Chapter 11
Bodie
After the ceremony, we split up, with Ramsey and Alia headed back to Charleston and us headed home. The drive back to Gibson Hollow was just as quiet as the one to the courthouse.
I kept my hands easy on the wheel and my eyes on the two-lane that wound along the creek, pretending I wasn’t hyperaware of the woman in my passenger seat. My wife.
Holy shit.
Emmaline sat perfectly still, staring out at the summer green. I might’ve thought she was a statue but for how she twisted the rings I’d put on her finger. The motion snagged my attention like a hook, and I felt an unreasonable pull of Mine at the sight.
She wasn’t mine. Not like that.
But according to the state of North Carolina, she was mine to protect.
At least for now. It was something I’d wanted to do for years and never had the right.
We might not be true husband and wife, but I’d claim this marital right and stand between her and whatever storm threatened to come for her, be that family or foe.
“Do Alia and Ramsey know the truth?”
The sudden break in the silence had me blinking. “Yeah. But they won’t tell anybody.”
She gave another of those tiny nods and continued twisting the rings. “Where did the rings come from? Alia knew them. I heard her gasp when she saw them.”
I chose my words with care. “They were our mom’s. As the eldest son, they came to me after she died.”
Emmaline’s fingers stilled, her face going slack with horror. “Then I can’t—” She started to work them off, already shaking her head. “Bodie, it’s too important. You should save this for your real wife.”
I took my right hand off the wheel long enough to cover hers, a light press of my palm, stopping the rings halfway over her knuckle. “That’s why you’re wearing them. Everyone will believe it.” I made myself ease back, give her space, give her air. “And Mom always liked you.”
Her mouth softened for half a second, an expression I wanted to keep. “That’s generous of you.”
“It’s true. She’s the only one who knew about our friendship when we were kids.”
Silence settled again, full of all the things we didn’t have time to say.
My brain kept dragging me back to the judge’s chambers, to the shape of her mouth under mine.
I hadn’t meant to feel anything. I’d meant to be gentle and procedural about it—documentation, not fireworks.
But the second my hand fit around her waist and she tipped her face up, something old and reckless rose up like a ghost. Years of wanting to protect her, to anchor her, coalesced into a slow, careful kiss that felt like mutual recognition.
It had knocked me off balance. I could still taste the quiet of it, the way she’d answered me without moving a muscle anywhere else.
Get your head on straight, Gibson. She needed a safe harbor, not a guy spinning on his axis.
As the gravel drive up to Grandma Elsie’s came into view, Emmaline spoke again, voice quiet. “Are you sure about telling them tonight?”
“Better they hear it from us. I want to control the narrative.”
She huffed a breath that might have been a laugh in another life. “Right. ‘Narrative.’ What a thing to say about your wedding day.”
“Not the one either of us pictured.” I turned into the drive and parked under the tulip poplar that had been shading the kitchen windows since before I was born. “But I’m not letting Karen and Marla get in a single swing at you that I can head off.”
Something in her shoulders loosened at that. Not much. Enough to make me feel like I’d put one board down on a bridge we were building as we walked.
Voices lifted from inside the house—my people. Dad’s baritone. A brother’s laugh. The clink of dishes. The comfort of it might as well have been a lighthouse.
“Ready?” I asked.
“No,” she said honestly. But she stepped up on the porch anyway.
When I stepped up beside her, she instinctively edged closer, so our arms brushed. I didn’t crowd her, just offered my hand, palm up. After a half beat, she laced her fingers through mine. At the contact, my chest did a thing I refused to name. I squeezed once and opened the screen door.
Grandma Elsie’s kitchen was the beating heart of the house.
It smelled like roasted chicken and yeast rolls and the good sharp bite of vinegar slaw.
The radio on top of the fridge murmured a classic country station low enough not to compete with conversation.
Dad stood at the head of the island, pouring sweet tea into glasses.
Dean leaned against the counter with a dish towel slung over his shoulder.
Colter and Fletcher were in a tug-of-war over whether the green beans needed more salt.
Gunner was trying to sneak a roll from the basket near the stove and getting whapped with a wooden spoon by Grandma for his audacity.
Uncle Dee, in a crisp white shirt and a silk scarf knotted rakishly at his throat, was plating sliced tomatoes with basil like it was art.
Seven sets of Gibson eyes swung to us.
I didn’t give nerves time to build in her or me. “We got married.”
Every sound in the kitchen stopped like I’d thrown a breaker. Even the radio seemed to take a breath.
The slim hand in mine trembled in the silence, and I held on tighter.
Grandma Elsie was the first to move. “Well, I’ll be.
” Her eyes cut to Emmaline’s left hand and back to my new bride’s face.
Whatever she saw there softened her whole expression.
She rounded the island and hugged Emmaline as if she’d been practicing for this moment her whole life.
“Welcome, baby,” she murmured. “Sit yourself down before my knees give out from shock.”
Dad set the tea pitcher down with both hands, like he’d forgotten how heavy it was.
The mayor’s face, the one that could stare down a room of angry taxpayers, cracked open with surprise as he spotted Mom’s rings, then steadied.
He crossed the kitchen to shake Emmaline’s hand with all the gravitas of greeting a visiting dignitary, offering his own brand of soft as he stroked a thumb over the diamond that had once graced his own wife’s hand.
“We’re sorry about your grandmother. I ought to have been by the bakery to say it sooner. She was a hell of a baker.”
“Thank you.” Emmaline cleared her throat and managed a wobbly smile.
Colter recovered next, grin flashing. “Does this mean we get a family discount at the bakery?” He tipped his head at Emmaline like they’d struck some sacred bargain. “Asking for a man who has inappropriate feelings about your honey buns.”
Dean groaned. “For the love of God, man.”
“What? I mean the pastry.”
Fletcher slung a long arm around Dean’s neck, pulling him in for a quick headlock that he released at once before our former Marine brother could turn the tables on him.
“Shotgun on helping move her in,” he said to me, eyes alight with the thrill of logistics.
“Boss-lady needs truck beds; I got beds. Dolly, straps, the whole kit.”
Gunner piped up. “I will 100% work for cookies. Especially those little iced butter ones. Those things are crack.”
The humor broke whatever spell had been hanging in the steam-sweet air.
The kitchen surged back to life, now with new gravity.
Without asking, Uncle Dee took Emmaline’s hand from mine and tucked it into the crook of his arm, shepherding her toward a chair in the dining room.
“You sit here, pet. Best airflow.” He kept it light, but I saw the way he set her in the middle of the herd, where nothing could get at her without going through all of us.
Quiet condolences threaded themselves through the bustle of carrying food to the table.
Nobody milked it or poked. Emmaline absorbed the kindness like she didn’t quite trust it to be the real thing and seemed focused on not falling apart.
The urge to stand behind her and listen for the crack, to be there if it came, was a physical ache under my ribs.
Dad glanced at me over the bowl of slaw, a question tucked in his brows.
I answered it before he had to ask. “She’s losing the house either way.
” I pitched my voice to the table instead of hiding in some corner conversation.
If we were doing this, we were doing it.
“Her mother and Karen get it. We… moved the timeline up. I’m not giving Marla a chance to do now what she did to Em in high school. On repeat.”
A hush fell again. Not shocked this time—weighted. My brothers’ faces sharpened. Dad’s went grim. Grandma’s mouth flattened like she was holding back something that wouldn’t be polite to utter at the dinner table.
“What did she do?” Fletcher asked, already angry on principle.
Emmaline’s hand carefully straightened her utensils. She glanced at me, not for permission, but for a bearing, maybe. Silently asking how far she could or should go with this. I gave her a small nod of encouragement, though I actually had no idea what she was about to say.
“She made it clear that I shouldn’t talk to Bodie. Or any Gibson.” She kept her gaze on the fork she was aligning with military precision beside her plate. “If I did, there were… consequences. At home.” She didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t have to. The room changed tenor around those words.
I felt it then—the old fury in my bones, adolescent and useless and hot. “We were friends. For a long time. Now we’re more.”
Grandma’s eyes slid from me to Emmaline and back. “Well, that’s one secret you don’t have to keep anymore.”
Emmaline let out a breath that shivered. “We kept it quiet because my family is…” She searched for a word that wasn’t an accusation. “Not as accepting.”
Dean cleared his throat gently. “We’re a lot,” he said, honest and wry. “But we don’t turn our backs on our own.”
The table murmured assent. Emmaline blinked fast, then got herself together with a tiny press of her lips. I slid my knee against hers under the table—a small reminder that I was right here. She didn’t move away.
We ate. Or everyone else did. I pushed chicken around my plate and kept track of the temperature in the room the way I would at a town hall meeting—watching for sparks, for tinder, for the one offhand comment that could turn a small thing into a blaze.
But there wasn’t one. The closest we got was Colter asking, between mouthfuls, “So when y’all gonna have the surprise-we-eloped reception so I can wear my good boots? ”
“Colter,” Dad warned.
“What? I’m saying I got boots.”
Emmaline actually snorted. “We’ll keep you posted.”
Forks clinked. Tea got poured. Story threads braided themselves through the meal the way they always did: Dean telling a joke about a raccoon that had outsmarted him and a humane trap, Fletcher holding forth on the proper way to set piers for a deck, Dad relaying a piece of good news about a grant for downtown facades that would take the financial pressure off six business owners who’d been killing themselves since October.
In between, hands wandered toward Emmaline’s plate—passing her the okra, the rolls, the salt like they’d known her forever.
She kept looking at her ring finger, then at Dad, as if to check she hadn’t crossed some invisible boundary by wearing what he’d once given to Mom.
Every time, Dad caught her eye and gave the smallest nod. You’re fine. You’re family.
When the plates were mostly empty, I stood, catching my brothers’ attention with a look. “I’m gonna need y’all this weekend. We’re moving Emmaline in.”
“Name the time,” Fletcher said immediately.
“Early. Before the gossips are fully caffeinated.”
“Copy that,” Colter said. “We’ll bring the truck and the tarps.”
“I’ll bring the coffee,” Uncle Dee added.
“And I’ll bring a camera, but only to document egregious errors in lifting technique.
” He squeezed Emmaline’s shoulder, then looked around the table with a judge’s gravity.
“And if anyone thinks a single soul outside this room hears a whisper of this before these two are ready, they can come answer to me.”
The chorus of “yes, ma’am” that followed would’ve done a drill sergeant proud.
After dinner, people started the slow dance of clearing and wrapping leftovers.
I stepped out on the back stoop for air and found Emmaline already there, the screen door easing shut behind her.
The yard was going golden, fireflies already trailing their lights early in the hemlocks.
Somewhere down the ridge, a dog barked twice.
She stood close enough our shoulders brushed, like she was using me to measure the world. “They’re… nice.” She sounded a little bewildered by the fact.
“They are. They’re also nosy and opinionated and loud as hell.”
“I noticed.” But the twitch of her lips took any sting out of the remark. “Thank you for telling them. For… how you told them.”
“Controlling the narrative,” I said lightly.
That earned me the barest curve of a smile. Then it fell away. She turned her hand so the diamond caught the last light. “Are you sure this is okay?”
I looked at the rings, at my mother’s love circling a finger that belonged to someone who’d had nowhere near as much of it as she deserved. My throat tugged. “I’m sure.”
She nodded once, like she was tucking the answer into a pocket to keep.
When she looked up, the twilight caught in her eyes and made something tight in me loosen.
I wanted to say something about the kiss and how it had set some fuse in me I hadn’t known was there, but this wasn’t the place.
Not yet. Not when the best thing I could be for her was steady.
Inside, a cabinet door thunked shut. Someone laughed. The world shifted into evening.
I bumped her shoulder with mine. “Come on, Mrs. Gibson. If we don’t claim the leftovers now, Fletcher will.”
She groaned just a little. “If he eats those rolls before I can make a sandwich with them, I’m retaliating. I don’t know how, but it might involve glitter bombs.”
“Just so you know, in this family, we settle disputes with Nerf wars. But Uncle Dee will undoubtedly approve of the glitter.” Grinning, I opened the door back into the hum of my family, understanding for the first time all day that I hadn’t lost my mind at all.
I’d done the only thing that made sense.
Now I just had to make sure I didn’t lose her.