That sweet, tough little grandma who taught him how to make pad thai had also been the one to give him the Bible. In those days, he’d been an angry kid who’d known a lot of Christians in the small town where he grew up. It hadn’t seemed to do him any good.
But Ya-ya was different. She gave him a job. A place to stay. She gave him a Bible and she taught him to read it.
He could never repay her kindness.
Cam tried to focus on the words, but thoughts of Juliet and her proposition from last night kept creeping in, destroying his peace. He’d tried to tell himself she wasn’t serious, but what if she was?
What if her proposal was the best possible way to protect his nieces?
He’d never imagined getting married and settling down. The thought of trusting someone that much seemed too dangerous somehow. He’d take zip-lining in the Andes mountains or BASE jumping in the Alps over that, any day.
But now that Jules brought it up, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He wouldn’t have to trust her with his heart to get married to her, of course. But he’d have to trust her with their hearts, which might be even harder.
He thought of Jules, how she’d looked sitting by his fireplace last night, that warrior heart of hers on her sleeve. She’d go to battle for the girls. And they’d be safe with her.
Maybe it was his own heart he should be worried about.
The door to the deck opened behind him and what had been an undercurrent of anxiety spun into a low hum. His muscles tensed but he didn’t move. Jules stopped beside him without sitting, and the silence stretched, her question from the night before hanging unspoken in the air between them.
He glanced up at her. From the shadows under her eyes, it seemed likely that she hadn’t slept any better than he had. “The girls still in bed?”
She sank into a chair and set the baby monitor on the table between them. “Yes. I gave Emma a bottle around five and she conked out.”
“You should try to get a few more minutes.”
“I’m usually in the bakery by the time the sun comes up, so I’m not sure I could sleep in if I tried.”
“You’re not working today?”
“My assistant is opening up. After the debacle with the water heater last night, I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing this morning.” A smile ghosted across her face. “I never would’ve guessed that I’d be waiting for you to get back to me on a marriage proposal.”
At the words, his chest tightened. No matter what happened, from here things would be different, for all of them. “Jules, I...”
She forced a laugh, her big blue eyes shiny. “You don’t even have to finish that sentence. I understand. It’s a crazy idea.”
He let his gaze slide away from her to the pond in the distance, watching curls of fog waft lazily from the surface of the water. Canada geese were feeding on the tender grass around the edge. “How did geese end up in Alabama?”
“What?”
He shrugged. “I mean, did they stop here for a rest and the next morning one of them was, like, ‘You guys go ahead, eh? I think I’m gonna stay’?”
She was looking at him like she was thinking about calling the guys in white coats, but tears weren’t glistening in her eyes anymore. Instead, a hint of humor deepened a tiny dimple in the corner of her mouth.
“Geese mate for life, right?” Cam went on. “Maybe Gladys decided she was sick of flying back and forth every year, so Elmer just threw up his wings and said, ‘I guess we live in Alabama now.’”
When she smiled, her whole face lit up. “I suppose you feel that Elmer is a kindred spirit?”
“Well, it is a little surreal that a little over a week ago, I was waking up in Marrakech, with no home, no family and no obligations.”
Her voice was as soft and sweet as her smile, the slow drawl of her Southern accent taking him back to an earlier, nearly forgotten, time in his life. “It’s okay, Cam. We’ll figure something out about the girls.”
Cam lived a nomadic life. As a rule, he didn’t make long-term decisions. But Eleanor and Emma—and Jules—needed more than that. He reached for courage and hoped he’d find it. “I didn’t sleep last night. I kept imagining what life would be like for Emma and Eleanor if they lived with...you know. If they had to leave you, leave here.”
She swallowed hard, nodding but not speaking.
“They’ve been through so much already, losing Sam and Glory. And while I honestly think the girls would end up with you in the long run, what would that kind of separation cost them?”
Her face was a battlefield of emotion and he wanted to reassure her that he would make everything better. She thought getting married was a crazy idea. How crazy would she think he was if he told her that he’d been up all night not because he didn’t want to get married, but because the idea of it seemed like such a tantalizing dream?
He turned to her and reached for her hand, but stopped short. Her hand wasn’t his to hold. “Jules, there’s a lot about this world I can’t change. But in this case, I can change things for two little girls—two little girls who I already love. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to them and I didn’t do everything I could to prevent it.”
Jules pressed her fist to her lips, letting out a shaky breath. “You mean—are you sure?”
He scrubbed a hand over his short hair and walked to the rail before turning back to her. Regardless of what he said now, this was insane. They were both certifiable. “It’s still a crazy idea. You know that, right?”
She laughed. “Oh, yeah.”
“Okay, then. I’m in.”
Jules launched herself across the deck and into his arms, half laughing as she threw her arms around him. Shocked, he went still.
She pushed back, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean... Okay, I’m going to check on the girls now.”
“No need to apologize.” He managed an easy smile, but the turmoil spinning inside felt anything but easy. He took a deep breath. “So we’ll meet at the courthouse after you drop the kids off at preschool?”
“Yes. Can we say ten thirty?”
“Of course.”
Her face—with her wide, slightly dilated eyes—was a reflection of the range of feelings rushing through her, which should probably be comforting. He wasn’t the only one going into this with a healthy dose of fear.
A cry sounded through the monitor and she snatched it from the table like a lifeline. “I’ve gotta run. I’ll see you at ten thirty?”
“I’ll be there.” As she disappeared into the house, he turned back toward the pond, a knot in the pit of his stomach. But he was doing the right thing. They were doing the right thing.
Right?
* * *
Jules opened the door of her childhood home and was greeted by an enthusiastic silver German shepherd. She gave him a scratch, nudged him back with her knee and stepped into the kitchen.
Light streamed in through the window over the sink, giving the room a hazy golden glow. Fitting somehow, because as a child, she’d often ended up at the kitchen table eating a piece of cake or a muffin while she poured out the details of her day to her mom. It wasn’t any wonder that she’d ended up associating baking with love and contentment.
She’d never felt more loved than when she was sitting at that kitchen table, soaking up her mom’s caring attention. She could only hope that Eleanor and Emma would know as much love from her as she’d felt from her own mom.
After following the corridor to the guest room, she pushed open the closet doors and found what she was looking for tucked way in the back of the top shelf. She laid the garment box on the bed and gently removed the lid, barely breathing as she lifted her great-grandmother’s lace veil from the layers of tissue.
When she was a little girl, she’d often imagined wearing this veil on her wedding day, placing it on her head as sh
e did now and turning to admire it in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. She stared at her reflection. She’d certainly never imagined wearing it to the county courthouse for a wedding to someone she barely knew.
“Jules?” Her mom appeared in the door to the bedroom. “I saw your car outside. Are you okay?”
She faced her mother, warmth rushing into her cheeks. “I’m fine.”
Bertie walked the few steps across the room and stopped to arrange the veil around her shoulders as Jules turned back to face the mirror. “Is there a reason you came by to try it on today?”
“I’m getting married.” As soon as she said the words, she wanted to take them back. And that should tell her something about the absurdity of what she and Cam were planning to do.
“I see. Someone I know?” Bertie’s expression never changed as she fiddled with the veil.
A giggle bubbled out as Jules turned to face her mom. “Only you would say that. Nothing has ever ruffled you. One of us kids could’ve cut off a limb and you’d say calmly, ‘We’re gonna need some ice on that.’”
“I think you’re exaggerating a little.” Bertie brushed an imaginary speck off Jules’s shoulder.
“I’m marrying Cameron in less than an hour.” Jules searched out her mom’s eyes. By nature, she found excess emotion annoying and rarely useful, but she found herself on edge, in need of a little bit of Bertie’s imperturbability.
“You know, my grandmother Elisabeth wore that veil when she married my grandfather. She had three very small children when she was widowed. She didn’t have a lot of choice when she married my grandfather. But you do have a choice, honey.”
Jules wished she could share that she didn’t have a choice—not if she wanted to protect the girls—but that was the one thing she couldn’t say. “I know. I’m doing the right thing, Mom. For me and for Emma and Eleanor.”
Bertie brushed a loose curl away from Juliet’s face. “I asked my grandmother one time if she ever regretted marrying so quickly. She said, ‘The heart loves who it wants to love, Elberta. And I love your grandfather with all my heart.’ About that time, he came in from the field, grabbed her by the hips with his dirty hands and kissed her, right in front of me.”
“So she fell in love with him, anyway.”
Bertie tipped her head and studied Jules’s face. “Or she decided to love him, anyway. Regardless, I know you lead with that magnificent brain of yours and rarely do anything without thinking it through from a million different angles. I trust you. And back in the day Cam was a good boy who didn’t deserve anything that happened to him. Hopefully, he’s grown up to be a good man.”
“He is, Mom. Everything’s going to be fine. I promise.”
Her mother kissed her on the forehead. “I know. Stay here just a minute.”
Jules turned back to the mirror and stared at her reflection. Her dove-gray dress was understated, but was probably the most elegant thing she owned considering the majority of her wardrobe was imprinted with her Take the Cake logo.
She heard her mom reenter the room and saw her mom’s sweet face behind her in the mirror. “You’re so beautiful, sweetheart.”
Jules’s throat ached, and for a moment she longed to turn back the clock to when she was a little girl, when she and Glory would play house in the walk-in closet, when her mom would entice them to the kitchen with cookies and her dad would be coming in from work with a big grin on his face.
Life had seemed so simple then.
When she turned back around, a gold ring glimmered in Mom’s palm—her dad’s wedding ring. “For you. I know your dad would want you to have it.”
The ring was a little dull, a little scratched and battered, but it was a pure sign of the love that her father had for her mother—and for their children. Jules missed him every single day. Her father had been a big man with a hearty laugh. The local chief of police, he could be stern when needed, but she’d never hesitated to crawl into his lap and lay her head on his broad shoulder.
He’d never met a problem he didn’t face head-on. She liked to think she was like him in that way, practical and driven.
She lifted the ring from her mother’s hand and slid it onto her thumb, her throat aching. “Thanks, Mom.” A half laugh, half sob came bubbling up. “If I don’t go, I’m going to be late for my own wedding.”
“You’ve never been late for anything in your entire life. Go. I’ll be praying.”
Jules glanced in the mirror at her reflection one last time. Color flagged her cheeks, but the veil was perfect.
And she was as ready as she would ever be.
* * *
Cameron paced outside the small gray stone courthouse in the county seat a few miles down the road from Red Hill Springs. He glanced at his watch for the fourteenth time in as many minutes. This half-baked plan may have been Juliet’s idea, but he should never have agreed to drive separately.
As he paced back the other direction, her black minivan pulled into a space across the street. The merry-go-round of what-ifs stopped short in his mind as he saw one long leg and then another swing out. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her in anything but her work clothes. But today, she had on heels, a formfitting dress and...a wedding veil.
His heart did a little stutter. He caught her eye as she crossed the street, a hesitant smile on her face. And had to steady his voice before he could speak. “Wow—you look incredible.”
A trembling hand touched the veil. “I hope it’s not too much. It was my great-grandmother’s.”
“It’s perfect. I have something for you.” He turned to the bench behind him and picked up a small hand-tied bouquet of pale pink roses. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but he realized now that he didn’t even know if she liked roses. And maybe he’d been making a huge assumption. “I, um, I didn’t want you to get married without flowers.”
She smiled down at the bouquet. “I love it, thank you.”
He held out his arm for her. “Ready to go in?”
She nodded and slid her hand into place at his elbow as they walked into the building. Fifteen minutes later, license in hand, they were waiting to see the judge. Feeling like he did when he landed in New York City after months in the slower pace of a third-world country, he stopped outside the door to the courtroom, mind swirling with thoughts. “Are you sure you want to do this? We can find another way. We’ll run away to Argentina or Uruguay or Iceland—I don’t know. We’ll figure out something.”
“If you changed your mind, it’s okay, Cam.”
“No.” He said it—and surprisingly, meant it—with a steadiness he hadn’t been sure he felt, and the tightness in his chest loosened its grip. “If you’re good, I’m good.”
“I’m good.” She said it quietly. And the doors to the courtroom opened.
The judge looked up as they entered the room and came down the stairs from the bench to meet them. He didn’t look nervous at all, which seemed strange considering the dive-bombing bats in Cam’s stomach. He could adapt to a lot of things, and had, but marriage was a new one.
The words to the marriage ceremony were familiar as the judge said them, but the five-minute ceremony went by in a blur. There were I-do’s and I-will’s, but the first thing Cam really heard was “You may kiss your bride.”
Somehow, ridiculous as it seemed, he hadn’t foreseen this moment, and he had the urge to ask her, Is this okay?
Then, with the weight of her father’s ring on his finger, he cupped her cheek with his hand, slid his other hand around her waist and pulled her closer, letting his lips gently brush hers.
He’d made promises before—some of them he’d kept and some of them he hadn’t—but he’d never felt a promise down to his toes like he did this one. He looked into Juliet’s eyes and he knew in that second that he could never find another person who gave her heart as truly or loved as sacrificially as Jules did.
<
br /> Letting go of her would be...crazy.
Chapter Five
Jules slammed the door to her car and swung her bag with her laptop over her shoulder. She pulled her coat tighter across her chest. A front was blowing through and the north wind felt like it could slice right through her.
As she hurried toward the bakery and past the law office where her sister worked, the door swung open and a hand grabbed her arm.
“Get in here. We need to talk.” Wynn nearly pulled her off her feet as she dragged her into the office.
Wynn’s partner, Garrett, lounged at his desk in the back, tossing paper balls at the trash can across the room. He looked up with an apologetic wince.
“What’s going on, Wynn?” Jules had hoped to have a day or two to get used to the idea of being married to Cam, but apparently that wasn’t going to happen. She should’ve expected it; in a town the size of Red Hill Springs, especially when every third person was a member of her family, secrets were hard to keep.
“Oh, no. That’s my question. Mom told me something that is just...so crazy that I know she didn’t make it up.” Her sister glared at her, hands on her hips, looking all fashionable in her cashmere wrap. By comparison, Jules felt dumpy in her typical work outfit of black leggings and Converse sneakers. She pulled her coat tighter around her and adjusted the strap of the bag on her shoulder.
Wynn snatched her hand and pulled it close. “Oh. My. Lanta. It is true. You have on a wedding ring. Jules, what did you do?”
Jules snatched her hand from her sister’s grasp and fingered the unfamiliar gold-and-diamond ring Cam had put on her finger yesterday. It was beautiful, catching the cold winter light in a million tiny sparkles.
And it felt like it weighed five hundred pounds on her finger. She slid her hand into her hair, rubbing the back of her neck. This was the conversation Jules had been dreading. Of everyone in the world, Wynn knew her the best. She even knew how scared Jules was of losing the girls. And despite the fact that Wynn had made some spectacular mistakes in her life, she always seemed to have it together.
The Marriage Bargain Page 4