831 Marriage Lane (Cherry Falls)

“You’re going to let me leave?” Her eyes widen, and she sits up straighter.

“Don’t look so excited about it,” I grumble. My mood is starting to sour.

“You need to go and do lawyer things. Maybe come to your senses a bit.” The last thing I want to do is go back to the city and spend the week away from her. It has me wanting to punch something. What can I say? Old habits die hard.

Gabriella's eyes linger on the ring on my finger. “I mean, I keep seeing them, but this is crazy.” She holds up her hand to stare at her own ring again. Is she going to take it off when she leaves here? It has me debating how much trouble I would get in if I missed all my court appearances next week. If it were only myself that it would affect, I wouldn’t hesitate to stay, but I can’t do that to my clients.

“Think what you could get if you pawned it.” A surprised gasp comes from her.

“What does that mean?” She drops the fork she’s holding in her other hand.

Shit. I don’t even know why I said that fucked-up shit. “I’m sure it could go a long way to keep the bank off your back in more ways than one.”

“And there he is.” She shakes her head. “Here I was thinking the rumors I heard about you were wrong. Especially the ones about you being an asshole.”

“I never claimed I wasn't.”

“Right.” She pushes back from her chair, standing up. “I’m not so hungry anymore.” That makes two of us.

“Gabriella.” Her nose scrunches at me using her real name. I think it’s the first time I've actually spoken it. It’s always been love, little bit, or wife up until this point.

“Don’t.” She cuts me off. “I have things I need to do and people I love counting on me.” She quickly finds her shoes and her bag. She goes for the ring on her finger, trying to take it off.

“The only way I’ll be able to let you out of this room is if you keep that ring on.” Her lips purse, but she doesn't move to pull it off again.

“I suppose we’ll be in touch with this whole marriage thing and all.”

I nod, not trusting myself to open my mouth again. I’ve turned into a child throwing a temper tantrum.

She stares at me for one last long moment. I fight to keep myself in my chair. If I touch her I’d make myself a liar. I told her I’d let her go. For now at least.

I watch as she walks out the door. A strange tightness forms in my chest. She has things to handle. So do I. But once I wrap things up back home, all bets are off.

Gabriella is my wife. That will never change.

8

Gabriella

“I still can’t believe this is happening,” Amethyst, or Ames as I call her, says when we pull up out front of Willow’s house. She’s bouncing in her seat, thrilled about being a bridesmaid.

“I can.” Nothing is shocking to me when it comes to Willow and Lennon. That man will do anything for Willow. If he wants to have a wedding the week after he proposed, then it will happen. Clearly this rushing down the aisle is a Carver family trait.

“When we get out of the vehicle, you girls go straight for the door,” Big grunts from the driver's seat, his eyes trained on the rearview mirror.

He swung by and picked me up from my job at the veterinary clinic when I got off today. The same as he did the day before. Ames’s man drives her anywhere and everywhere. That man is not a fan of not having eyes on his woman. He’s a mini bodyguard when it comes to her. Okay, mini isn’t the right word to describe him.

I think he was a double agent or maybe in the mob before he retired here to our lovely normally quiet town until recently. Who retires at forty? Plus, he’s clearly loaded. No one knows how he got his money, but no one dares to ask either.

I can’t blame the man for being obsessed with her. Ames is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in person. There is just this way about her. Everyone's eyes are always drawn to her. With the way she looks, you’d think she’d be on a runway in Paris and not out here in Cherry Falls married to a beast of a man who grunts more than he does anything else. They make quite the pair.

“Why?” Ames proceeds to look out the back window as if she’s searching for something. Her head is bobbing all around. She’d make a terrible spy.

“Keep your sweet ass planted till I come around,” Big orders her before he unfolds his giant self out of the car. His big size reminds me of Kenton, but everything seems to circle back to Kenton for me these days.