Chapter 17
Bodie
The Sasspatch Society could turn a pothole into a parade, so I shouldn’t have been surprised when they transformed the town green into a ballroom in under a week.
String lights zigzagged between light poles and young maples, casting a honey-gold glow over a plywood dance floor.
Paper lanterns bobbed like low moons in the mountain breeze.
A local trio—upright bass, mandolin, and a battered Telecaster—was working through a waltz that made the cicadas sound like a rhythm section.
Strictly speaking, a mood didn’t have a scent, but if it did, tonight would’ve been a blend of cut grass, powdered sugar on fried dough, and a town desperate for an excuse to be happy.
We’d been embracing all of them we could get since the flood.
Uncle Dee—Delilah Devine tonight, in a sleek black jumpsuit shot through with glitter that caught every photon in a three-county radius—was stationed at the makeshift stage with a microphone and the kind of commanding presence that made grown men square their shoulders.
Mo’nique had somehow sourced six galvanized tubs of lemonade and sweet tea and festooned them with ribbons; Miss Bea had run bunting like she was christening a steamboat.
Miss Glory darted through the crowd with an iPad, “coordinating” (read: ruling with velvet-gloved terror).
They called this a “Summer Stomp,” but everyone knew what it was: a belated wedding reception without admitting to being a reception.
Our reception.
Emmaline’s fingers tightened around my forearm—small but strong from years of kneading dough—and some deep, old reflex in me shifted, that instinct that said, Mine to steady. Mine to shield.
Not mine, my better judgment shoved back, reminding me of agreements, timelines, all the practical guardrails we’d set. Still, I curled my hand over hers and felt her exhale against my sleeve like we’d hit the first safe harbor of the evening.
“Ready?” I murmured.
“No,” she said, honest as ever. Then, because she was braver than anyone gave her credit for, she tipped her chin and stepped forward with me into the light.
The turning of heads across the green traveled like a wind front.
I watched it move—faces opening, curious and pleased and primed.
Grandma Elsie beamed from her post at the sheet-cake table like she’d been waiting decades to set out a knife for this particular cutting.
Dad paused mid-conversation with the town clerk, his expression morphing from mayor to father in a heartbeat, pride and worry dialing to the exact mix that had become his default since last September.
Blair Young, Alia’s ride-or-die bestie, who was basically another of my sisters, immediately whipped out her phone and began snapping photos to document the occasion.
My brothers spread out around the edge of the crowd like instinctive outriders, hands lifted in lazy waves that were also, unmistakably, ready.
Uncle Dee hit the mic. “Ladies, gentlemen, and genteel busybodies—” The place laughed, because he’d named the attendance with precision.
“—welcome to the Summer Stomp, a celebration of resilience, sequins, and newlyweds who thought they could sneak off and do the thing without giving us a chance to dress up about it.”
A cheer sounded that rattled the lanterns.
Color climbed Emmaline’s throat, and I didn’t miss the way the vein there throbbed with the quickening of her pulse.
I angled so the crowd got the ring while she could keep the precious part of her face tucked just a little behind my shoulder if she needed.
When she slid a half-step closer, some knotted thing in me eased.
“First dance!” Miss Bea crowed, clapping like a woman born for this intermission. “First dance, first dance!”
The bandleader glanced at us, eyebrows up. I nodded once. They shifted on a dime into a slower tune—something old and aching, with the kind of bones that outlast fashions.
I offered my hand, palm up. “May I?”
Her eyes met mine, full of both questions and resignation. Then she placed her hand in mine.
We stepped into the warm circle of light and onto the dance floor with a soft wooden thud.
I wasn’t any kind of fancy dancer, so I set one respectful hand at her waist, gathering her into a simple sway.
She fit against me with surprising ease, close enough the shimmering tension in that petite body vibrated into mine.
I knew the exact moment her shoulders unhitched a notch.
When the mandolin slid up the neck and found a mournful line and the Telecaster answered it like a promise.
When she breathed in at the same time I did, and our ribs negotiated a rhythm.
“I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.” She murmured the words into my shirt, so soft I almost missed it.
“We’re under open sky,” I said. “Hard for shoes to fall on you out here.” Not my best line. She huffed a laugh anyway, a quick rush against my chest that made something stupidly happy start wagging a tail in my sternum.
I should’ve kept my eyes up—crowd, exits, potential trouble—but I couldn’t stop cataloging her.
The faint scar at the base of her thumb.
The way she tucked her bottom lip under when she was managing feelings she didn’t want to show.
The little glint of my mother’s ring at her throat.
She wore my family—wore me—looped over her heart.
The heat that came with that thought was not entirely decent.
Our turn at the outer edge of the floor put us by the drinks.
Colter stage-whispered, “Don’t step on her toes, Chief, you’ll be sleeping in the yard,” and Dad smacked him with a napkin without looking.
Fletcher made a motion with his hands like he was conducting us.
Dean watched my feet with the interest of a man who’d correct my form later and smiled when I deliberately threw him a heel-toe he’d hate.
Gunner just grinned the grin of the youngest brother.
That probably should’ve worried me, but just now I didn’t want to think about what he might be up to.
“Y’all look good,” Grandma Elsie called, palm over her heart.
We did. Or we faked it well enough.
I’d promised myself I wouldn’t think about the kiss tonight.
The same promise I’d been making and breaking in all the days since.
It had knocked the axis under my feet by about six degrees, and I’d been pretending that the latitude would correct itself.
But then her breath skimmed my throat, and her fingers flexed against my shoulder like a dancer finding balance, and every careful wall I’d stacked started to hum.
The song slowed like a plane taxiing to a gate. Our feet came to rest. The applause blossomed warm and bright. I bent my head for a question, because that seemed like the decent, quiet thing to do: ask, not assume.
“You okay?” Stupid question. Nothing about her life was okay. But she met my eyes, and after a beat, nodded.
“Alright, alright—” Uncle Dee’s voice purred over the mic “—now we let the rest of you heathens make a mess of the floor. Bring your partners, your besties, your worst ideas.”
Couples flooded the space, turning our circle into a quilt of movement. Little kids started a conga line because that’s what little kids do when music happens. Somebody in the back already had their phone light on like we were at a stadium show.
We drifted to the edge, still tethered by my palm at her back. People intercepted us with handshakes and congratulations. I kept my smile low-key but serviceable, said thank you the way my mother had taught me, and let my body do the rest of the work of keeping us an island in a current.
When the circle of well-wishers parted, I saw them.
Marla first. Then Karen. And a cousin I dimly remembered from school, who’d perfected a smirk at fifteen and kept on perfecting it since.
They weren’t dressed to dance; they were dressed to test fences.
They walked like they were arriving at a courtroom where the judge owed them a favor.
The mood of the gathering shifted in a way you only notice if you spend your life reading rooms: voices dulled a fraction, conversations tightened, somebody’s laughter cut off and didn’t return.
Emmaline’s hand chilled under mine.
“It’s okay,” I said. It wasn’t, but I could make part of it be.
They stopped in front of us like a weather front hitting a ridge. Marla’s smile was hard as lacquer. “Well, isn’t this sweet. The prodigal Maddox parading around like a Gibson prize.”
Karen didn’t bother with sweet. “Traitor.” The accusation rolled off her tongue with the kind of relish some folks save for peach cobbler.
The cousin folded her arms. “Selling yourself to the enemy for an oven and some display cases. Granny would be so proud.”
I didn’t even need to look at Emmaline’s face to know the punches landed on all those places they’d already bruised—duty, love, the bakery she’d bled for. I felt it in how she stiffened beside me, and I automatically stepped forward.
I didn’t loom or raise my voice. I didn’t have to. I stepped between them and my wife. The badge on my belt had weight; so did my name in this town; but neither came close to the weight of what I meant when I said evenly, “You don’t speak to my wife that way.”
Conversations within twenty feet hushed because truth has a particular sound, and people lean toward it without meaning to.
Marla’s eyes sharpened, then watered in a way that always made me think of onions—I never could decide if it was real crying or just a chemical reaction she’d learned to wield. “How dare you—”