Chapter 13
Nora
IT’S IMPORTANT TO note that I am not a PDA person. I prefer my kisses be of the private variety. Luckily Jack was always the same way. When we were dating we’d be out in public or in the middle of a crowd and our eyes would meet—next thing I knew he’d be sweeping me away to some secluded corner or tugging me outside to steal a kiss. And if we couldn’t manage to sneak away, his foot would find mine, letting me know he was thinking about being alone with me later.
But when Jack kisses me again for the first time in three years, I forget all about the fact that we have an audience. Kissing Jack again is like coming home after too long away. My whole body sighs with the relief of it. It’s evocative and sweet and, okay—also leaves me wondering what the thermostat is set to because it is hot in this home.
“Nora! Nora!” Somewhere, distantly in the recesses of my brain I hear my name being shouted repeatedly, but I’m too busy kissing Jack to respond. But whoever it is keeps at it until the voice is only inches away and can no longer be ignored.
We spring apart, both breathing hard. I wonder if my face has the same stunned expression as the one on Jack’s face. The ‘what just happened?’ face that matches the question bouncing around in my head.
But the question vanishes when I turn to see Mel standing there, the clear owner of the voice yelling at us.
“Finally!” she cries, throwing her arms around me in a tight hug. “I’ve been shouting at you for five minutes! Do you have any idea how worried we’ve all been about you? I’m so glad you’re okay!”
“Five minutes?” I squeak in horror, bypassing the worried comment to focus on this blatant lie. Because there’s no way we were kissing for five whole minutes. I glance Emily and Lucy’s way for confirmation of this assertion.
“Well, maybe not five,” Emily says kindly. “But certainly at least two.”
“The judge said you may kiss the bride,” Lucy adds with a smirk, “not you may make out with the bride.” She looks insanely pleased by this new development; I’ve clearly made up for my lame we-reconnected-by-talking story.
Meanwhile I sort of want to die rather than having to face Jack. How could I have allowed myself to kiss my husband for TWO WHOLE MINUTES?
Yeah, I know it takes two to tango or whatever—but Jack is a nice guy. He probably didn’t want to embarrass me by pulling away when I was so clearly into it.
Oh gosh. What is wrong with me? I bet he’s really regretting marrying me now. He was already crying about it during the ceremony. And Jack doesn’t cry. I guess realizing you’ve thrown your life away to marry a murderous trollop could break anyone.
Although in my defense, throwing yourself at your husband doesn’t typically count as being promiscuous.
But since Jack married me as a favor, I’d say throwing myself at him reeks of desperation.
“Wait!” Mel interrupts my fit of self-retribution. “You two got married? That’s why you’re at the courthouse?” She lets out a long relieved breath. “After Noah told me what happened last night and then I discovered you were at a courthouse, I thought you’d been arrested or something!”
“Arrested?” Jack exclaims far too overdramatically for a guy who is usually so stoic. “Why would she have been arrested?”
“How did you even know where I was?” I ask, earning myself a soft elbow to the side from Jack. “I mean, arrested?” I amend, rearranging my expression into one of shocked horror. “Why would you think that? I am a law-abiding citizen.”
Okay, that last sentence might’ve been overkill. I’m not sure. All I know is that I’m not cut out for all of this lying.
But I am even less cut out for prison.
“You don’t know?” Mel is aghast. But she still takes the time to deliver a little PSA before delving into the dead-body-on-my-front-lawn thing. “Also, how many times do I have to remind you all of the importance of using the Find My function on your phones.” She waves her own phone in the air. “Three top-notch detectives have been looking for you, Nora, but guess who found you? Me! Me and my Find My app.” She points at each of us in the room. “None of you can hide from me. You know, unless you turn off location sharing, but none of you have done that yet.”
I don’t dare look at Jack. Did he ever get rid of his phone? Because if not, his story about losing his phone is about to go right out the window. And then what excuse will he give for ignoring all of his friends’ calls and messages?
The two of us were too caught up in our newly rekindled love to pay attention to our phones?
Ha! Lucy would love that.
“Okay, we all agree that you’re brilliant, Mel,” Jack says smoothly. “But seriously, what's all this about Nora getting arrested?”
“You really don’t know?” Mel repeats the question.
“Know what?” Jack replies. “Seriously, Mel, you’re kind of freaking me out.”
“Me too,” I agree, my general state of anxiety over Ian’s murder lending itself well to my need to appear freaked out.
Mel chews her lower lip, looking worried. She steps closer then stage-whispers, “Nora, they found a dead body on your front lawn last night.”
“What?” I cry, and this time I’m the one going overboard with the drama. That sounded way too contrived. Or perhaps I’m just too nervous about getting caught to be a good judge.
It doesn’t matter much either way, though, because Lucy steals the attention off me by shrieking, “They found a dead body on her front lawn?”
So now the whole building knows my plight.
Great.
“What are you talking about?” Jack steps forward, facing Mel. “A dead body? Whose body?” He’s transitioned to detective mode, and I’m not going to lie—it looks good on him.
“They don’t know yet. He didn’t have any ID on him. All I know is the victim was a middle-aged, Caucasian with brown hair. Oh and,” she grimaces, looking my way, “ that apparently he was stabbed to death with a knitting needle.”
I fight to keep my expression neutral, even as the playback track of my conversation with Lucy and Emily runs through my mind.
“You knit?”
“I do. Just as a hobby, but I love it.”
“Obviously lots of people knit, though,” Mel goes on, shooting me an anxious look, because, duh, I made the woman potholders—she also knows I knit!
Why did I ever pick a hobby that lends itself so well to giving other people things? I should’ve picked a hobby that could easily be kept secret, like power walking or gardening. Although I suppose gardeners do give people the stuff they grow. Still, I’ve never heard of anyone getting stabbed to death by a tomato. A carrot, maybe. Or perhaps you could bludgeon someone with a particularly dense squash. Or pelt them with potatoes.
“Nora was with me last night,” Jack is saying when I finally stop imagining ways vegetables can be used as weapons and tune back into the conversation. “She spent the night in my guest room.”
“Oh really?” Mel’s eyebrows pop up at this.
“And thank God for that,” Lucy exclaims. “Imagine if she’d been home when they found that dead body. Or worse if she’d been around when the murder took place! How completely traumatizing!”
She has no idea. Jack moves closer to me and sets an arm around my shoulder in a show of husbandly concern. Do I lean into his touch? Yes, yes, I do.
But I’m sure to tell myself that it’s for our audience’s benefit.
Jack bends down to press a soft kiss to my temple and for a second I’m thrown by the tenderness of the gesture, but then he murmurs softly into my hair, “We need to get the marriage license signed asap.”
Right, he just needed to relay a message. Ix-nay on the enderness-tay.
There’s no room for tenderness in a murder marriage of convenience.
“Well, let’s go sign the marriage license then I can talk to the police,” I say. “You said they’ve been looking for me, and I’d hate for them to mistake my state of wedded bliss as me trying to evade them.” I laugh as naturally as possible.
“Uh, okay.” Mel is giving me a funny look, and I find I can’t meet her eyes. Lying to my friend feels horrible—and this is only the beginning of that. “I can’t believe you two got married.” I hear the unspoken message behind her words: and you didn’t invite me.
This is awful. Up until this point I’ve been so focused on making sure we got married and whether or not the plan would even work that I forgot to consider how many people we were going to have to lie to. How many people we were going to hurt.
This is why you should never murder someone.
Well this and the sixth commandment.
Let’s not forget that one.
“We would have invited you,” I say quickly, “but it was a last minute thing.”
“It’s true,” Emily speaks up. “Once they ran into us, Nora wanted to invite you too, but Reynolds said no.” She shoots him a mildly chastening look. “I guess he was in too much of a hurry to marry this one.” She hikes a thumb my way.
“Yes, well, I’d already let her slip away once before,” Reynolds says smoothly. “I couldn’t let it happen again.”
Dang, he’s good at this. Even I almost believed that’s how he truly felt.
“Speaking of which, how about we sign the marriage certificate?” he adds, looking the judge’s way.
Mel is still looking somewhere between confused and hurt, but she shrugs. “Sure, go ahead.” She eyes her watch. “The guys will all be here any second. I told Noah where Nora was, they just all had to cross town to get here.”
Lovely. Let’s add three detectives to this fake wedding. Sounds like just what we need.
Jack clearly agrees—I’ve never seen anyone grab a pen and scrawl their name so fast in my life. It’s my turn next and I hear Lucy squeal from behind me, “Last time you’ll sign something with your maiden name, Mrs. Reynolds.”
A spike of panic stabs through me and the pen slips on the paper, giving my O a squiggly appearance. Mrs. The word grates across my skin, a reminder of the wounds inflicted by my own mother as she waltzed in and out of my life—bouncing from being Mrs. Donovan one year to Mrs. Porter the next, only to become Mrs. Sharp two tears after that. Let’s just say that my mom never met a man whose last name she was afraid to take.
“I’m actually keeping my last name,” I hear myself say as I finish my signature with a possessive flourish. I will not be my mother.
“Oh.” Lucy can’t keep the surprise out of her initial response, but she quickly course corrects. “Sorry, I didn’t know.”
“No worries,” I chirp. My eyes land on Jack. He’s staring intently at me, the crease on his forehead suggesting he’s deep in thought. I swallow hard, worried I’ve offended him. After all, when he proposed to me three years ago he made kind of a big deal about me taking his last name.
Well, at least it seemed like a big deal at the time. In retrospect, all he really did was include it in his list of all the things he was looking forward to sharing with me. He tucked it right between a home and a family.
But still. Even that little mention was too much for me to deal with at the time.
My mom had me at only 17-years-old. She made it through two weeks of sleep-interrupted nights before taking off and leaving me in the care of her parents. She reappeared when I was 4-years-old with a man attached to her side, waving her wedding ring in my grandparents’ faces and saying she was ready to be my mom. Two months later her new husband was out of the picture and two weeks after that I was back with my grandparents. Thankfully they were smart enough to hire lawyers to get them custody at that point, since eight months later my mom was back with a new husband in tow, trying to take me again. After that she popped in and out of my life, always in conjunction with either a marriage or a divorce.
Despite her antics, I craved my mom’s attention, and in my childish mind that meant finding boys of my own so I had something to talk to her about when she came to town. And I do mean boys literally. I was only 9 when I had my first boyfriend, 10 when I had my first kiss, 11 when I first started sneaking out of the house to meet boys, and 13 when my grandparents pulled me out of public school and started sending me to a private all girls school—before I could end up like my mother.
This was absolutely the right decision.
Thanks to some great teachers, friends, and my grandparents' continued pursuit of me, I realized that wanting my mother’s love was the root of my destructive behavior. But what I had to recognize was that I already had the unconditional love of my grandparents, my friends, God, and eventually Jack.
Of course, I messed that last one up royally.
Apparently I never fully addressed the trauma inflicted on me by my mother’s actions.
Who knew?
“Okay, well, I’ll sign next,” Emily says, stepping forward to take the pen from me. I watch with bated breath as she moves the pen along the paper. She straightens, and I exhale. One down, one to go.
Lucy makes her way to the table, accepting the pen from Emily with a smile aimed my way. It’s weird watching her put the pen to the paper all the while knowing that this is the last step before Jack and I are well and truly married.
There’s a flutter in my chest that I can’t quite decipher the meaning of—is it relief? Apprehension? Or possibly even excitement?
No, surely not this last one. There’s no way I’m excited to be married to Jack Reynolds.
I have trauma, people. Trauma that has greatly soured my views on marriage. Well, not marriage itself. My grandparents have an amazing marriage. Lots of people do. It’s more about my views on marriage for me personally…as in, I don’t know when or if I’ll ever be ready for it.
Or at least that’s how I felt prior to committing murder.
That event sort of changed the game. Marriage became a necessary thing rather than an elective activity.
Basically it’s all very confusing, so I just don’t know quite what to think or feel as Lucy scrawls her signature on the paper.
“Jack Reynolds!” A voice cries from the doorway just as she finishes her signature with a little flourish. All six of us, the judge included, turn to the doorway to see Noah Anderson, Nate Stafford, and Reed Montgomery standing there gazes fixed on Jack—all three of them looking more than a little bit angry.
Immediately I feel a shock of remorse and guilt that I’m the cause of the anger aimed Jack’s way by his three best friends, but when I look over at him, Jack appears unperturbed. In fact he is the picture of composed as he stares back at them. His hands are in his pockets, his shoulders are loose, and his face has a pleasant expression as if he’s happy to see this trio of angry men.
Again I’m struck by how much better Jack is at this whole lying charade.
It makes all of those moments where I wondered if there was still something between us seem like that much more of an illusion.
“Man am I glad to see you three!” Jack exclaims. “What’s this about a dead body on my wife’s front lawn?” He slides a hand from his pocket to wave it around. “Or should I say her former front lawn since she’s going to be moving in with me now that we’ve tied the knot.”
“Hold on.” Anderson puts both his hands up like a crossing guard telling traffic to stop. “You two got married?”
“Yup. Five minutes ago,” Mel answers for us. I don’t miss the faux lightness to her tone. How am I ever going to make this up to her? I guarantee Hallmark doesn’t have a card for this type of situation. An “I’m sorry I didn’t invite you to my courthouse wedding, it was just because I didn’t want you to delay the ceremony by talking about the dead body someone found on my front lawn” card probably wouldn’t be a big seller.
I suppose there’s always a box of chocolate. Or a jar of pickles. Mel loves pickles.
The three men exchange looks. “I don’t get it,” Montgomery says. “When did you two even get back together?”
This time Emily answers for us. “It only happened last night, babe. They were just trying to be romantic eloping like this.”
“Last night?” Anderson doesn’t like this answer. He shoots me a dubious look as he adds, “You mean the same night we found a dead body on Nora’s front lawn?”
“What are you getting at?” Jack replies, his voice tight. Anderson’s gaze snaps back over to him. Gone is the relaxed posture he had when his friends walked in. Now he’s giving off angry-bull-preparing-to-charge-for-the-matador vibes. Anderson steps back, putting his metaphorical red flag to the side.
“Hey, man, calm down. I’m not getting at anything.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “Just trying to understand the situation.”
The silence in the room is so charged it could power an entire city.
“So you two kids got married, did ya now?” Stafford breaks the silence with his usual dose of easy charm, stepping forward to clap Jack on the back then offering me a hand to shake. “Nora, good to see you.”
Tentatively I reach out and take his hand. Stafford has traditionally always been the most laid back and easygoing of the group. If we can’t win him over with our sudden marriage, we have zero hope with the rest of them. Meaning there’s a lot riding on this handshake.
“Good to see you too, Stafford. I’ve enjoyed meeting your better half today.”
This was definitely the right thing to say. His whole face erupts in a smile and he forgets all about me as he heads over to Lucy. “My better half indeed,” he says, then rests a hand on her stomach. “Although, with this little guy or girl in here, does that make the pair of them my better two-thirds?”
“I’d agree with that math, Stafford,” Emily says, “but I’ve been told I apply math theories creatively. You know like when does one plus one equal one? When it’s you plus me.” She winks at Montgomery who actually laughs in response. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him laugh before.
Lucy laughs too, then inches up to her tiptoes to give Stafford a soft kiss. The sight is so sweet it makes my heart ache.
It still makes me feel weird to see a man I thought would be single until the end of time as part of a happily married couple.
Weird, but not at all jealous.
Nope. I am not jealous of their love. After all, I’m a happily married woman now too.
Or at least a married woman anyway.
“Reunions and math lessons aside,” Anderson speaks again, “I really think you owe us more of an explanation, Reynolds. All of us called you last night after the body was found. In fact we called you multiple times.”
“You did?” Jack looks blankly at them. “Sorry, I had no idea. I lost my phone.”
“You lost your phone?” Anderson sounds skeptical. This is understandable. Jack is not one to lose things. Another hole in our story. A hole that will triple in size if Mel decides to put her Find My app to good use again.
“I can find it for you,” Mel offers, whipping out her phone. Panic builds in my chest, but again Jack appears unperturbed.
“That would be great, Mel,” he says smoothly. “I’m guessing it’s dead by now, but it’s worth a try.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Mel replies breezily as she opens her phone and starts tapping the screen. “The app will show me its last live location.”
Okay, now Jack looks like he’s ready to come to my panic party, his hand twitches in the direction of his pocket and instinctively I know that’s where his phone is. Did he turn it off here or at home? I’m guessing here based on his expression.
So I do the only thing I can think of and shout, “Ahh! Spider!” Then I reach over and slap the phone out of Mel’s hands. It goes flying down to the ground and before anyone else can reach down to get it I bend down myself, making a show of grabbing it before I purposely let my butter fingers lose their grip and send it shooting forward and under the judge’s desk.
“Oh shoot!” I cry as I straighten back up. “Oh, Mel, I’m sorry. There was a spider on your hand. It’s gone now, but I just reacted instinctively when I saw it.”
Mel barely seems to hear me; she’s too busy wiggling her body in a dance I’m quite familiar with. It’s called the Oh My Gosh, Is There A Spider On Me Shimmy.
“It’s gone now,” I repeat, but she’s in the dancing zone and still doesn’t hear me.
“Mel,” Anderson comes up behind her, grabbing her gently by the shoulders, “the spider is gone.”
Mel finally stops dancing, her cheeks flushed from all the movement. She lets out one final shudder.
“Gah, I hate spiders,” she moans. “Thank you, Nora, for getting that one off me.” She looks around. “Where did my phone go?”
“Nora dropped it under the desk,” Montgomery supplies.
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” Anderson tells her since it’s clear she’s not thrilled with the idea of sticking her hand under the desk. Can’t say I blame her. She may not have actually had a spider on her when I hit her phone out of her hand, but she very well might end up with one on her if she puts her hand under that desk.
Anderson bends down to retrieve her phone, and I say loudly, “Maybe we should take this pow-wow outside. I’m sure the judge would like his office back.”
Judge Karplin, who’s been sitting at his desk, taking everything in, grunts. “As much as I’d like to see how this soap opera plays out, I do have work to do.”
“Well then we will get out of your hair,” Jack declares. “Thank you again for marrying us.” He doesn’t wait for a reply, just strides the heck out of there. I follow him, my heart racing. “Just need to get to my car,” he tells me under his breath. “Easy enough to believe my phone could’ve been lost in there.”
“I got this,” I tell him, even though I don’t actually have any idea how to stall Mel further. She’s far too efficient a person for this kind of scenario. I once saw her unwrap a package of gluten free Oreos while she simultaneously moved an armchair back to its rightful place in her dorm’s great room AND helped a resident in crisis pick her major. She’s a force of nature and I’m not sure I have an emergency response in place to counter her effects.
“What’s his rush?” I hear Stafford say behind us.
“Did you find his phone yet?” Lucy asks Mel.
In a panic I swivel around and make a beeline for Mel. She’s got her face in her phone as she trails along with the group.
“Thank you for coming to find me when you thought I was missing, Mel,” I cry, enveloping her in a hug and smushing the phone between us. It presses into my rib cage and I send up a silent prayer that my ribs are as effective at pressing random buttons as my butt has proven itself to be over the years. Looking for a rib dial here, folks. “You’re such a good friend,” I carry on, squeezing her more tightly.
“Wow, Nora,” Mel says, her voice muffled by my shoulder. “Thank you for saying that, but do you think you could let me go? I’m running out of air over here.”
“Oh right.” I release my hold on her, darting a glance over my shoulder. Jack has disappeared. Has he made it to his car? Is the Find My function even that accurate where it can tell the difference between inside the courthouse and outside of it? Maybe we’re worrying for nothing.
Then again, when it comes to being found out, I’m not taking any chances. “Sorry—I just suddenly got overwhelmed with gratitude,” I tell her, grasping her by the forearms and attempting to make gratitude shine out of my eyes.
“You’re being weird,” Mel tells me.
Okay, so maybe I didn't achieve the gratitude thing. But at least she can’t go on her phone with me holding her arms like this.
“Weird— me?” I laugh unnaturally loudly. “Well, if being grateful for good friends is weird then I don’t want to be normal.”
Everyone has gathered around us and is watching this super awkward encounter. I can feel a flush creeping up my neck. I kind of hate that, for all intents and purposes, this is still part of my first impression with Lucy and Emily. Me, making a fool of myself.
That’s no way to kick off a friendship.
I lied before—I do want to be normal!
But then Lucy appears at my side, reaching her arm around me in a side hug.
“You’re not being weird,” she says kindly. “It’s your wedding day. Everyone gets a little overly mushy-gushy.”
“It’s true,” Stafford agrees, stepping up behind his wife. “On our wedding day Lucy stole the mic from Emily mid-toast and started thanking everyone in the room—individually.”
Everybody laughs at this memory—even Lucy. I feel a strange pang of sadness that I wasn’t there. Obviously Jack got his friends in our breakup. Mel was the only one I stayed in contact with, and even that was on the DL from Jack. But if we hadn’t broken up, I would’ve met Lucy and Emily a long time ago. I wouldn’t be standing here feeling as if I’m the outsider.
I’m so wrong-footed by this onslaught of emotional turmoil, that I don’t even notice when Mel slips her wrists out of my grasp and returns her attention to her screen.
“Ahh, here we go,” she murmurs. “That’s odd. It says it’s nearby.”
I snap back to the present with a literal jump. “What’s nearby?” I ask innocently, trying to figure out if there’s another way to get her phone out of her hands. I can’t use the spider thing twice.
Unless I try to pass it off as the same spider.
No. That’s an awful plan. No more fake spiders.
Maybe I should pretend to faint. A glance at the marble floor has me nixing this idea too. The last thing I need to add to my woes is a concussion.
“Jack’s phone,” Mel muses, turning the screen my way and revealing a green circle on a map with the courthouse’s cross streets on either side. My heart sinks a little, at least until I notice the logo for the courthouse on the screen. The green circle is outside of it—meaning Jack must’ve made it to his car. Or at the very least outside. I can work with that.
No spiders or fainting spells needed.
“Oh my gosh,” I exclaim. “I bet he lost it in his car again. That man. He’s always putting his phone in his pockets and then it just slides right out when he sits down. I bet it fell between the seats and he just didn’t think to look there.” I shake my head. “Typical.”
“It fell between the seats,” Emily echoes with a nod. “Of course. That space does seem to lend itself to stuff like that. It’s like the Neverland of lost things.”
“Totally,” I agree, relief spiraling through me at her easy acceptance of my concocted tale. I’m very much pretending I don’t feel bad that ninety percent of what I’ve said to these people has been a lie.
Yup. Not feeling bad about that.
“Where did Reynolds go anyway?” Anderson asks, looking around.
“Um, bathroom,” I say quickly, adding to my lie percentage.
“Really?” Anderson frowns. “Almost eight years we’ve been partners and the guy has never had to stop for the bathroom.”
“Ooh, maybe he’s waiting in there for you, hoping to finish that kiss.” Lucy waggles her eyebrows at me.
“In the men’s bathroom?” Mel wrinkles her nose. “Ewww, that’s so unsanitary.”
“I don’t know. It’s first thing in the morning, so it’s probably freshly cleaned,” Lucy points out pragmatically.
“Maybe,” Mel replies doubtfully. “Even so, people pee in there…Can you ever fully eradicate the effects of that?”
“I for one don’t see a problem with kissing in a men’s bathroom,” Montgomery interjects, his eyes locking on Emily who blushes pink with pleasure. Guessing there’s a story there, but, of course, as the outsider of the group I don’t know it.
“Either way,” Stafford cuts in, “they’re not going to finish their kiss with the lot of us standing out here heckling them like a bunch of medieval family members trying to make sure they make the marriage official.”
Everybody looks Stafford’s way.
“What,” Anderson asks, “are you talking about?”
“Aww, babe,” Lucy croons, “you’ve been reading my romance books haven’t you?”
“What? No,” Stafford quickly denies it, but his red cheeks tell a different story. “Well maybe just the one,” he admits. “But in my defense it had a sword on the cover.”
“Yeah, that totally excuses it,” Montgomery says dryly.
“Romance books are for everyone,” Lucy tells the group, “because anyone can enjoy the magical serotonin boost provided by a happy ending.”
“Hear, hear,” Emily cheers, lifting a fake glass in the air, then nudging Montgomery to do the same. He does so without hesitation, adoring eyes on his wife.
“Especially ones with sword fights,” Stafford lifts his water bottle to join the pair of imaginary cups.
“I do like sword fights,” Anderson says with a shrug, adding his imaginary cup to the mix.
“You guys are ridiculous,” Mel says with a laugh, but she too lifts a pretend glass. Then they all look expectantly at me, so I step forward with my own glass, imagining it’s something fancy, like a champagne flute. It is my wedding day after all.
My fake wedding day, but still.
Every bride deserves a champagne toast.
“To romance novels and also to Reynolds and Nora,” Lucy intones her gaze flitting my way as she smiles broadly. Again her unconditional acceptance takes me aback and suddenly I’m fighting tears. Thankfully everyone’s answering round of cheers covers up my display of emotion and by the time we all step back from the circle I’ve recovered myself.
“My goodness,” Lucy comments, “whatever Reynolds is doing in there he sure is taking awhile.”
“We had bean burritos for breakfast,” I say quickly, then wince because who needs to hear about that?
“I thought you said you didn’t eat breakfast this morning,” Emily says with a frown.
Shoot. I did say that, didn’t I? I’ve lied so much this morning I can’t keep track of everything. And this is only the beginning. What happens when I’m sitting in police interrogation trying to keep my story straight?
“Right,” I amend hurriedly, “I didn’t eat breakfast. But Jack did. He offered me a burrito too, but I passed because, you know, what bride wants to be gassy on her wedding day?”
All three women wrinkle their noses and just like that I’ve managed to course correct and keep my story afloat. I sigh in relief.
“Okay, well maybe one of you should go into the bathroom and check on him,” Mel suggests to the men. “No bride wants to be gassy on her wedding day, and no groom wants to spend his wedding day glued to the toilet. Noah, will you go make sure he’s okay?”
Anderson is quick to agree, dropping a peck on Mel’s cheek before setting off. Of course, as it turns out, the bathroom is only a few feet away down the hall. Something I wished I’d realized before I said that’s where Jack went. Obviously if Anderson goes in there he won’t find Jack. And then what?
“Hey, are you guys coming?” Jack’s familiar deep voice travels down the hallway as he reappears from his dash to the car. I let out the breath I was holding.
I may be bumbling this whole thing up with my talk of beans and gas and whatnot, but Jack is here now. He’ll fix my mess.
“Reynolds, there you are,” Anderson says, backtracking away from the bathroom to fall into step with him. “Nora said you went to the bathroom.”
Jack’s eyes flit my way. “Uh, yeah, that’s what I told her, but really I ran ahead to finish the surprise I planned for her.”
A surprise for me? In spite of our current situation, I feel a spurt of excitement. Given how often my mom would show up randomly in my life, almost always waving her hands at her sides and trilling, “Surprise,” I’ve always had a pretty negative connotation with the word. At least until I met Jack and he showed me the fun part of surprises.
Hey, gorgeous, I was thinking of you so I decided to bring you lunch—surprise!
Close your eyes, okay, now open. A friend needed somewhere to board his horse for the summer and he said you can ride him whenever you want—surprise!
I got us tickets to go see that production of Phantom of the Opera you wanted to see—surprise!
I love you and I want to marry you—surprise!
Okay, maybe he didn’t say surprise for that last one, but nonetheless I was completely surprised at the time. The one bad surprise in our relationship.
I shake this negative thought away and focus back on Jack. He has a surprise for me. And I am so here for that!
“Aww, a surprise,” Lucy gushes. “How fun.”
“And completely uncharacteristic,” Anderson comments, one eyebrow popped up as he studies Jack.
“That’s not true,” Mel says as she loops her arm through his. “Sure he doesn’t plan many surprises now, but remember how often he used to plan surprises for Nora when they were dating? He was the master of surprises. Only for her, but still. He had some really good ones.”
Jack’s cheeks darken with embarrassment at this assessment of his prior self. I stare at him as a warm feeling unfurls in my stomach.
“You only plan surprises for me?” I whisper to him.
“It’s not a big deal,” he grunts, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Who else am I going to surprise? Anderson? The man sleeps with one eye open. Montgomery would probably karate chop my butt if I tried to surprise him and it went wrong. And Stafford–”
“I love surprises,” Stafford interjects. “You can surprise me anytime, bro.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jack replies dryly, looking away from me to focus on Stafford. I don’t take my eyes off of him, though. I’m too full of wonder at this newfound discovery. Here I thought planning surprises was part of Jack’s natural tendencies, but no, it was all for me. Talk about making a woman feel special. Suddenly I’m fighting a dreamy sigh.
Thankfully I win the fight and the dreamy sigh stays contained in my chest. Can’t have my new husband thinking he has that type of effect on me now, can I?
“Well come on then,” Lucy says impatiently. “Let’s go see the surprise. Assuming we’re invited,” she adds as an afterthought. “Is this a private surprise?”
“No, you guys can all see it,” Jack replies smoothly. “Come on out to the parking lot.”
“Speaking of the parking lot,” Mel says as we all head toward the front of the building, “we found your phone, Reynolds. My app says it’s somewhere in your car.”
“My car?” Jack feigns surprise. “Of course. It must’ve fallen out of my pocket.”
“That’s what Nora said too,” Mel agrees. Whew. Nice to know that we’re capable of lining up our stories on the fly.
“I’ll take a poke around under the seats after,” he says. After? After what? Excitement simmers inside me. We’ve reached the front doors and Jack pushes one open, holding it for me to walk through. I step out into the sunshine and my mouth falls open.
There, waiting by the curb to the parking lot, is a horse drawn carriage with a “Just Married” banner attached to the back. A smiling older gentleman in a top hat stands at the ready, one hand on the little half door between us and the seats.
“Oh my goodness,” I hear Emily breathe behind us.
“A horse drawn carriage,” Lucy squeals.
“It’s just like in Gilmore Girls when Luke and Lorelei go on a ride together,” Mel whispers.
I don’t say anything. Can’t say anything. This is too much. So far above the standards required of a fake husband. He’s blurring the lines between fiction and reality again and I can’t keep up.
But then Jack steps up next to me, looking down at me with a clear question in his eyes. “Well?” he asks, and I know he’s asking if I like it.
Duh. Of course I like it. He knows as well as I do that anything with horses involved is a win for me. Even as we speak my hands are itching to go pet the noses of the two beautiful Clydesdales attached to this carriage. To place my forehead against theirs and exhale away the stress of the last day.
But I can’t say any of that to Jack. I refuse to be a co-conspirator in his line-blurring crimes.
My heart needs to stay firmly on the this-is-all-fake side of things. Which is why instead of thanking him for the perfect surprise I ask in a low whisper, “How much did this cost, Jack?”
His face flushes and his jaw tightens. I’ve upset him.
I don’t feel good about it. But also, it’s for the best. Right?
“It didn’t cost anything,” he replies, his voice hard and low. “Charlie here is an old friend of my dad’s from the force. He does this for fun now that he’s retired, and he once told me that if I ever wanted a ride with a lady friend it would be on the house. So I called him while you were out here with Emily and Lucy getting that veil.”
“Oh,” is all I say in response. What else can I say? I refuse to gush about how special and thoughtful this gesture is. See prior inner dialogue about not blurring lines.
“We don’t have to go if you don’t want to,” he says. His shoulders are slumped.
I hate it.
Hate that I blew out the light that is Jack Reynolds.
But listen, what else am I supposed to do? Just let that light shine, burning me down in the process? I already cried at our courthouse wedding, for goodness sake!
This has to end.
Although…it would be super weird for Jack’s new wife to turn down a horse-drawn carriage ride with him. What would all of his friends think? I peer inside the carriage. It’s spacious enough for me to sit on one side and him to sit on the other. We can take this ride together as friends. Married friends.
“No, no, we should go,” I tell Jack. “It would be weird not to with everyone watching.” I look up at him, expecting irritation but finding nothing. His face is totally blank, masking whatever emotions he’s feeling.
Well, good. An emotionless man is exactly what I need right now.
“Alright then,” Jack gestures for me to get in ahead of him, “let’s go.”
“M’lady,” Charlie pulls open the door as I step forward, he goes to offer me a hand up, but Jack’s baritone voice interrupts as his hand pops up instead.
“Thanks, but I’ve got it from here, Charlie,” he tells the older gentleman. My eyes find his in a question. He jerks his head infinitesimally in the direction of the group gathered on the sidewalk. “Like you said,” he murmurs, “we’ve got an audience to think about.” For a second I’m hypnotized by the soft vibrations of his throat as he speaks, but then he takes me by the hand and elbow and boosts me into the carriage and I forget all about anything but the feel of his warm skin against mine.
“Have fun you two!” Emily shouts as Charlie spurs the horses forward.
“But not too much fun,” Anderson calls. “You know, seeing as we still have a dead body to chat about.”
Wow. Nice. Way to kill the mood.
Not that there was a mood to kill.
Nope. No mood here in this super cozy and romantic horse drawn carriage.
“I think he’s onto us,” Jack mutters under his breath.
“Onto us?” I squeak in a panic. “How could he possibly be onto us?”
“I'm not saying he knows all the details,” Jack replies. “I just mean he’s definitely suspicious. The guy knows me too well to buy all of the lies we’ve told this morning.”
I chew my lower lip anxiously, staring out over the passing city block and wondering if this will be one of my last days of freedom.
“Hey, don’t worry,” Jack tells me in a low voice. “He may know something is up, but he’ll never guess we’re trying to cover up the same murder he’s investigating.”
“How can you be so sure?” I ask.
“Does covering up a murder really seem like something I would do?” he asks wryly.
“No,” I answer truthfully. “Doesn’t seem at all like something you’d do.” I let the words hang between us for a few beats, the only sound the clip-clop of the horses’ hooves as they pull us forward. “So why are you doing it again?” I finally ask, fighting to keep my tone casual and my gaze stuck in my lap.
Jack doesn’t answer. In fact he’s quiet for so long that I finally can’t stand it anymore; I rip my eyes off my lap and look his way to find him staring down at the space between us on the carriage bench. His left hand rests there, the silver band of his ring sparkling in the spring sunshine. As I watch he slides his thumb over the band, securing it further in place on his finger.
“Does it really matter why?” he says hoarsely, raising his gray eyes to meet mine. “There’s no turning back now.”