Chapter 27
Macey
“Dave and I decided to wait,” Ginny says from my left.
I drag my gaze away from Logan and over to Ginny. “Logan mentioned that. So how come we got married, and you didn’t?”
Ginny shrugs as I force my attention to stay on her and not the man in the front who’s now officially my husband.
“Why?” I whisper as Logan mercifully starts the engine and we leave the parking lot. The faster I get out of this city, the better.
“You mean you don’t remember?” Ginny’s eyes widen. “But you were so supportive!”
“I was supportive about what?” I keep my voice low, nervous that Logan will start pressing me again about what I do and do not remember about last night.
Good Lord.
“I decided if I’m going to get married, I want a real wedding in Texas Hill Country,” Ginny says. “In Darcy, of course. You’ll still be my maiden of honor because my two sisters would just fight over who deserved it more anyway. And you’re my best friend.”
“Of course, I’ll be there for you,” I say as I hug her.
“We’ll have to be quick before I’m showing too bad.” Ginny pauses. “I think beginning of July will work.”
“But that’s so soon!” I say.
She puts her hand on her belly. “July’s halfway to birth. It will have to do.”
I nod. “We’ll make it work. Everything will be perfect.”
Everything except for the fact that I have a so-called wedding band on my left ring finger from a man I shared a solemn vow with to never do this very thing.
The clock on Logan’s dash reads three-thirty a.m. when we finally pull off the I-10 and drive into the rolling Texas hills of Darcy.
I glance out at the water tower situated at the top of the tallest hill in town.
As we reach Main Street, my gaze follows the sturdy, whitewashed, limestone buildings that make up our downtown, especially the Darcy Museum with its welcome sign stating in big letters—
Darcy, Texas, A Romantic Towne: Come find your Mr. Darcy
The oversized Jane Austen statue is perched atop the town courthouse where the flag of Great Britain flies right next to those of Texas and the United States of America. In the center of Darcy Square, a giant poster of the Pride and Prejudice original mini-series dangles from the corner building.
My eyes burn with fatigue, and I turn away from the damn romantic fairy tale that dominates our town.
“Gosh, I can smell the cow manure. We must be in Darcy.” Ginny lifts her head up and looks out the window.
“Hey, sleepyhead,” I say to her.
We hit one of Darcy’s two red lights going through town and sit there for over a minute without a single car passing us in any direction.
I can smell the mesquite trees, hear the crickets chirping, and I see Wild Ranch off in the distance. I didn’t appreciate how homesick I was until we landed.
I stare out the window at Darcy’s low-lit skyline of antique shops and church steeples. “It’s like we’re the only people awake in town.”
“For sure.” Ginny looks out at the dark, empty street. “Quite a change from the main drag of Vegas.”
After Logan drops Ginny and then Dave at home, I climb into the shotgun seat.
I glance over at Logan’s profile. His jaw is tight as he turns onto the lonesome dirt road by the lake.
This is one of our favorite dirt roads, the one we’ve “gotten stuck on” so many times before, the road that watched over us for our first time.
He pulls off to the side and stops the truck.
I swallow and lower my gaze to my left hand.
“It will be okay, Mace.”
I look over at him. Despite the dark circles under them from driving for hours, his eyes are bright and focused as he looks back at me steadily. His baseball cap keeps his messy hair in check, and his mouth is pursed in worry.
“You know we need to undo this immediately,” I say quickly.
“Of course I do. But do you want to talk about what happened first?” he asks me. “I can fill in any gaps you don’t remember.”
“Yes, please,” I whisper.
He leans his shoulder against the seat. “Ginny backed out at the last minute. She decided she wanted a white wedding. Dave looked like a man who’d just avoided prison when she suggested holding off.”
“Good Lord,” I mutter.
“I personally don’t think those two should ever consider tying the knot whether they’re here or in Nevada, but I already said that a thousand times.”
“I don’t disagree with you,” I say. “But this is their decision.”
“So after she backed out,” he continues, “Those two showed us our marriage license. They were so damn proud of themselves.”
I can’t help from laughing. “I’m sure they were.”
“Mace…” Logan’s expression turns serious. “I’m sorry. I wish to God I hadn’t drunk that much last night. This is exactly why I never do.”
“Exactly.” I nod vigorously. “I’m sorry, too. You and I are spontaneous enough without adding alcohol to the mix.”
“Right. I mean, this whole thing was kind of an experiment gone wrong, right? Divorce it is.”
“Divorce?” I say, my stomach plummeting unexpectedly at the word. “We have to get a divorce?”
“We consummated the marriage last night,” he reminds me as my cheeks burn. “So an annulment’s out.”
“Right.” I look down at the ring on my left hand and twist it around and around. “Who suggested you use the bull ring as a wedding band?”
“We both did.” He takes it off his finger and hands it to me. “Maybe you should keep it for now so I don’t make any more impulsive decisions.”
I know he’s trying to lighten the mood with a joke, but as my fingers close over the bull ring and I slip it into my purse, unexpected sadness hits me in the gut.
“I just want to know one more thing,” I say.
“Sure,” he says. “What is it?”
“Did we kiss? I mean, after we exchanged vows, did we kiss like we did for our fake wedding?”
“We kissed,” he says in a careful tone.
“How? Was it a peck? Or was it…a real kiss?”
Logan swallows. “It was real.” He leans closer to me. “Do you want me to show you?”
The air in the truck is so thick I can hardly breathe. “Yes,” I get out.
Logan puts his hand behind my neck and covers my mouth with his own.
And I melt—absolutely melt—into him.
God, his lips are the perfect blend of hard and soft. They always were. I open my mouth until his tongue finds mine, and I kiss him back for far longer than I should.
We break away at the same time, both of us breathing heavily.
“Thank you for showing me.” I gasp for air. “That definitely feels like a real kiss.”
He runs his thumb over his lip. “Actually, after that kiss, you grabbed me and kissed me again.”
I stare at him. “I did?”
He nods and goes to put his hands back on the steering wheel.
But I stop him. “Will you show me that kiss also?”
He hesitates. “Mace…”
“I need to know everything so I can get closure. This will be our only wedding, right?”
He nods, and then he reaches for me again.
His lips move over mine, and it’s so good. I want to keep kissing him. My lips are still kissing him.
But I check myself as Logan and I break apart once again. Because even though it feels real, getting drunk and accidentally marrying in Vegas isn’t real. Just like winning your fake husband in a derby isn’t real.
Real is Mama waiting up until three a.m. for Daddy to come home from the bar.
Real is her throwing a beer bottle across The Cowherd so hard at his head that her eldest daughter steps in between and takes the hit for him.
Real is the scar on my wrist—the one Mama swears is a curse linking me to the spirit of the famous author locked in the prison cell in our bar.
That scar is my reminder that real relationships suck the life out of a person one painful moment at a time until all that’s left is a ghost of who you were.
A Jane Austen-type ghost where you may be able to write about eternal love, but you sure as hell can’t actually have it.
And real is getting a divorce from your best friend because you acted carelessly.
But the sensation of Logan’s lips on mine is still lingering. The smell of his cologne is on my neck and in my hair. And the ruby ring on my left hand instead of my right feels too good…
I shove my shaky hands underneath my legs to try to keep them still.
Divorcing Logan is going to be painful. It feels like a permanent breakup. And it hurts far more than I want to admit.
Logan
I drop Macey off at her place and drive straight to our family lawyer.
I’ve known Rick Murphy my whole life, and he’s seen my brothers and me do some dumb things. But I’m pretty sure this one is the worst.
“You got accidentally married?” Rick breaks into a chuckle. “Your dad is going to kill you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m an adult now. So there’s not much he can do.”
“He can take away your stake in the family business.”
“He could. But I’ve been trying to give that up for years now.”
Rick laughs. “I know you and your dad don’t see eye to eye. One day, you two will patch up your differences.”
“Maybe.” I clear my throat. “So can you help me out with the divorce papers?”
“Of course. I’ll have them drawn up tomorrow.” He shuffles some papers on his desk as he says offhandedly, “Getting married is a pretty big deal.”
I fidget. “It was a dumb, drunken mistake.”
“Maybe so. But it’s a pretty big mistake, even for you.” He looks up from his desk. “Does Macey feel the same way you do about this?”
“Of course. Macey and I are always on the same page.”
But as I leave his office, I flash back to last night in Vegas.
After we exchanged vows, Macey smiled at me in the back of the taxicab. “You know I love being with you. You’re the best part of my life, Logan.”
“You’re the same for me, Mace,” I said as she rested her head on my shoulder.
“And yet we date other people,” she said in a tone that almost sounded sad.
“True. But we always circle back to this.” I touched her cheek.
“Because we’re happy together.” She snuggled into my side. “Just you and me.”
I kissed her head. “Just you and me.”
In that surreal moment in a Las Vegas taxicab, despite our broken families and all the pain we’ve witnessed, a piece of Macey and me was whole. For one night, we were just an ordinary couple who wanted to be together.