn’t much, but he was a simple man. He had a stove, a place to sit and eat his meals if he ever decided to cook himself something—which he never did—and a bed to lie on every night. It wasn’t a proper home, but it was enough for him.
Violet’s perusal of the room stopped on the bed and her cheeks turned pink. He knew what she was thinking without uttering a word. “I’ll sleep in the jail,” he said. “The cots in there are pretty decent as far as jailhouse beds go.”
“I hate running you out of your own home.”
“Well, unless you plan to sleep in the jail or share that bed with me, I don’t have much of a choice.”
Images of her spread out on his bed popped into his head the instant he thought it.
He’d had visions of her there before, her hair fanned out around her face, her long arms thrown over her head while thrusting her naked breasts up at him and, as it had then, his body reacted as if he’d been touched.
He made his way to the table in the dark and lit the lantern for her before heading to the door. “Get some sleep. Hopefully by morning Edwin will be gone and life can get back to the way it was.”
Which was boring and predictable, but he didn’t say as much.
He gave her one last look before opening the door and stepping outside.
He inhaled a breath, looked up at the starry moon-washed sky and tried to forget the fact he was a married man.
And his new wife was about to sleep in his bed. Without him.
Running a hand over his face, he rounded the corner of the building and tried to put Violet Campbell—correction, Violet Lincoln—out of his mind.
She had nothing to sleep in.
Violet stood in the silence and stared at Josiah’s bed. She’d not planned on staying here tonight and had been ushered away from her house so fast, she hadn’t had time to grab anything.
She wasn’t sure why she thought she would be able to avoid it, though. The townsfolk didn’t know the marriage was fake, and they hadn’t given her time to escape the entire ordeal and sneak off to her own bedroom, so here she stood, inside Josiah’s tiny home with nothing but the clothes on her back.
She inhaled a deep breath and pulled the flower crown off her head.
She smiled while looking at it. A small group of girls had run across the clearing collecting them, then wove them into a crown for her and even though the flowers were starting to wilt, she couldn’t wait to get it home and press it between the pages of a book to preserve it.
It might not be a real marriage but this was the closest she’d get to being a real bride with Josiah being her groom and as silly as it was, she wanted to hold on to any little piece of it she could.
With a quick glance around the room, she saw a large chest at the foot of the bed. Opening it, she found neat stacks of pants and shirts. Josiah was a minimalist, it seemed. He had the essentials one needed and nothing else.
The shirt on top of the stack was large and would pass as a nightdress. She glanced at the window, making sure the curtain was down before she started undressing. Luckily, she didn’t have on too many layers.
Once she removed her corset and let her shift dropped to her feet, she stood in nothing but her short underpants and stockings. Goosebumps broke out on her arms and her nipples hardened to stiff peaks in the chill air. Maybe she should have had Josiah light the stove before he left.