Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
WILLA
I fully expected to go from the registrar’s office to whatever civic building housed the justice of the peace, but the car that was waiting for us—yet another thing that Florence and Delilah had orchestrated—took us out of the town proper.
“Where are we going?”
Squished in the backseat between Delilah and the door, I felt her give an excited bounce. “You’ll see.”
Probably it would have been beneficial to ask more questions about everything these two had managed to set into motion since yesterday, but at this point, I was just along for the ride. If I stopped and thought too hard about it, I was going to barrel straight into overwhelm, and in truth, we didn’t have time for that. I trusted these women to have taken care of the details. God, it was such a blessing to know that I could.
Fifteen minutes later, we were weaving through a residential area full of old-growth trees that dappled the street with shade. The car pulled to a stop in front of a two-story shingled house that reminded me so much of Sutter House that I wondered if it dated to the same period. A porch sporting an assortment of comfortable wicker chairs and benches wrapped all the way around the house. There were magnificent views on all sides, both of the sound and the lush green gardens that looked like a cover spread for Southern Living.
As we slid out of the car, a woman in a broad-brimmed straw hat and Bermuda shorts came walking around the side. She lifted her hand in a wave. “Flo! Delilah! Is this our happy couple?”
“Sure is,” Delilah crowed. “Aren’t they cute?”
Um.
Sawyer’s hand found mine, and gratitude swamped me that he always just seemed to know what I needed.
Florence took on a serious air. “May I present to you the bride, Willa Sutter, and the groom, Sawyer Malone? Kids, meet the Honorable Judge Agatha D’Angelo.”
In her lime green T-shirt, tropical patterned shorts, and Birkenstocks, this woman didn’t look anything like I imagined a judge. Her explosion of gray hair was gathered back into a ponytail that was thicker than mine, and her blue eyes were warm as they fixed on us. “Welcome, both of you. I’m so delighted to have you. Willa, I knew your grandparents. Lovely people. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Stunned, I couldn’t do much more than take the hand she offered. “I… thank you. For the condolences and for doing this.”
Judge D’Angelo rubbed her hands together with unmistakable glee. “I never get to do weddings. It’ll be a delightful change of pace from being the local hard-ass. Come on inside and change.”
Dimly, I wondered if she’d be officiating in her gardening gear. Not that it mattered to me either way. I hadn’t spent much time imagining my wedding day. After the example my parents had set, I never really expected to marry. Certainly, I never wanted the big society wedding my mom would’ve insisted upon, so this mid-week affair at a private home, where no one but a couple of witnesses were invited, was fine. And it wasn’t like this was a real marriage anyway, where we were going to be together for the next fifty years and look back at pictures with nostalgia.
Sawyer and I were shown to separate rooms. It didn’t take me long to don the breezy white V-neck midi dress. In no universe did it qualify as a wedding dress, but there hadn’t been time for me to find a real one. And even if it had been a real wedding, why would I waste that kind of money on something that I’d never wear again? For that amount, I’d rather feed the entire Sutter’s Ferry Animal Shelter for a month or more. The dress hit the kind of dressy casual note I hoped we’d both manage for today’s ceremony. Plus, it was the only white one I owned.
My hair was going to take longer to sort out. The wind on the two-hour boat ride up to Roanoke Island had whipped it into a snarl. I was working a wide-toothed comb through the tangles when a knock came on the door.
“Come in.”
Florence slipped inside. “I thought you might want a little help with your hair.”
“Oh, I… yes, actually.” With a little laugh, I gave up on the tangles. “I should’ve braided it before we got on the boat.”
“You’ve had a few things on your mind.” She took the comb and nudged me onto an ottoman.
“I kind of didn’t expect this from you, being the mom of a boy.”
The hands in my hair slowed a bit. “I always kind of wanted a girl, too. It just wasn’t in the cards. So thank you for letting me fuss.”
We were silent for a few minutes as she gently worked the tangles free.
“Are you ready for this?” And it was Mama Flo asking, not the stiff attorney.
“Does it matter if I am?”
“I suppose not.” She cupped my cheek in her palm and looked at me with more softness and genuine affection than I’d ever seen from my own mother. “You’ve had to face so many things you weren’t ready for.”
Uncomfortable with the moment of vulnerability stretching between us, I twitched my shoulders. “Isn’t that life?”
“To some extent. Yours has been made harder than many by the very people who were meant to look out for you. I won’t belabor the point. Just know that everything we’re doing here is to defend you from that.”
I gently squeezed her wrist. “I know.”
“Sawyer was a good boy, and he’s grown into an even better man.”
“I know that, too.” And he was, perhaps, the only reason I hadn’t absolutely lost my shit.
Apparently seeing whatever she needed to see in my face, she went back to my hair. Once the tangles had been dispensed with, she managed some kind of quick, loose, beachy look, with the sides twisted and held back with bobby pins. Then she affixed a little crown of sand lilies she’d gotten from who knew where and declared me ready.
I pulled her in for a hug. “Thank you for being here for me.”
“Anytime.”
We made our way out to the back of the house, which opened into a courtyard exploding with blooms. Live oaks and behemoth magnolias provided dappled afternoon shade over stone pathways, accented with seashells and framed by overflowing garden beds, where foxgloves, lilies, and delphiniums swayed gently in the breeze. At the garden’s edge, a massive arbor drowning in climbing jasmine and morning glories framed a path that led down to the glittering sound beyond. Beside it stood our officiant. Judge D’Angelo had changed into a linen suit and done something to tame her mane of hair into a more sedate Gibson tuck. Beside her stood Sawyer.
I stopped at the sight of him. The sleeves of his untucked Oxford cloth button down were rolled, revealing muscled forearms, but his dark slacks were creased with military precision. The mix of casual and dressy was just exactly right for this garden wedding.
He broke off in the middle of a sentence as he spotted me, his gray eyes honing in with a focus that froze me in place. Without finishing whatever he’d been saying, he strode over, stopping on the step below me, which put us almost on eye-level, though he was still taller.
“You look beautiful.”
He didn’t have to say it. More, he didn’t have to mean it. But I believed him as he stared down at me with an intensity I wasn’t entirely sure how to read. My heart kicked into high gear because this was the man I was about to marry. For real. Even though it was just for show. My inner thirteen-year-old was swooning because this was Sawyer. My Sawyer. Who’d been there for me so many times. Who’d saved my life. Who was saving my life again in a wholly different way.
“Thanks. So do you.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up.
“You’re going to need these, baby.” Delilah thrust a mammoth bouquet of blue hydrangeas and white lilies into my hands.
I stared down at the neatly beribboned bouquet. “How?”
“I’m an artist. I can do flowers. Just because this wedding got put together fast, doesn’t mean it can’t be beautiful.” She squeezed me in a hug. “Now, let’s get this show on the road.”
We were herded over beneath the arch and positioned until Delilah was satisfied we were properly framed, a process that seemed to amuse the judge immensely. Then, at last, we were beginning.
“Do you have the rings?”
Sawyer’s face blanked in uncharacteristic panic. “Oh, hell, I forgot?—”
“I didn’t.” I reached into the pocket of my dress—its number one selling point—and produced a pair of simple gold bands. “These were my grandparents’. We may end up having to get yours resized, but I thought…”
“No, they’re perfect.”
“Okay then, let’s begin.”
We pocketed our respective rings, then Sawyer took both my hands in his. As I faced him, I felt a burble of hysterical laughter catch in my chest. This was absolutely insane.
He must’ve seen the rising overwhelm because he squeezed my hands, gently stroking his thumbs over the pulse points in my wrists. I focused on that soft brush of his skin against mine, over and over, through the simple, traditional vows I barely registered repeating. That touch was almost drugging, giving the proceedings a dreamlike quality as we slid rings onto each other’s fingers and finished saying the words that would bind us together.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
That dreamlike state popped like a bubble, and suddenly time was moving normally again, with no insulation from the vague hint of panic.
We hadn’t discussed this. Maybe he hadn’t thought it was necessary to talk about because it was a wedding. Of course this was part of it. But somehow I hadn’t remembered and?—
He bent and pressed his lips to mine, and my mind went utterly blank. There was nothing salacious in the kiss. It was respectful, almost chaste. But that brush of his lips against mine rocked me to my marrow. I’d thought of having his mouth on mine a million times since he saved me from drowning, and now here it was. Our first kiss.
I swayed toward him, instinctively rising to meet him as all the denied desires I’d bottled for years fizzed up and boiled over. His hand slid beneath my hair to cup my nape, his fingers settling over the little tattoo he didn’t even know I had, and the touch set me on fire. It felt possessive and comforting, and I wanted to feel it everywhere.
Then the kiss was over.
Sawyer pulled back, leaving me wanting and aching in places I had no business expecting him to soothe, considering this marriage was essentially a favor.
But as I numbly turned toward Delilah’s demand for more pictures, a little voice echoed in my head.
But he’s your very real husband.