Dumped at the Courthouse, Married by Noon novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Slot Nine
Jean waits in her wedding dress at the courthouse, learns her groom has fled with her savings, and is asked by a stranger to marry him instead.
At 9:52 on my wedding morning, my phone buzzed in the bouquet I was holding.
I had put it there so I would not lose it.
The text was from Cody.
"I can't. Don't look for me."
I read it standing on the third floor of the Ramsey County Courthouse, in an ivory dress I had bought on sale.
The marble hallway smelled like floor wax and old coffee.
Our slot was ten o'clock, slot nine on the clerk's list.
My friend from the clinic was supposed to be our witness.
She was stuck on the freeway behind a stalled truck, so I stood on the bench alone.
I called him once.
It went straight to a voice that said the number was no longer in service.
That was strange, because I had called that number at breakfast.
I called him again and got the same voice.
Then I opened the banking app, because a small cold feeling had started in my stomach.
Our joint account held the down payment for a house.
I had put in forty-one thousand dollars over six years of double shifts.
The balance read zero.
The last line said "Withdrawal, 8:40 AM, in branch."
He had stood at a teller window at 8:40 and taken it all.
Then he had come downtown, parked, and texted me from somewhere I could not see.
My hands did not shake.
That surprised me.
I walked to the clerk's window with my bouquet and my phone and the dress dragging on the marble.
The clerk was a woman in her fifties with reading glasses on a chain.
"Slot nine," she said kindly. "Is your groom parking?"
"No," I said. "He's not coming. Cancel it."
She opened her mouth, and I kept going, because if I stopped I would cry in front of strangers.
"I'd like the license voided too. Whatever the form is."
"Honey, I can hold the slot until eleven."
"Don't hold it."
I pulled the engagement ring off my finger.
It left a white stripe on my skin.
I dropped it into the metal trash can beside her window, and it made a small, ugly sound.
Two couples waiting on the bench stopped talking.
A man in a tuxedo T-shirt looked at his shoes.
I dropped the bouquet in after the ring.
Then I turned around, and there was a man standing six feet behind me.
He was tall, with close-cropped black hair and dark stubble on a hard jaw.
He wore a charcoal suit that fit him well and a tie he had already pulled loose.
He had a phone in one hand and a paper folder in the other.
He was staring at the trash can.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to listen."
"The whole floor listened," I said. "I wasn't quiet."
Something moved at the corner of his mouth, almost a smile.
His eyes were grey-green and very tired.
"Your groom didn't show," he said.
"My groom took forty-one thousand dollars out of our account at 8:40 and then texted me."
"That's a bad morning."
"It's a great morning," I said. "I'm learning so much."
He laughed once, short and surprised.
Then he looked at the clock above the clerk's window.
It read 10:49.
He looked at the hallway door, then at his phone, then at me.
"My bride didn't show either," he said.
I looked at the empty bench behind him.
There was a bouquet of white roses on it, still in its paper.
"I'm sorry," I said, and I meant it.
"I've been here since nine-thirty."
"What time was she coming?"
"Ten-thirty."
"Did she call?"
"Her phone's off. Her father's phone is on, but he's not picking up either."
He turned the folder over in his hand.
"I have until noon," he said.
"For what?"
"To be married."
I waited for him to say it was a joke.
He did not say anything like that.
"My grandfather left a trust," he said. "My shares in the family brewery pass to me at thirty-five. They pass only if I'm married when the clock hits noon on my birthday."
"It's your birthday."
"It's my birthday."
"Happy birthday," I said, because my mother had raised me.
"Thank you."
The clerk was pretending to sort paper, and the two couples were pretending to read their phones.
He lowered his voice a little, but he did not step back.
"I don't know you," he said. "I don't know your name."
"Jean."
"Emmett."
He held out his hand.
I shook it, and it was warm and dry, with old pale scars across the back of the wrist.
"Jean," he said. "Marry me. I've got an hour and ten minutes."
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