Chapter 10
Emmaline
We didn’t talk on the drive to the courthouse two towns over.
A square of old brick and white columns, it had probably looked stately for the first few decades after it had been built, but now it looked a little dated, if still official.
Crepe myrtles flanked the steps, their pink blossoms dropping onto the sidewalk like confetti that hadn’t gotten the memo about when the party started. Not that I felt much like celebrating.
Bodie cut the engine of his truck. The silence in the cab was loud enough to make me aware of my own shaky breath. He sat for a beat, hands still on the wheel, jaw working. I stared past my reflection in the windshield to the courthouse doors and wondered if I was completely insane.
He finally turned to me. “We can turn around.” His voice stayed quiet. “Even now. I’ll back out of this space and take you home.”
Home.
The word scraped over a raw edge. I didn’t have one of those anymore. At least, not for long. It was being ripped away, given to my mother and my aunt. In a handful of months, the bakery might, too.
“I’m not changing my mind.” My fingers were freezing despite the heat. I wrapped them together in my lap and forced my voice to steady. “Let’s go.”
He nodded once, like a soldier accepting orders. Then—unexpectedly—he reached into the backseat and brought something forward: a small twist of brown paper, tied with twine.
He offered an awkward smile. “I stopped by the field out by my place on the way into town. Didn’t seem right to walk in empty-handed.”
I unwrapped the package with fingers that trembled a little.
Queen Anne’s lace. Black-eyed Susans. Turk’s Cap Lilies.
Sun-warmed and a little wild, stems still damp where he’d rinsed them at some spigot, tied with another length of brown twine.
It shouldn’t have meant anything; it wasn’t diamonds or promises.
But the kindness of the gesture knocked something loose in my chest anyway, a soft ache I hadn’t braced for.
“Thank you.” The wildflowers blurred for a second, and I had to blink hard to clear my eyes. “They’re… they’re perfect.”
Bodie looked away like he was embarrassed by his own thoughtfulness. “C’mon. Let’s do the thing.”
Before I managed to do more than release my seatbelt, he’d circled around to open my door, offering a hand to help me down.
I hesitated for a moment, then took it. I’d have to get used to touching him again.
His big, warm palm closed around mine, without a trace of the nervous moisture I was sure coated my own.
The interior of the courthouse smelled of old paper and hot dust. The metal detector was unplugged and pushed to the side, like even security had decided it was too much trouble on a Thursday afternoon.
Fluorescent lights hummed. The clerk’s counter was a long stretch of plexiglass and laminated signs: FEES DUE AT TIME OF SERVICE; PHOTO ID REQUIRED; NO FOOD OR DRINK BEYOND THIS POINT.
My stomach had been too tight for lunch anyway.
The woman behind the counter had a practical bun and a pink cardigan. She didn’t blink when we said “marriage license,” just reached for a form with the efficiency of someone who did a dozen of these a week and thought precisely nothing about any of them past the ink drying.
“Fill these out.” She slid two pens through the slot. “Sign where indicated. There’s the oath at the bottom. I’ll need to see IDs for both of you.”
My hand shook on the first signature. I pressed the pen harder to steady it and left a little gouge in the paper. Emmaline Charlotte Maddox. The neat letters I’d learned to copy off Gran’s recipe cards now committing me to something so big it barely fit in my head.
When I reached the line for “previously married,” the blank space after NO felt like a cliff edge. There was no spot for “previously certain of your life’s trajectory.”
Before I could talk myself out of it, I finished my section of the form and passed it over to Bodie. He held his pen the way I remembered from school, big hand swallowing it whole. He carefully filled out the rest of his section and added his name: Bodie Michael Gibson.
The next steps happened fast. The clerk notarized the form, stamped it with an officious thump that made me jump, and took Bodie’s credit card for the fee. “Judge Harper’s on the second floor.” She slid the license back. “Room 207. Your witnesses can meet you there.”
My head jerked up. “Witnesses?” I’d forgotten about that. Bodie had said he’d take care of it, but I hadn’t seen anyone.
He nudged me toward the hall. “I called them.”
“Who?”
“Ramsey and Alia.”
His best friend and his twin.
It made sense. The fact that Ramsey also happened to be a household name because of his years with the Charleston Sentinels was incidental.
And honestly, he didn’t intimidate me. Much.
He’d spent his entire off-season hauling debris and swinging a hammer in our ruined town like he didn’t have better places to be.
He was a shockingly approachable guy, and if I hadn’t known he was a pro-footballer, he’d have just seemed like a guy-next-door type who looked really impressive in a tool belt.
But Alia… She intimidated me. She’d always been a terrifyingly brilliant overachiever, even back in high school.
But everything she’d done for Gibson Hollow after the flood?
She’d been like a female Steve Rogers, holding all the pieces together with a grit and determination I couldn’t even fathom.
And then we’d all found out a few months back that she was a secretly famous romantasy author on top of all that?
No matter what my broader family thought of her, I had a bit of a girl crush.
When I didn’t answer, Bodie gently steered me toward the central staircase. “I didn’t want to bring anyone who’d turn this into a circus. They keep their mouths shut when it matters. And this is out of town.”
A fresh wave of fear rolled through me, and my mouth went dry.
Alia had always been kind to me. So had Ramsey, which was how he was with everyone, save the reporters who’d ambushed him and Alia back in the spring.
Would all that change now? What would they think?
What would they see when they looked at me?
Had Bodie told them the truth? Would they approve?
Would they tell his grandmother and dad and the Sasspatch Society before we were ready?
Would they look at me differently because of today? How could they not?
“Okay.” Because it came out thin, I cleared my throat and tried again. “Okay.”
We climbed the stairs. The old courthouse had those cavernous hallways that turned every footstep into an echo. I kept pace beside Bodie and tried not to think about the fact that whatever happened in Room 207 was going to rearrange my life in a way I couldn’t undo with bleach and elbow grease.
Alia and Ramsey were already waiting on the bench outside the door.
They stood when we rounded the corner. She was in a simple navy sheath with sensible heels.
He wore what had to be a bespoke gray suit, the perfection of which was only marred by the slightly off-center tie.
I searched their faces for accusation or concern, but I saw only curiosity.
Alia smiled. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I echoed, because I didn’t know what else you said to your almost-sister-in-law when you were about to marry her twin out of sheer, grinding necessity.
Ramsey’s smile was steady. “Emmaline.” He had a way of saying people’s names like he was checking to make sure they still fit. “You okay?”
I opened my mouth to lie. My throat closed on it. “Ask me in half an hour.”
“Fair enough.”
Bodie angled his body to give me the choice—to meet their eyes, to not. He didn’t fill the silence, didn’t explain on my behalf. He just stood there like a wall with his shoulder against mine, and for one dizzy second that seemed more intimate than anything else we were about to do.
The door opened. “Mr. Gibson?” a voice called, warm and professional. “Ms. Maddox? Come on in.”
I clutched the little bouquet of wildflowers in a stranglehold and prayed for courage.
Judge Harper had silver hair, comfortable shoes, and a gaze like steel wrapped in flannel.
Though her chambers weren’t grand, they were neat and bright and faintly scented with coffee.
Certificates lined one wall in orderly frames.
A fern drooped gently in the corner, doing its best with courthouse light.
“We’ll keep this simple.” She ushered us to stand before a narrow table beneath the seal. “You’ve got your license, witnesses—good. We’ll do the standard vows unless you’ve brought your own.”
Standard was fine. Standard meant we were in and out before my courage broke.
Judge Harper looked at me first. “Ms. Maddox. Are you entering into this of your own free will?”
My heart thudded. There was a version of this story where the answer was no—that familiar pressure of other people’s wants crushing down until I couldn’t tell where they ended and I began.
But no one had dragged me here. No one had insisted or manipulated or cried until I caved.
I was choosing this, for the bakery, for the life I wanted when the storm of probate was over.
“Yes.” It sounded steadier than I felt.
“And you, Mr. Gibson?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She nodded, satisfied, and moved into the shape of the words everyone knows even if they’ve never stood in front of a judge.
Do you take? Do you promise? For better or worse.
In sickness and in health. Her voice smoothed the phrases into something solemn.
Each one landed like a soft thud in my chest. I didn’t look at Bodie when I said, “I do.” I kept my eyes on the calluses on his right hand, on the little white scar by his thumb he’d gotten taking a fish off the hook back when we were twelve.
“Rings?” Judge Harper prompted.
My mouth went dry. “We—”
“I’ve got it.” Bodie reached into his inside jacket pocket and took out a small, square box. Not a jeweler’s velvet thing—plain, scuffed leather, the kind that had lived in a drawer for decades. He opened it with a care that made my skin prickle.
Inside lay a slim gold band and a delicate ring set with a small, round diamond—old-cut, the kind that caught light differently than the big, glittering stones in mall displays. The style was unmistakably not new. Not purchased this afternoon on the way here. The kind of ring with history.
Behind us, I heard Alia’s breath catch. Whatever this ring was, she recognized it.
But I didn’t get a chance to ask why before Bodie slid them onto my finger, the metal cool for a heartbeat before it warmed to my skin. They fit like they’d been waiting.
Ramsey reached into his pocket and offered up a ring for Bodie.
I’d have to find out who I owed for that after the fact.
It was a classic gold band. My hand shook as I slid it onto Bodie’s finger and pushed it over his knuckle.
He had to curl his fingers for me, big hand dwarfing the ring.
There was something intimate and impossibly old about the gesture—older than paper and probate and every legal hoop we were jumping through.
Something that belonged to people who’d stood in front of family and God and said yes for reasons that had nothing to do with survival.
Judge Harper’s voice softened. She said the final words like a benediction. “By the authority vested in me by the State of North Carolina, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” Her eyes crinkled at the corners. “You may kiss the bride.”
I hadn’t let myself think about this part.
For the past two days, I’d shoved away anything that resembled emotion with the grim practicality of someone scrubbing a stain.
I had a lifetime of practice at that. Kiss was a word from another world.
Kiss belonged to prom photos and summer nights and the parts of my life I’d learned to live without.
Bodie didn’t lunge. He didn’t grab. He didn’t even lean in right away. He angled toward me slowly, giving me room to step back, to refuse, to change my mind. His eyes searched my face, a question there he didn’t put in words.
I found myself offering the barest nod at this man who’d once been my childhood confidant.
He set his hand at my waist—warm through the thin fabric of my dress.
When his mouth touched mine, it wasn’t perfunctory or quick.
It was tentative at first, careful, like he was feeling his way through a dark room.
And then it deepened, not with heat exactly but with…
a strange kind of recognition. Which was ridiculous, because we’d never been more than friends.
We’d never crossed this line. But the gentle pressure of his mouth on mine said I’ve got you.
It was a promise tucked inside something that might have been hunger if I’d let it be.
And that was a very, very bad idea.
Bodie drew back an inch, bright blue gaze searching mine like he was cataloging me for changes after a storm. Surprise lived on both sides of that kiss.
Judge Harper cleared her throat gently, like a chaperone remembering herself. “Congratulations.”
Paperwork still existed in this new world. I signed the certificate with hands that didn’t feel like mine. Alia and Ramsey stepped up in turn, their names looping next to ours. Alia hugged me afterward without asking, quick and tight, her cheek cool against mine.
“You don’t owe me explanations,” she murmured so only I could hear. “But if you ever want someone to glare at a room with you, I’m available.”
The laugh that came out of me was small and startled. “Thank you.”
Ramsey shook my hand like it was a contract that meant something. “We’re here,” he said simply.
Bodie handled the rest. Returning the pen, thanking the judge, orienting us toward the door with a palm at the small of my back that was more guidance than possession. The fern in the corner shrugged in the air conditioning as we passed, as if even it was releasing a breath.
The hallway seemed brighter on the way out; the afternoon tilted toward evening. We stepped into heat that draped itself over my shoulders like a shawl.
“Do you want a minute?” Bodie asked.
No. Yes. I didn’t know how to want anything that wasn’t “keep moving so you don’t fall apart.”
“I’m okay,” I lied.
He didn’t call me on it. He just held the bouquet back out to me, the petals a little more tired than they’d been an hour ago, and brushed his knuckles once against mine—a whisper of touch that felt as binding as the signatures we’d left upstairs.
“Alright, Mrs. Gibson. Let’s go figure out the next phase.”