Chapter 27
twenty-seven
Noah
Ican’t take my eyes off her plump lips as she leans into me. “What if your wife wants to sleep on the couch?” she breathes.
The couch is fucking uncomfortable—I know from experience. There’s no way anyone would actually want to sleep on it. I suspect what she wants is for me to carry her to bed.
I can do that—anytime.
I force my gaze to her eyes. “If my wife is more comfortable falling asleep watching the stars from the couch, then I’m more than happy to carry her to bed.” There. That should settle it.
Willow’s eyes widen, irises ablaze—a beautiful spectacle. The tip of her nose twitches almost imperceptibly, but I catch it. Her neck turns rosy.
She straightens. “I’ll get to work,” she says, clamping the stack of prints in one hand and clutching her coffee mug in the other.
I jump off my chair to get the door for her. Our bodies are close, too close and yet not close enough. She doesn’t take a step back, although there’s ample place to. She doesn’t look away. I expect her to say something snarky, but she softens.
“What?” she asks, her voice barely above a whisper. Her gaze glides down to my lips. I want to kiss her so bad, it’s painful.
The irony is, if she weren’t my wife—my fake wife—I probably would. Her body language tells me she wants this. Hell, what she said last night when we were half naked surrounded by ghosts told the same story.
“You’re even more beautiful when you’re all flustered,” I whisper back. “I’d add it to the spreadsheet, but it’s not something I can ever forget.” Then I step back, open the door wide for her, and say in a voice as normal as I can, “Call if you need help.”
She all but runs away.
I spend the next hour fighting my erection by doing all sorts of unnecessary tasks that fill my time while keeping me off the shop floor. I’m opening and closing my email for the millionth time when our mail lady comes in. “You didn’t have to come all the way here,” I say as I stand to greet her.
“Just need a signature, Mr. Callaway.”
I scribble my name on the card attached to an envelope. “Noah.” I correct her. She’s my father’s age—they went to school together. You’d think she’d drop the Mister.
She hands me a thick envelope. “Thanks, Mr. Callaway.”
I chuckle and smile. Old habits die hard. I just wish people didn’t treat me like I was better than. Because I’m not.
The top-left corner of the envelope indicates this comes from Mrs. Gail Callaway. I tense up, though I’m not surprised. Last night, Beck told me she’d been spotted in town, and he was asking if there was anything to worry about.
I reassured him there wasn’t, but this letter can’t be good news. I slice through the envelope, unfold the document, and reach for my phone.
“Hey, Noah, I only have a minute.” Tamberly’s out of breath and there are voices in the background. “Going into a hearing. What’s up?”
I read the title of the document, Notice of Concern Regarding Trust Execution, then sum it up for her as I skim through it. “She’s claiming the marriage is false.” My stomach sinks. I should have seen it coming.
“Not surprised,” Tamberly says. “Scan me a copy, will ya?”
“What’s our next step?”
“Nothing. She’s trying to scare you, wants you to engage. We just wait it out.”
“How worried should I be?”
“Nothin’ to worry about. You married Willow for love. How’s she gonna prove you didn’t? Very hard to prove a negative, especially if it’s not there.”
I can think of fifteen thousand, six hundred and twenty-two reasons on Willow’s side (give or take a few cents), and a few millions on mine. But I can’t tell Tamberly that. I’d disappoint her as a person. And I’d make her life as a lawyer much harder than it needs to be.
I wonder if she senses my hesitation, because she says, “Right?”
“Correct,” I say. Gail can’t find anything to prove my marriage isn’t real. “Anything I can do at this point?”
“Stop worrying. Though I would say, if you and Willow were planning on starting a family anytime soon, now would be a good time. There’s nothing like a pregnancy to kill the rumor of a fake marriage.”
Right. Perfect. Excellent. On it, Tamberly.
A vision of Willow manifests in my mind’s eye, her belly rounding with my child.
I suddenly feel very hot. “Thanks. Talk to you soon.” I hang up and stare into nothingness for a while.
Then I go get a cup of awful coffee, just to give the next five minutes a purpose.
From the corner of my eye, I can see Willow crouched on all fours, her ass pointed at me like a tease.
She’s papered the windows almost to the ceiling with what from here looks like…
I’m not sure. I left my glasses on my desk somewhere in the middle of my phone conversation.
I turn my gaze away from her and get back into my office, thinking about all the clues we’ve left that our marriage isn’t real.
The fact that we were never engaged before the wedding, were never seen together alone, never a date, not even a coffee.
The fact that we got married in Vegas, of all places.
Fuck. This isn’t looking good.
At noon Willow pokes her head in the office. “Hungry?” she asks.
Thank god there’s no trace in her demeanor of where we last left things. I made it awkward earlier, but here she is, acting all normal. Saving the day, just as she’s saving so much more just by being in my life.
“No, but I could use a break.”
“Why don’t we take the trail up the hill toward Kiara’s pastry shop?” she asks. “I’ll just run home to change my shoes.”
As we leave the store, I notice what the display windows are entirely papered in… “Are these old photographs?” She did ask about photos earlier, but I had no clue why. I just had this vision of her and me in the attic, and after that I stopped listening to what she was saying.
She nods. “Copies. Look! This is your great-great-grandfather. You should wear one of these aprons! Look at this one,” she says, pointing to a photograph with horses and carriages waiting where cars now line our sidewalk.
Each one of these photos is of the store, and she has them arranged in chronological order, with the older ones to the left and the more recent ones to the right.
There are even reproductions of newspapers advertisements.
“That’s awesome.” I let go of her hand to pull her into a side hug, my cheeks hurting from the big smile she’s put on my face as I peer over each photograph.
I lean over to give her a friendly kiss on the head.
“Thank you.” For the first time in a long time, the store and the family name don’t feel like a burden.
Instead, Willow has made me proud of where I’ve come from.
Minutes later we’re on the trail that runs from the river up the hill. While Willow swapped her sandals for walking shoes, I filled two water bottles. “Welcome gift,” I joke, handing her the bottle I took from the store.
She examines it, then takes a sip. “We should brand those to the store,” she says. “But then again, the store needs a better name than just the store. It needs a logo and colors. You should talk to Alex about this.”
“Why don’t you talk to Alex?”
She halts briefly to turn toward me, maybe to check if I’m joking. When she sees I’m not, a smile plays on her face. “Might as well make myself useful while I’m here.”
I don’t like the way she says it, or even the words themselves. But she’s right. She’s only here for a while, a few months at least—maybe we’ll make it a year, to be on the safe side. If she’ll consider it.
Point is, just because I like her presence in my life doesn’t mean I should get used to it.
“Is this something you’d like to do?” I ask.
“Are you kidding? Of course I would.”
She must miss the bakery. And making cakes. “You miss working with Kiara?” I don’t know how long she worked for her (something I should add to the spreadsheet), but I know they’re tight.
Willow shrugs. “Yes and no. I miss her company, but I didn’t like being cooped up inside, seeing the same two-three people every day. I preferred when I was at the register.”
We get to a fork in the trail, and we leave the path hugging the riverbank to climb up the hill. Willow’s breath doesn’t show any sign of fatigue. “I miss hanging out with her. But for now, working at the store fills my well. I feel like this morning I got to see half the town!” she says, giggling.
“How is your little project coming along?” When we left, the inside of the windows were, as far as I could tell, a mess of various objects.
“My little project, huh?” she says. “Probably needs one more day.”
“Wow, that’s more than a little project.” I feel shitty about what I said. I stop on the trail. What follows is going to be more than just casual conversation. “Look, I didn’t mean to brush it off like that.”
“I know,” she says, turning to me. “You coming?”
“The truth is, I got some shitty news this morning.” I look her straight in the eye. I need to talk to someone, and she’s the only one I can talk to about that.
“What’s going on?”
“Gail is contesting the authenticity of our marriage.” I give her a summary of the paperwork I received this morning, and of my conversation with our lawyer, leaving out the baby part, of course. I don’t think she was even serious about that.
“Fuck. Well, we kinda saw it coming. That’s why we’re sleeping in the same bedroom, and faking the PDA, and I’m working at the store.
We got this.” She turns around, takes a few steps up the trail, then turns back toward me.
“Sorry, you said you needed to talk and I did all the talking. What’s got you worried?
” She walks to a flat boulder and sits on it, giving me her full attention.
Now I feel like an idiot, because in a few words, Willow managed to alleviate my concerns.
I’m no longer worried. Tough luck trying to prove our marriage isn’t real.
I sit next to her, but not too close, my elbows on my knees.
“We might need to stay married a little longer than anticipated.” If Gail starts legal proceedings, these are going to take months.
A divorce right in the middle of it all would help her case tremendously.
“I’m sorry,” Willow says. “I know it must suck for you to have a stranger living in your house, sleeping in your bed.”
I shake my head and look away, trying to hide the embarrassment that must be painted all over my face.
Finally, I man up and turn my head to look her in the eye.
“You’re not a stranger. And it doesn’t suck.
At all.” I look away again, fearing my face will tell too much.
“In fact, I’ve… very much appreciated getting to know you. ”
Her voice small, she says, “Well, the feeling is mutual.”
I don’t think she knows what feelings I have, or she wouldn’t be saying that. “Do you miss living on your own?”
She shrugs. “I was going to move back home to help Mom by paying rent. And then you came along,” she adds with a smile, looking me straight in the eye and making me squirm.
“We should move your stuff from your apartment to my—our place.” Since the close call at community dinner, we haven’t talked about her lease, but there’s something I should have thought about sooner.
That of course she’d want her shit—not saying this in a demeaning way. But she’s a woman. She needs her stuff. Is it sexist of me to think that women want to make a home out of any house? “You should change things around at Lilyvale. Make it feel like your home.”
Her eyes widen. “Really? No, no, I couldn’t. Why would I?”
“So you feel more at home.” And because I want you to. It’s stuffy, and full of memories I’d sometimes rather forget, and for some reason I can’t explain I’m certain the changes you’ll bring will make me feel better.
“It doesn’t sound right. Maybe if we were married for real, and even then, I think I’d tiptoe around it.”
Inspiration strikes me. “It’d help make our case that our marriage is real.” Her smile flattens a little, and I’m not sure why. She’s always the one coming up with ideas to make our marriage look real. The PDA at community dinner. The studying each other.
There’s something that I can’t quite put my finger on. Something that seems to have clicked in my brain when I saw her with our ghosts last night.
As crazy as it seems, it was as if she belonged there. In this house. In our family.
The only rational explanation I can come up with is that the ghosts know she’s the one who can save us.
Lips pursed downward, she nods. “Okay.” Then her attention turns to the side of the trail. A big smile replaces the signs of her puzzling disappointment as she cries, “Ohmygod! What are you doing here?”