Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Cara
I hesitate at the entrance of town hall, the remains of my hangover making me miserable, and look at Hayden.
He’s holding the door open for me, Penny cradled in his other arm, but suddenly crossing the threshold seems like a very big deal.
Once we sign our names to the official paperwork, there’s no turning back.
Do whatever you have to do.
With my sister’s voice echoing through my mind—and dammit, I still haven’t updated her—I take a deep breath and step into the gloomy town hall. It’s all brick on the outside and dark wood on the inside, and it smells like a box of old books stored too long in a basement.
Debbie Fitzwilliam has served as the town clerk in Sumac Falls for almost five years, having taken over from her mother when she retired.
Debbie’s also a distant cousin of mine, I guess, since we share a great-great grandmother.
Not a Gamble grandmother, thankfully, but on a maternal side, so they have nothing to do with the feud.
That’s a good thing, because it’s all ridiculous enough without dragging the town administration into it.
I stare at the notices on the bulletin board and Hayden keeps busy reading emails on his phone, turned away from the counter with Penny tucked in one arm, while a man tries to register a vehicle he doesn’t have a title for.
Despite a prominent sign detailing the cutoff years for vehicles requiring titles, he’s refusing to take no for an answer.
When hostility creeps into the guy’s tone, Hayden stiffens and lowers his phone, but Debbie sends the upset man on his way with a smile and a promise to research the issue and get in touch with him before the end of the business day.
When it’s finally our turn, Debbie’s welcoming smile freezes when she realizes the man standing at my side is not only Hayden Reilly, but he’s with me. The frozen, overly toothy smile and wide eyes are a little scary, and I’m afraid of what words might come out of her mouth.
“Hi Debbie,” I say, trying to snap her out of her shock and also head her off at the conversational pass. “We’d like to apply for a marriage license, please.”
She laughs, and I can’t say that I blame her. The entire thing is laughable, and yet here I am, asking for the document that will allow me to become Hayden’s wife.
His wife.
A distressed sound escapes before I can stop it, and I press my fingers to my mouth. I couldn’t speak right now if I had to, so I glance at Hayden, hoping he’ll take over. But he only waits, one eyebrow arched, while our town clerk gets her amusement under control.
It takes a minute.
“Wait.” Debbie’s face rearranges into a frown, her gaze bouncing from me to Hayden and back as if watching a very close-quarters tennis match, before it finally lands on me. “You’re serious.”
“Very serious,” Hayden says, smiling, and the arm that’s not cradling Penny slides around my waist. “We’ll also need an application for a permit to use the town gazebo on June twenty-ninth.”
“Oh, that soon?” Her gaze flicks down to my abdomen.
Hayden clears his throat, reclaiming her attention. “I can’t wait any longer than that to be her husband.
If Debbie was looking at me right now, she might have noticed the way my smile freezes and my skin flushes hot all over, but her attention’s focused fully on Hayden’s romantic declaration. “Oh. I’ll just get the…okay.”
When she walks to the ancient wooden filing cabinet to get the forms we need, I take a step sideways and Hayden lets his arm fall away. I know it’s important that we sell this couple thing, but a little warning would have been nice.
Even though my body is still tingling from the contact and Hayden smells incredibly good, I’m able to get myself under control by the time Debbie returns with the form. She snaps it under the clip of a battered wooden clipboard, along with a pen, and hands it to me.
“You can use that little table over there to fill it out, and I’ll need your birth certificates and a government-issued ID, and if either of you—well, Hayden—has a name change or divorce, you’ll need the documentation for that.”
I follow Hayden and Penny to the table that has two wooden chairs tucked under it, and take the clipboard as he settles the dog on his lap.
I skim the fields we have to fill out, and then glance over my shoulder to see if Debbie’s staring at us.
Luckily, the phone rings and there’s nobody but her to answer it.
“We have to indicate what name we’ll use after,” I whisper to Hayden.
“I hate to say it, but it might be easier for Gin if you choose to keep your name.”
“Why do you hate to say it?” I blurt the question out without thought.
He looks at me for a few seconds, some kind of ferocity in his eyes, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Then he blinks and it’s gone. “Just a saying. I don’t know.”
“Okay. The whole head-over-heels thing might be more believable if we both hyphenated, though.”
He taps the end of the pen on the paper a few times, considering. “Changing my name would be a paperwork nightmare, business-wise.”
“Funny how women are expected to do it, though,” I mutter. “We’ll just keep our own names and if anybody has an opinion, there’s always the family feud to fall back on. Getting married is one thing. Calling myself a Reilly? I think not.”
I meant it as a joke, but the way his jaw tenses tells me he didn’t think it was very funny. With the name issue settled, we fill out the rest of the paperwork and take it back to Debbie.
She gives a guilty start when we step back to the counter, and I catch her sliding her phone under a stack of papers. “All done?”
That didn’t take long, I think as I hand her the clipboard and pen, and she gives me a weak smile as she slides them out. “I’ll just photocopy these documents real quick. Be right back.”
“She was texting somebody the news,” I whisper once the copy machine’s racket will cover my voice. “It’ll be all over town.”
“That’s the plan,” he whispers back, and since he’s right, I shut my mouth and give Penny a little scratch under her chin.
Ten minutes later, we step out into the sunshine with the document we need to become man and wife.
Hayden pauses once the door closes behind us, setting Penny on the sidewalk. She sighs and sits down. “Do you have time for ice cream?”
“Is that a trick question? This is clearly a trap.”
His chuckle is low and makes me smile. “Technically, Debbie isn’t supposed to gossip about any business residents conduct at town hall, but you and I both know she might literally explode if she isn’t the first to tell everybody in her contacts we’re getting married.”
“You said that was the plan.” I think of Debbie hiding her phone and guess at least a half-dozen people knew before we were even done filling out the application. “And that involves ice cream how?”
“If we’re going to sell this reunion love story, we should probably be seen enjoying each other’s company. Ice cream always made you smile, so maybe you’ll stop scowling at me.”
The reference to what was still the best summer of my life, even with the way it all turned out, throws me. And the way he’s looking at me right now—all soft eyes and endearing smile—is the same way he used to look at me.
Back then, we couldn’t be seen together, of course.
Hayden would get the ice cream because he had a bike and could get to our secret spot by the river faster than I could.
We’d sit on the flat rock by the shore, in the shade of the trees, and eat rapidly melting ice cream while we watched the water run and talked about anything and everything… except our families.
My parents would never have let me date him. His mother would have hated him dating me. And so we were our own little secret—right up until we were going to go public at homecoming and he stood me up instead.
“We can get some ice cream and sit on the bench in the town square,” he says. “People will probably drive laps around it, thinking we look like a happy little family in the making, so of course we should be getting married.”
Why does having an ice cream date in the park feel so much more intimate to me than actually marrying the man? Part of me wants to bolt—to run in the opposite direction of his blue eyes, delicious smell and adorable dog.
But I’ve come this far—Debbie’s made sure everybody knows by now—and backing out would not only be embarrassing, but cost me the chance to be free of the financial and emotional burden of the house.
“Fine,” I snap, wanting him to know I’m not happy about it. “We can go look romantic in public, but you’re paying for the ice cream.”