Judged
TWELVE
Autumn
A loud drumbeat crashed upon my door scaring Stetson while he ate in the high chair.
He pointed. “Dada.”
“Not yet, but I think I know who it is.” I ran to the door and threw it open—at last setting my eyes on my bestie from Wyoming. “Nanette!”
She laughed, embracing me until my ribs creaked, cried over how big Stetson had gotten, and inspected my ring in the light over the kitchen sink like a pawnbroker.
“Gorgous gem. His family has good taste. It’s a start,” she conceded.
“I cannot believe you’re finally here. It’s like a part of me was missing all these months, and now it isn’t. Let me look at you.” I held her arms out. Other than the length of her blonde wavy hair, she hadn’t changed.
“No. Look at you. About to be a wife?” She shot back. “I always thought I’d be the first to marry.”
“Really? You always said you never wanted to marry.”
“I’m kidding.” She roared her head back. “You know me. I like men too much. Besides, Dad worries if I marry someone I might end up divorced and they’ll sue for my share of the bar, and we know he can’t lose his precious bar.”
“How is Roper Ripley of Ropin’ Roadhouse?” We broke into a battle of trying to say that ten times fast just like the old days.
“He hasn’t changed one bit.” When either of us had a need for fatherly wisdom, occasionally he’d be there for us. Then she spied my veil by my luggage and put it on my head, Stetson babbling away at us in the background.
“Do I look wifely?” I batted my eyes and struck a funny pose in it.
“You look—all grown up in a way I can’t even begin to describe.” Her seriousness only lasted a few seconds. “Come here. We are going to have a blast tonight. I’m so glad it’ll be just us, having a slumber party like the old days.”
“Me, too. We’ll be at a cabin on the ranch, just us and Stetson. Jake will stay here. You know, not seeing me until the wedding.”
“And where is this cowboy now? I still have about twenty-four hours to form a final opinion of him before you commit to this nonsense. Really, Autumn. Getting married?” She clicked her tongue in mock exasperation, but I knew she was my greatest supporter.
Nanette did not hand out approval easily.
She’d watched me get charmed before, by a man with a powerful name, and she’d been the one to drive through the night to get me and Stetson to safety when it all went to hell.
She would believe in Jake McCall when she’d seen something real, and not one minute sooner.
Another knock came at the door.
“Dada?” Stetson pointed from his high chair. Nanette raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, it’s a thing now. Jake is Dada,” I hurried and explained and answered the door.
“There you are.” Jake reached in and pulled me out into his arms and swung me around. I yelped and giggled. “We should practice the carry-over-the-threshhold part.”
He stepped in with me in his arms, and stopped upon seeing Nannette standing there, with her arms crossed. He set me down. “Hi. You must be Nanette. Jake McCall, the groom, in case you didn’t guess by now.”
“Hello. I suppose congratulations are in order,” came her somewhat icy reply.
“Thanks. I’m glad you could be here for Autumn.
Hey, buddy.” He and the baby did a high-five.
Now that they’d mastered that, Jake was on the hunt for the next trick he could teach him.
“Are you packed and ready? We should get going. Between Ivy and my mother I don’t know which would be more upset if we were late to our own rehearsal. ”
Nanette stepped between him and my suitcase.
“Not so fast. I have some questions for you.” Her arms remained folded. “What’s Autumn’s favorite color?”
“Easy. Green”
“Nope. Orange.” Nanette shook her head, keeping score.
He cocked a brow my way.
“To be fair, I like both colors. Especially in the fall,” I explained.
“And her favorite snack?” She persisted, but he wasn’t falling for it and cut her off.
“I get it. She was your friend before she was mine. We both have been there for her in different ways at different points in her life. I would never take your friendship away from her. My only guarantee to you is this: making Autumn and Stetson happy, safe, and loved is my goal here. As soon as she becomes Mrs. McCall tomorrow, we have the rest of our lives to figure it all out.” He grabbed the luggage and headed out the door.
From the stairs, he called back. “Her favorite snack is cocoa puffs cereal if it’s after midnight. Otherwise, a pint of chocolate cookie double chunk ice cream will do.”
I grinned. “Well?” I got the baby out of the high chair and cleaned him up so we could go.
“He may be more handsome than in all the photos you've sent me, but we’ll see.” Fifteen years of friendship and I knew exactly what that meant: judgment reserved.
So we all headed to the ranch for rehearsal night with the jury still out. Nanette sat in the back seat next to Stetson, cataloging every move Jake made like evidence.
He slowed the truck down at the last crosswalk out of town.
“What’s wrong?” I looked up from my phone, where Ivy had texted me a schedule for the evening with time stamps.
“One minute.” Jake slammed the truck into park with his hazard lights on, right there at the end of Main Street, and got out.
“What is he doing?” Nanette’s face screwed up, observing.
He ran to an elderly woman at the corner by the pharmacy with her cane in one hand and a paper sack in the other, about to walk into a crossing she had no business doing herself.
We watched him offer her his arm and patiently, slowly help her across.
Cars in both directions stopped and waited, nobody honking, because this was Forest Grove and also because Jake was the size of a barn door and people probably knew better than to mess with him.
He carried her sack, listened to some story with his head bent down to her level, and deposited her safely in front of the bakery like precious cargo.
That was Jake. My Jake.
Nanette especially found this all curious, her jaw on the floor. “Oh. My. God. Remind me again why you’re not fucking him already?”
“Nanette!” I whirled in my seat. “Baby ears!”
“Na-na,” Stetson agreed.
“Seriously. What’s taking you so long?”
I couldn’t believe hers. “You’re the one who said I should take my time, and especially wait for you to form an opinion about the man.”
“Consider it formed.” The twinkle returned to her eyes. “You are one lucky bitch.”
Jake jogged back, climbed in, and killed the hazards. “That was my third grade teacher, and we all thought she was old back then.”
“Mm-hmm,” I commented casually, like my whole heart wasn’t beating faster for him.
The rehearsal itself took twenty minutes, which was nineteen more than Sheriff Patrick said he needed, being the officiant.
Jake and I opted to simply repeat vows instead of creating our own; I’d be nervous enough.
We walked through the ceremony once, standing under a pretty rough-wood arch the ODRR ranch hands had built for us, and set up near the Pumpkin Patch.
Tomorrow, Jake’s mom and her friends would attach beautiful silk floral arrangements they’d made for the arch in all the fall colors.
To define the ceremony area, the ranch hands set up large galvanized tubs with wood posts through them and strung lights between each one.
The tubs themselves held pots of mums along with gourds and pumpkins of all kinds.
While me and Jake, and Nanette and Jamie practiced the procession and where to stand, Dot and the Wylde sisters directed the ranch hands where to set up the chairs they’d borrowed from the church in Forest Grove.
It was all becoming a little too real. I’d be marrying, and the only person missing, when I looked around and tried to keep myself calm, was Trig.
When the rehearsal was over. Jake took me aside and checked the time on his phone. “Just wait,” he said.
“For what?” Then I saw the flash of the words on his phone screen—Montana State Prison. He answered, “Yes, we’ll accept the charges.”
He handed the phone to me. My brother couldn’t be here, and Jake had quietly arranged for the phone call? I shed a tear. He kissed my forehead and gave me some privacy. This was so Jake. Thinking of everything. Of me.
“Autumn, are you sure you want to do this?” Trig asked.
Oh yes. Definitely.
After the call, I glanced around at Jake and his family and friends and they all had a way of making me believe that everything might actually turn out alright.
Or maybe there was some kind of magic in this glass of strawberry wine someone had handed me, made from the berries grown right there on the ranch.
Nearby, Poppy Wylde had commandeered my son entirely.
She set up camp on a quilt with Stetson and a small patch of mini-pumpkins of his own and some other toys and books where I could see them.
Every time I so much as angled my body toward the quilt, Poppy pointed at me and mouthed no, which I suspected was Ivy’s directive so I’d focus on the adults tonight.
I could not mistake the looks Nanette sent Cash somewhere around the dessert table. I passed by at one point and heard her grilling him about his motorcycle he’d rebuilt. She twirled a lock of hair, and laughed at his jokes in the register she saved for men she liked.
On this beautiful fall evening, standing hip to hip with my almost-husband, listening to his mom and sister tell stories about his younger years, I finally relaxed into it. Ivy stopped by with a tray of glass mason jars. She put one into each person's hands.
“What is this concoction?” Jake eyed the cinnamon-sugar rim.
“Your signature couple cocktail.”
I read the little handwritten tag tied to the jar. “‘Jake and Autumn’s Pumpkin Patch Kiss. Pumpkin, whiskey, cream, and no way out.’”
“I’ll drink to that,” Jake tapped his against mine and added a kiss to my cheek. “To no way out.”
It was, annoyingly, delicious.