Chapter 7 Juliana
JULIANA
Juliana smoothed the front of her blouse and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear as she stepped out onto the wide, shaded porch of the lodge.
Her stomach still twisted from the conversation over lunch—if one could even call it that.
More like an awkward verbal dance in which neither of them knew the steps.
She’d wanted to stay calm, mature. Graceful, even. But Gideon had that infuriating grin and that maddening ability to turn everything into a joke, like none of this actually mattered. Like their marriage—however accidental—was a scene from a romantic comedy and not a real covenant before God.
And yet . . . He’d pulled out her chair without a second thought. Called the waitress by name. Offered to cover her lunch with a lopsided smile and a quiet, "It's the least I can do.” He hadn’t tried to charm her, not really. But charm still leaked out of him like it couldn’t help itself.
She hated how aware she was of it.
The Ridgeline Grill had surprised her. Tucked inside the lodge, it was warm and worn, full of knotty wood, old branding irons hanging on the walls, and a chalkboard menu with half the specials crossed out.
The food had been simple and good—grilled chicken, roasted vegetables, local honey-sweet tea.
But what had struck her most was the way people responded to Gideon.
The waitress had teased him like an old friend. A teenager in muddy hiking boots had waved enthusiastically from the back booth. The manager had clapped him on the shoulder and asked about next week’s group ride.
People liked him. Trusted him. Listened to him.
Which only deepened the mystery. Because for someone who didn’t seem to take anything seriously, Gideon Reynolds had clearly built a life full of respect and purpose.
She glanced around the property now—at the rough-hewn fences and hand-painted trail signs, the laughter of families echoing from a nearby cornhole game, the low hum of staff preparing for some kind of evening event. It was rustic, sure, but it was organized. Intentional.
Much like the man himself.
She sighed and rubbed her temples, retreating into the shade as a warm breeze swept across the porch.
She’d checked into her room an hour ago—clean, quiet, decorated in soft greens and pinewood trim.
Not the spa-like luxury of Tealua Haven, but it didn’t feel like she was supposed to perform here.
And that was . . . disarming. She’d already extended her room for a whole week instead of the two days she’d been planning.
With a smirk, she realized that she’d adjusted her itinerary without a second thought. Gideon would be proud.
Juliana dropped into a rocking chair and opened her journal, the one she’d brought in hopes of sorting out her thoughts. Her pen hovered over the page. After a moment, she wrote:
He’s not who I thought he was.
And I’m not sure what that means yet.
She clicked the pen closed and stared out at the view. The mountains stretched in every direction, golden light catching the dust that danced in the air. Redemption Ridge wasn’t her world. But it had a pull to it. Slow and steady, like a current she hadn’t expected to step into.
The same could be said of Gideon.
She’d expected reckless. Immature. Someone who could laugh off a sacred commitment because he’d never taken it seriously to begin with.
Instead, she’d found someone kind. Capable. Someone who clearly bore more weight than he let on.
Someone who, despite everything, she wasn’t quite ready to walk away from.
She told herself this trip was about fixing a legal mistake, but deep down, she knew it was more than that.
Marriage was a covenant, not a clerical error, and if God allowed it, maybe there was something here she was meant to wrestle with.
A shadow crossed the edge of Juliana’s journal.
She glanced up, startled.
A petite woman with a messy ponytail and dusty jeans stood just off the porch steps, one hand on her hip, a kind smile curving her mouth.
She looked vaguely familiar—something about the eyes.
She was petite, maybe five-foot-two, but carried herself like someone used to being in charge.
Her jeans had dirt on the knees like she’d just come from the garden.
“You must be the old ball-and-chain,” the woman said without a hint of humor.
Juliana froze. “I—what?”
The woman laughed, breaking the tension. “I’m Cassie. Gideon’s sister.”
“Oh.” Juliana scrambled to her feet, suddenly aware of how stiffly formal she must seem, perched on the porch with her monogrammed journal and sensible sandals. “I’m Juliana.”
Cassie crossed the porch with an easy confidence that made Juliana feel like the new kid on the playground. “I heard you two had a beach wedding. Something about pineapples, I think? Or was it mangoes?”
Juliana blinked. “Wait, what exactly has Gideon told you?”
Cassie dropped into the rocking chair beside hers, grinning. “Not nearly enough, apparently. But you showing up with a suitcase and yelling at him in the parking lot? I connected the dots. And honestly, we’re not even surprised. Gideon’s always had a knack for stumbling into the absurd.”
“I didn’t stumble,” Juliana said automatically, then winced. “I mean, we both—It was symbolic. At least, we thought it was.”
Cassie nodded, her smile fading into something more thoughtful. “He didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Juliana looked away. “He didn’t. Not really.”
The truth was, he hadn’t promised her anything. And yet somehow, he’d managed to leave a mark she couldn’t explain.
“What about you? Are you going to hurt him?”
Juliana hesitated. “Even if this . . .” She forced out the unfamiliar word. “Marriage wasn’t what either of us planned, I would never intentionally hurt Gideon. I do care about him. I’m just not sure we are meant to be together forever, you know?”
Cassie leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “You know, you’re not what I expected.”
Juliana arched a brow. “Let me guess. You expected a girl who surfed in a wedding dress and danced barefoot under the stars?”
“Well, yeah. Kind of,” Cassie said. “But I figure if you agreed to marry my brother—even on accident—you must have something surprising under all that polish.”
Juliana didn’t know what to say to that.
Cassie stood and dusted off her jeans. “We’ve got a campfire tonight behind the bunkhouse. Some of the trail guides are playing music. There’ll be s’mores, and Zeke’s making his caramel apple cobbler. You should come.”
Juliana hesitated.
Cassie gave a knowing smile. “It’s not a trap. You don’t even have to sit next to him. But it might help you see more of what you came to understand.”
Juliana nodded slowly. “Okay. Maybe I will.”
Cassie started back down the steps, calling over her shoulder, “Wear something you don’t mind smelling like smoke.”
Juliana smiled faintly and looked back at the page in her journal. She scratched out the last line.
He’s not who I thought he was.
And I’m not sure what that means yet.
And apparently, neither am I.
A few hours later, Juliana followed Cassie past a sign labeled Authorized Personnel Only, around the bend to a clearing behind the small row of houses.
String lights crisscrossed between trees, their glow flickering over the faces gathered around a low-burning fire.
Laughter floated on the air, along with the hum of conversation and country music playing from a Bluetooth speaker.
“Welcome to Saturday night,” Cassie said over her shoulder. “Gideon’s idea years ago. Said if he was gonna be stuck running group tours all week, he was at least going to make sure someone handed him a hot dog at the end of it.”
Juliana smiled, a little unsure. This wasn’t her usual scene. Dirt. Barefoot children. People with their knees touching as they shared a bench. It smelled like sap and spice and sweat and smoke. Elaine Emerson would be appalled at her daughter’s current company.
A man with kind eyes turned from where he was tending to a tray of foil-wrapped something near the fire pit.
He wiped his hands on a towel tucked into his waistband and stepped forward with a serious expression.
“You must be Juliana,” he said, offering a hand that was still warm from the heat.
“I’m Zeke. That’s my wife, Kaitlyn, wrangling the toddler with the sticky fingers.
” He wasn’t warm or friendly, but Zeke felt . . . steady.
Kaitlyn gave a smile, her brown hair pulled into a loose braid. She balanced a toddler on her hip, who squirmed to get down the second Juliana made eye contact. “This is Juniper,” Kaitlyn said. “Apparently, she’s already decided you’re a safe person. Sorry in advance.”
The toddler waddled straight to Juliana’s leg and clung like they’d met before. Juliana blinked, then hesitantly patted the girl’s soft curls, ignoring the way her thoughts had seized on the mention of messy fingers.
“And that one over there, climbing the woodpile he’s definitely not supposed to be on?” Zeke pointed. “That’s our oldest, Stetson.”
A boy with messy blond hair and a look of absolute mischief was halfway up the stack, and gave a sheepish grin when Kaitlyn called his name. “Coming down!” he yelled, leaping from the second tier like a stuntman. He looked to be about ten years old.
Juliana winced at his landing, but Zeke just laughed, the first crack in his pretty serious demeanor. “They bounce at that age.”
Cassie gave her arm a little nudge and led her closer to the fire.
Another man stood to greet them, baby on one hip and a juice box in the other hand.
“Hey, you must be Juliana,” he said, handing off the juice box to a curly-haired three-year-old who promptly squeezed it too hard and splashed juice all over his shorts.
“I’m Jason. Cassie’s husband. The little tornado is Chance, and this sleepy guy is Arlo. ”
The baby blinked at Juliana and promptly stuck a thumb in his mouth. She melted at the way his blue eyes stared her down.
“You have beautiful kids,” she said softly.
“Thanks,” Cassie said, settling beside Jason with a fond glance at their chaos. “We try not to lose more than one at a time.”
Laughter rippled again around the fire, but Juliana stood a little straighter, absorbing it all.
The tangled limbs, the barking dog in the distance, the slightly burned marshmallow smoke curling into the night air.
She felt like she’d stepped into someone else’s life.
One with dirt and stickiness and rough edges and, inexplicably, it made something quiet ache in her chest.
And then, as if summoned by her thoughts, Gideon appeared—clean now, hair damp and curling at the edges of his forehead. He was already smiling when he caught her eye.
“Hey, Jules. There’s a seat over here,” he said, gesturing to the log beside him.
Juliana hesitated. Then she stepped forward, brushing Juniper’s sticky hand from her skirt and lowering herself to the seat. “Don’t call me Jules,” she whispered.
For a moment, no one asked her any more questions. No one pressed. They just handed her a s’more, scooted over to make room, and let her soak it in.
Next to them on another bench, Cassie nudged a marshmallow stick into Zeke’s hand before turning toward Gideon.
“Mom’s already bringing up the Christmas barn dance,” she said with a groan.
“Says it’s never too early to start planning.
But I told her there’s no way I can help this year.
Not with my work schedule and the boys.”
Zeke chuckled, settling back with his arms crossed. “Didn’t she rope you into baking two hundred cookies last year?”
“Two hundred and forty,” Cassie said. “She had a spreadsheet.”
Gideon smirked, and Juliana felt his eyes flick toward her. “That’s how you know she’s serious.”
“She needs help,” Cassie said pointedly, glancing between the two of them. “And neither of you better look at me when she starts assigning committee roles.”
Juliana listened without commenting, her gaze jumping from one sibling to the other.
She watched the flicker of flames dance in Kaitlyn’s hair as she leaned in to listen to Stetson retell his death-defying woodpile leap.
Zeke loosened up fully and threw his head back, laughing.
Cassie tried to wrangle a squirming toddler with one hand while holding a conversation with Jason.
There were grass stains on Chance’s knees and a popsicle streak drying on Juniper’s cheek.
And no one seemed in a hurry to fix any of it.
Juliana sat still, hands folded tightly in her lap.
This wasn’t the kind of evening she’d grown up with.
At her house, noise was controlled, and messes were contained.
Napkins were linen, schedules were sacred, and joy was something you earned with good behavior and neat handwriting.
Her mother didn’t believe in s’mores—“sugar and ash,” she’d once called them.
And bonfires were dangerous liabilities, not places to gather and laugh.
Fun had to be orderly. Contained. Quiet.
This was none of those things.
There was freedom in it. The permission to be imperfect and noisy and sticky and alive.
She glanced at Gideon from the corner of her eye.
He was leaning back against the back of the bench, legs stretched out in front of him, completely at ease.
Unlike her, he clearly belonged in the middle of this chaos.
Although, he’d had the same air of confidence and ease when he’d been lounging on a bed of pineapples.
So maybe it wasn’t the setting so much as it was the man.
He caught her glance and offered a crooked smile. Not smug. Not teasing. Just warm. Like he saw her watching and understood.
Maybe that was what disarmed her the most. Not the s’mores or the sticky fingers or even the wild, barefoot children. But the fact that she was starting to feel safe in it.
She looked back at the fire and took a careful bite of her s’more. A chaotic bonfire wasn’t on the itinerary. But as a string of melted marshmallow trailed from her fingers, she couldn’t bring herself to mind too much.