Chapter 32
Emmaline
The drive back from Elsie’s was full of headlights cutting through the darkness and the endless symphony of cricket-song drifting through the cracked windows, but inside the cab of the truck, I felt like I was holding my breath.
The familiar scent of Bodie’s woodsy cologne mixed with the lingering sweetness of the snickerdoodles Elsie had wrapped up to send home with us, creating a cocoon of warmth that should have been comforting.
Instead, it seemed fragile, like something that would shatter if I moved too quickly.
My cheeks still ached from smiling at his family, from laughing so hard over Uno that I nearly tipped my chair backward.
The memory of the easy teasing and camaraderie with all of them wrapped around my heart like a vise.
But underneath all that warmth, underneath the lingering echoes of belonging, was a hollow ache that seemed to grow with every mile that passed.
Dean’s crack about great-grandkids had been tossed out like nothing, just another piece of family banter, a way to give his brother grief.
Everyone had laughed, even me, but it had stuck in me like a thorn, working its way deeper with each replay in my mind.
The casual way he’d said it, like it was inevitable.
Like we were the kind of couple who had forever stretching out ahead of us.
It was a dream I’d toyed with for days after Adalyn’s visit, when she’d broached the subject with all the finesse of a wrecking ball.
I’d managed to put it away as foolish and buried it under layers of practicality and self-protection.
But the moment it had come up again tonight, I’d seen it clear as daylight for a flicker of a second.
Me and Bodie, folded into that family with more than borrowed rings and temporary promises.
Kids with his slow, steady grin and my eyes.
Future holidays where I wasn’t playing a part.
Christmas mornings and birthday parties and all the ordinary, precious moments that made up a real life.
The kind I’d never really had in my own family. Forever.
And then I’d yanked myself back to reality, brutally reminded myself that it wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be real. No matter how things had shifted physically between us, Bodie and I had an agreement.
One with an expiration date, that could come as soon as a few months from now when the will was settled and my mother’s threats were defanged.
There was no sense letting myself get in any deeper with him and his family than I already had.
By the time we pulled into the driveway, my stomach was twisted in knots.
The porch light cast everything in a warm yellow, making our house look cozy and welcoming and perfectly domestic.
While Bodie took care of making sure Rubble did her business, I busied myself with small, unnecessary tasks: hanging my bag on the hook by the door with exaggerated care, slipping out of my shoes and lining them up precisely against the wall, straightening the kitchen towel that didn’t need straightening.
My hands were shaking slightly, and I hoped he wouldn’t notice.
Bodie closed the door behind us with a soft click, the sound unnaturally loud in the quiet house.
Rubble made a beeline for me, getting ear scritches before trotting to her kitchen bed and plopping down with a contented sigh.
He watched me with that steady gaze that missed nothing, cataloging every nervous movement, every tell that gave away my inner turmoil.
The weight of his attention made my skin prickle with awareness.
He leaned a shoulder against the doorway, arms crossed, looking deceptively casual except for the intensity in his sharp blue eyes. “Em, did somebody say something tonight I didn’t catch?”
I startled, my hand freezing on the dish towel. “What? No. Your family was… they were wonderful.” The words came out too bright, too forced, like I was trying to convince myself as much as him.
He didn’t look convinced. Those strong arms folded more deliberately across his chest, the muscles in his forearms flexing as he studied me with the same focus he probably used when interrogating suspects. “So what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I said it too fast, the denial shooting out of me like a defensive reflex, and the word landed between us like an egg dropped on the floor, cracking open to ooze embarrassing truth everywhere.
His eyebrows lifted in that way that said he wasn’t buying what I was selling. “Nothing, huh? You’ve been quiet since we left Grandma’s. I know you, Em. Something’s chewing at you, and it’s not small.”
My throat went tight, like someone had wrapped their hands around it and squeezed.
I wanted desperately to brush it off, to deflect with humor or change the subject, but the pressure in my chest wouldn’t let me.
He’d earned my trust over these months. My body, my secrets, pieces of myself I’d never shared with anyone.
I owed him honesty, even when it was tantamount to cutting myself open.
I pressed my hands flat against the cool granite counter and forced the words out, each one scraping my throat raw. “I don’t want to lose this.”
The silence stretched between us, thick and heavy with unspoken implications. When I finally dared to glance up from the fascinating pattern in the countertop, his eyes weren’t hard or impatient, merely… intent. Focused on me like I was the only thing in the world that mattered. “Define ‘this.’”
I wanted to shrink away, to disappear into the floor rather than admit the truth that felt too big and dangerous for this quiet kitchen.
But something in his voice, gentle but unyielding, made me stay where I was.
Made me find the courage to be honest. “You. Us. Your family. These past couple of months… they’ve been so much more than I expected when we made our deal.
So much more than—” Than I’d ever had. Than I’d ever dreamed I could have.
But admitting that out loud was a wound I wasn’t quite ready to expose, even though I suspected he already knew.
Even though he’d seen the careful way I hoarded every moment of warmth, every casual touch, every shared glance.
“The idea of losing all of it hurts more than I know how to handle.”
“Why do you have to lose it?” Still with that maddeningly calm, conversational voice, as if I wasn’t spilling my heart’s blood all over his kitchen floor. As if this wasn’t the most terrifying conversation of my life.
“Because this isn’t—” My voice failed completely, the words getting tangled up with the fear and hope warring in my chest. I swallowed hard and tried again, forcing each word out separately.
“This isn’t real, Bodie. We had an agreement.
A business arrangement. This was supposed to be temporary, a solution to an unreasonable problem.
I’m not supposed to—” I broke off, shaking my head helplessly.
He pushed off from the doorway and came closer, his footsteps deliberate on the hardwood floor. Close enough that I had to tilt my head back to meet his gaze, close enough that I felt the heat radiating from his body. “Not supposed to what?”
“Want things.” The confession came out raw and ragged, like it had torn something inside me on the way up.
“Not supposed to let myself hope for more than what we agreed on. But I do. I want things I can’t have, things that were never part of our deal, and I know it’s stupid and dangerous and pathetic. I hate myself for even thinking it.”
He was quiet for a moment, studying my face with an unreadable expression. Then, so softly I almost missed it: “Like what?”
The words tumbled out before I could swallow them back, before common sense slammed the door on my runaway heart.
“Like what it would be like if this were real. If this was actually our life, not just a performance we’re putting on for the lawyers and my mother.
If tonight wasn’t borrowed time, if your family’s acceptance wasn’t something I was stealing.
I keep thinking about it—about us having a future, about belonging somewhere, about…
” I choked on the words, but forced them out anyway.
“About having kids. A real family. And then I remember that we made a deal, with terms and conditions and an expiration date. That this ends when the will is settled and you’ve held up your end of the bargain.
And it feels like grief, Bodie. Like mourning something I never actually had. And I don’t know what to do with it.”
He let out a slow breath, his eyes never leaving mine. There was something shifting in his expression, something that made my pulse skip erratically. “Maybe that’s what it started as. Doesn’t mean that’s what it still is.”
I shook my head almost violently, angry with myself for the rush of desperate hope his words sparked in my chest. “You can’t just say that.
You can’t simply change the rules because I’m being emotional and stupid.
You signed up to protect me, to keep my mother from stealing everything Gran left me, not—”
“Not to want you?” His gentle words hit me like a physical blow.
Heat flooded my face, spreading down my neck and making my skin prickle with awareness. “Not to build a life with me. Not to get stuck with someone you married out of duty.”
“Em.” His voice was steady, grounding, like an anchor in the storm of my emotions. “Look at us. Really look. Do you honestly think what we’re doing is merely playing house? Like we’re marking time, waiting out a deal? Because I don’t. And I don’t think you do either, not really.”
I opened my mouth to argue and closed it without saying anything.
He was right, and we both knew it. It didn’t feel like an arrangement anymore.
Hadn’t for weeks. My heart lifted every time he walked through the door.
He made me feel seen and cherished when he absently reached for me while he was reading, when he saved me the last of the coffee in the morning, when he listened to me talk about the bakery’s future like it mattered to him too.
Still, fear clawed at me with vicious talons, whispering all the ways this could go wrong. “You’ll regret it. One day you’ll wake up and remember this was never supposed to be permanent, that you were doing me a favor, and—”
“And what?” His tone was sharper now. Not cruel, but firm enough to cut through my spiraling panic.
“That I’ll decide I don’t want you? That I’ll walk away from the best thing that’s happened to me in years?
Emmaline, I’ve wanted you longer than you know.
This—” he gestured between us, encompassing the space that hummed with tension and possibility, “—this isn’t duty.
It never was. It’s what I want. You’re what I want. ”
The room spun slightly, like I’d stood up too fast. “You mean that?”
He stepped in close, so close his warmth wrapped around me, and I smelled the faint trace of cedar and soap that clung to his skin.
So close that when he spoke, his breath whispered against my forehead.
“Do you want this, Em? Not the bargain we made. Not the protection, not the convenience. Us. This thing we’ve built together. ”
Tears stung hot behind my eyes, threatening to spill over. My throat was so tight I could barely whisper, “More than I can even say. More than I knew how to want anything.”
Relief flickered across his face like sunrise, softening all the hard edges, making him seem younger somehow.
He reached for my hand, threading our fingers together before pressing our joined hands against his chest, over the steady, reassuring thump of his heart.
“Then let’s stop talking like there’s an end date.
Let’s stop pretending this is temporary.
Let’s give this a real shot. Let’s build something that lasts. ”
I let out a shaky laugh that was halfway to a sob, the sound foreign in the quiet kitchen. “You make it sound so easy.”
“Doesn’t have to be complicated.” His thumb brushed over my knuckles in slow, soothing circles. “We’ve already built something good together. Something real. We just need to stop being afraid to admit it. Stop waiting for permission to want what we already have.”
“Just like that?”
“Just exactly like that. If you want it. If you want me.”
I didn’t even know how to express how much I wanted that. Whatever words I might’ve said clogged in my throat as he took one step back and lowered to one knee.
“I didn’t do this the right way the first time. Will you, Emmaline Maddox, stay my wife, be the mother of my children, ’til death do us part?”
Oh God, this man. The tears spilled over, hot tracks down my cheeks, but I was smiling through them. Smiling wider than I had in years as I framed his face between my palms and said, “Yes.”
Bodie surged to his feet, kissing me, swinging me in a circle, until we were both breathless, and the grief that had dogged me for hours faded into a bright, glimmering hope.
I clung to his shoulders, looking up into his beloved face.
“If we’re really going to do this—if we’re going to try to make this real—then maybe we should try to do something about the feud too.
Try to heal it if we can. I don’t want to spend the rest of our lives pretending our families are sworn enemies, pretending there’s some ancient wound that can never heal.
I want our kids to know both sides of their family. ”
Our kids. I’d said it without thinking, and the words hung in the air between us like a promise.
His mouth curved into that slow, devastating smile that never failed to make my knees weak.
But there was something else there too—pride and determination and a steadiness that made me believe, for the first time, that this crazy, impossible thing might actually work.
“Then we’ll try. Together. Whatever it takes. ”