Chapter 14 Isla
FOURTEEN
ISLA
Up here, I can finally hear myself think.
Downstairs, the noise had weight to it. It pressed in from every side, making me nod at jokes I didn’t catch, accept hugs I didn’t want, and smile until my cheeks started to ache. Up here, it all goes soft around the edges.
For a little while, I can almost forget that I’ve somehow ended up with a fake husband.
“So,” Jack says, keeping his distance. “Was this everything you ever dreamed of?”
“You’re trying to get me to express my feelings.”
He tips his head. “I’m trying to get you to tell me the truth. You keep smiling at people like you’re performing, and I can see the tension in every inch of you.”
“I’m fine.”
His fingers slide under my chin. “Talk to me, freckles. Please. It’s only the two of us up here.”
My throat works. I blink once, then again, and manage a small, strained smile.
“I thought,” I say, and my voice catches, which sends heat blooming behind my eyes. “I thought I’d have my mom there. Greer, too.”
The words hurt the second they leave me because now they’re real. Now they’re in the air between us instead of safely locked inside my own head. I know this wasn’t a real wedding, but some part of me still wanted the shape of one.
And I hate how tight my chest feels. I hate that today, of all days, my mind keeps circling the empty spaces.
The people who should have been here. The version of my life I used to imagine before the bills got mean.
Before the bank started calling and I learned what it meant to choose survival over sentiment.
“I thought maybe I’d get married someday in the orchard rows,” I say.
“By Elias’ tree. I don’t know. It was never going to be .
. . this.” My gaze drops to the lace at my wrist. I rub my thumb over the pattern until the skin starts to sting.
“This was fine. This was good. It’s a good second option. ”
Jack’s thumb stays at my jaw.
“You’ll have that someday,” he says roughly. “Whatever version of it you want. Not a courthouse because a grant committee likes their boxes checked. You deserve the orchard rows. You deserve everything you ever pictured.”
My eyes burn, and I look away fast, furious at my own face. Furious at my own body for betraying me. I shouldn’t cry in borrowed lace sleeves in a dusty apartment above a bar on Main Street.
“You can’t promise me that,” I mutter.
“I can promise you this—I’m not going to be the reason you don’t get it.”
That’s a fear I’ve been trying not to look at too closely. I picked the option that looks stable from a distance. But I could still wake up one day when this is all over and Jack is gone, and I’ll be left wondering if I could’ve avoided the abandonment.
I turn back and study his face, searching for the hesitation.
He taps the inside of my wrist once with his thumb.
I feel the awareness of it in my skin. It makes my thoughts go thin and strange.
My voice drops. “We should go back in.”
“Yeah,” he says.
My gaze flicks to his mouth. Quick, accidental, infuriating. It still hits me how much I want to kiss him when I’m not supposed to.
He lets his hand fall, slow.
We head back downstairs, and that noise meets us immediately. A name called across the room. A laugh too loud. The clatter of plates. Someone calls for us. Then Wells appears with two plates of cake and says, “Eat this before Elsie starts complaining again.”
I take the plate and lean toward Jack. “If this tastes like balsamic vinegar, I’m blaming you.”
His mouth twitches. “The Hart special.”
One bite. Against all odds, Elsie managed not to poison me on my wedding day.
I swallow and say, grudgingly, “It’s not horrible.”
“Is that the highest compliment you own?”
I make a sound that could be agreement. Then my gaze slides past his shoulder.
Sarah’s in the corner with Winnie’s daughter, Goldie, swinging her around by both arms. Our dads are talking, which is weirdly sweet, because they’re both men who can spend forty minutes discussing a lawnmower.
The room is warm and filled to the brim with people who care about me, about us. It’s a shame we’re lying to all of them.
“First dance, kids!” Bobby calls, and the crowd immediately breaks into cheers.
My head snaps toward him. “Already?”
Bobby is already switching the music, and I see Jack’s mother’s face light up across the room. If I refuse, I become another piece of gossip that will be told at every fundraiser for the next decade.
I close my eyes briefly, then open them and look at Jack with resignation.
“If you spin me, I will smack you.”
His grin flashes. “I would never.”
It’s a lie. I can tell immediately.
He offers me his hand, and I take it anyway.
We step into the small open space in the middle of the back room. People shuffle back. Someone claps. The music is slow and syrupy. Not too romantic, which is the only mercy I’ve been given.
Jack’s hand settles at my waist, careful, and I place my hand on his shoulder.
“Relax,” he murmurs.
“I am relaxed,” I mutter.
My body betrays me. My spine is too straight. My shoulders are locked.
He tilts his head, voice low. “Breathe, freckles.”
I count the seconds as we sway, a slow shift, back and forth. Jack’s giving my nervous system time to catch up. And after a minute, I feel it. The smallest easing. My body loosens by a few degrees as it realizes he’s not going to do anything ridiculous.
He’s not going to dip me or spin me or try to make out with me in the middle of the room. He’s not going to lift me over his head like we’re in Dirty Dancing.
My voice drops. “You’re being . . . normal.”
His mouth curves. “Should I be offended by that?”
“Probably,” I say.
He leans in a fraction. “You look good, by the way. I didn’t say it earlier when I meant to. I mean, damn, that dress on you.”
“It’s borrowed,” I say automatically.
“I don’t care,” he replies, and there’s something maddeningly sincere in it. “You could be wearing a trash bag, and you’d still be the most remarkable person in the room.”
A breathy laugh slips out of me.
The song ends. I step back quickly. Jack lets me go without making it a thing, and that, too, does something to my chest.
Then he does what he does best. He makes the rounds. He shakes hands. He turns on the charm. He lets older men clap him on the back like marriage is an award he just won.
Every few minutes, I catch him looking back at me. Maybe he’s checking that I’m still here. Maybe he’s reminding himself he is, too.
I keep smiling and nodding along where I’m supposed to.
Eventually, Jack drifts toward the front of the bar, where Bobby has cleared away some space. He taps his glass lightly with a fork, and the room quiets in that slow, reluctant way.
My head snaps up. My stomach drops.
Oh no. Please don’t.
Jack’s warm brown eyes find mine across the room. He looks pleased with himself, which is the last thing I need. I can already feel my cheeks heating.
He clears his throat. “I was informed there would be minimal emotion tonight, and I’d just like to say that I’m already failing.”
A laugh ripples through the room.
“I’m not a speech guy,” Jack says.
I almost choke on my champagne because that’s such an obvious lie it borders on performance art. Jack Rhodes loves working a room. Charming strangers, flirting with women, making everybody feel like they’re in on the joke. That’s one of his many irritating talents.
“I’m a show up with a truck and make it worse before I make it better guy,” he continues. “But I do want to say something.”
Stop now. Please stop while you’re ahead.
I know speeches are standard procedure at a wedding, but we didn’t plan for this. We didn’t rehearse this. Who knows what the hell he’s going to say?
He looks at me, eyes bright, mouth curved. I think he knows exactly how much trouble he’s about to be in. I assess the distance to my glass and briefly consider throwing it at his head. It would stop this nonsense, wouldn’t it?
“I’ve known Isla for a long time.” My shoulders go rigid. “Long enough to know she’ll never ask for help unless she’s already tried every other option, including brute force and spite.”
The room laughs again.
“But I also know,” Jack continues, “that she’s the kind of person who keeps showing up for what she loves, even when it’s hard and unfair and no one’s clapping for her.”
The laughter fades.
Something inside me tightens, then pulls in a direction I don’t entirely recognize.
“Mirabelle matters to her family,” he says. “To this town. To everyone who’s ever eaten a golden plum and thought, yeah, that’s what summer is supposed to taste like.”
I shake my head, willing him to stop.
“And Isla matters, too.” There’s a hitch in his voice that shouldn’t be there. “She matters more than the orchard. More than the paperwork. More than any story we tell ourselves to make the hard things feel acceptable.”
My next inhale catches halfway in.
“So, yes, we did this small. We did this practical. We did this the way she asked, which is the only reason I’m still alive.”
A few people laugh, but it dies quickly when they hear the change in his voice.
“I want everyone here to understand something.” I watch his gaze sweep the room—our parents, our friends, the whole damn town.
“This marriage is about more than just my commitment to Isla. It’s about me promising to always show up for her.
But also, for Mirabelle and for Blue Willow. I’m here for good.”
My ribs draw in around my lungs. He’s saying everything I would have wanted a real groom to say, which feels deeply unfair, considering the circumstances. I know what this is. I know what we agreed to. None of that stops the words from landing anyway.
He looks back at me. “And for the record, I’m fully aware that I married out of my league. Isla Winslow is the most gorgeous, most impossible woman I’ve ever met.”
They all laugh. Someone cheers.
My lips curve into a reluctant, traitorous smile.
Then, “I love my wife.”
My gaze locks on his, warning and startled all at once. Don’t. Don’t say that.
“I love her stubbornness. I love her ridiculous competence. I love that she can make a grown man feel like he’s about to get pummeled with a single look. I love that she cares about things enough to fight for them, tooth and nail.”
The room is silent now.
I have the distinct urge to stand up and drag him out of here by his collar.
He smiles at me, unrepentant, and lifts his glass. “To Isla Winslow. To Mirabelle. To the fact that I’ll be taking my wife home in approximately ten minutes, so please wrap up your emotional commentary accordingly.”
The room explodes in laughter and applause.
My face is burning as I join him, hissing under my breath, “You’re a menace.”
“You married me,” he murmurs.
“I married you for the benefits.”
“And yet—” His gaze flicks to my mouth and back up. “—you’re looking at me like you might want a replay of our first kiss before you kill me.”
My pulse skitters. I open my mouth to deny it and close it again, jaw tightening.
“Take your time, Isla. I’m not going anywhere.”