Married In A Heartbeat novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Twelve Minutes Past Five

At the marriage bureau chapel they wed in minutes, and her mother's lawyer calls: the house became hers the moment she said I do. Her father texts that she can come home and sign it away.

Tobin's truck was a white Ford with a cracked dash and a ladder rack.

I climbed in wearing a wedding dress, and the skirt filled the whole cab.

He shut the door on me gently.

Colt was still shouting on the clubhouse steps when we pulled out.

I did not look back at him.

"Seat belt," Tobin said.

"I can't reach it. I'm sitting on my dress."

He leaned across, lifted a fistful of tulle, and clicked the belt into place.

His forearm smelled like sawdust and coffee.

"You have a lot of dress," he said.

"I paid for a lot of dress."

"You paid for a lot of something."

I laughed, and then I was crying, and then I was laughing again.

He handed me a clean rag from the door pocket without a word.

It said "Gault" on the corner in faded blue thread.

"Is that your company?" I asked.

"My grandfather's old company," he said. "Mostly it's rags now."

I blew my nose in a rag with his family name on it.

"You can change your mind," I said. "You've known me ten minutes."

"Fifteen," he said. "I counted."

"Why would you say yes?"

He kept his eyes on the road.

"Because you walked into a room full of people who wanted you quiet, and you got louder," he said. "I've waited a long time to see someone do that."

My throat closed up.

"That's not a reason," I said.

"It's the only one I've got."

The Clark County marriage bureau sat in a beige building downtown, and it was open until midnight.

The clerk looked at my dress, then at his jacket, then at the two of us together.

"Both ID, please," she said, and nothing else.

I handed over my license with my mother's maiden name still tucked in my wallet.

Tobin handed over his, and he covered the address with his thumb for a second, then let go.

He paid the license fee in cash from a folded roll.

"I'll pay you back," I said.

"You will not."

The chapel was a small room with fake lilies and a speaker playing soft piano.

A gift shop in the hallway sold rings in a plastic case.

I picked two plain silver bands for forty dollars, and I paid for them myself.

He held the smaller one up to the light.

"It's a little tight," he said.

"I have my mother's hands," I said. "Big knuckles."

"Good knuckles."

The officiant was a retired man in a gray vest.

Two women from the waiting room agreed to be our witnesses, and one of them was holding a baby.

"Leanne Cobb, do you take this man?" the officiant said.

I thought of Colt's face in the ballroom.

I thought of the hand on the ceiling stain, steady, not looking away.

"I do," I said.

"Tobin Gault, do you take this woman?"

"I do," Tobin said, and his voice cracked on the second word.

He cleared his throat and looked embarrassed, and that was the moment I almost loved him.

The officiant said, "You may kiss your bride."

Tobin looked at me for a long second.

Then he put his hand under my jaw, and he kissed me.

It was not a polite kiss.

It was slow, and warm, and it went on long enough that the baby started to clap.

My knees went soft under the tulle.

When he pulled back, his breath was uneven.

"Hi, wife," he said.

"Hi," I said, which was all I had.

The clock over the door said 5:12.

We walked out into the lobby with a paper certificate and two cheap rings.

My phone buzzed in my glove, and I almost ignored it.

It was my mother's lawyer, a man who had sent me a birthday card every year since I was seventeen.

I put it on speaker without thinking.

"Leanne, I saw your name on the county filing," he said. "I thought you were marrying Colt Whitaker."

"I changed my mind," I said. "Today. Just now."

"Then the clause is met," he said slowly. "Your mother wrote it to take effect the day you marry, whoever you marry. The time stamp is 5:12. The house on Sandpiper Lane is yours, outright, as of that minute."

I put my hand over my mouth.

Tobin was watching my face the whole time.

"Roy can't touch it," the lawyer said. "Nobody can. Come see me Monday."

I hung up and stood in the lobby with my knees shaking.

"What?" Tobin said.

"My mother left me a house," I said. "And I just got it, thirty minutes after my family tried to steal it."

His mouth turned up on one side.

"Congratulations, Mrs. Gault," he said.

My phone buzzed again.

It was a text from my father.

"Come home. Sign the house over to Colt and we'll forgive you."

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