His Love Came Too Late, I'm Already Another's Wife novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Tuesday at Nine

At the courthouse Eli sets his terms, they marry, and Preston bursts in to say he loves her. Eli's phone lights with a summons from Eldon.

The Port Averly courthouse opened at nine, and at 8:50 I was sitting on a hallway bench in a yellow sundress, holding a bakery box of cinnamon rolls.

Aunt Bev sat beside me with her reading glasses on their beaded chain and her purse in her lap.

"I'm only going to say this once," she said. "I never liked that boy."

"Which one?"

"Preston. Seven years I ate your Christmas ham across from him and he never once offered to carry a dish."

"You could have told me."

"You were happy. Now you're furious. Furious I can work with."

Eli came through the front doors at 8:55 in a gray jacket, with his left sleeve pulled down over the scar.

He looked at the cinnamon rolls, then at Bev.

"Mrs. Hensel," he said. "Thank you for coming."

"Miss," said Bev. "I'm not married. I drove a school bus for thirty-one years and nobody asked."

Eli almost smiled.

He sat down on my other side, leaving a careful hand's width between us.

"Before we go in," he said. "Terms."

I turned to look at him.

"One year," he said. "Then it ends, clean, and you keep your name and I keep mine. Separate rooms. You'll live above the garage, and I'll sleep on the couch until I fix the spare room."

"Fine."

"If either of us says one word, 'done,' it ends. No questions."

"And?"

"We touch when somebody is watching. Not when nobody is."

I felt my face go warm and hated it.

"And nobody hears the real reason," he said.

"You know my reason. Preston."

"I know yours." He looked down the hall. "Mine is mine."

"That isn't fair."

"No."

He didn't say anything else, and I realized he wasn't going to.

Bev leaned across me. "I'd like one more term. If he hurts her, I get his tires."

"You can have the whole garage, Miss Hensel," Eli said.

We were called at nine.

The clerk was a tired woman with a stamp and a plastic fern. The ceremony took six minutes.

At the end, Eli reached into his jacket pocket and took out a plain gold band, thin and a little worn.

"It was my mother's," he said, quietly, only for me. "It's been in a drawer for a while."

He slid it onto my finger. It fit.

I had nothing for him, so I gave him a cinnamon roll.

Bev snorted so loudly the clerk looked up.

"You may kiss your spouse," the clerk said.

I froze.

Eli leaned down a few inches and spoke into the space between us. "Is anyone watching?"

"Everyone."

"Then I'm sorry in advance."

His hand came up and cupped my jaw, his thumb resting on my cheekbone. His palm was rough and warm.

He kissed me.

It was short. It was careful. Preston had always kissed me quickly, on his way to something else, and this was not that.

When Eli let go, my knees had stopped working, and I told myself it was because I hadn't eaten.

The door banged open behind us.

"Maia!"

Preston stood in the doorway in last night's tux, his tie gone and his hair wrong. He looked like he hadn't slept.

The clerk said, "Sir, this is a closed ceremony."

"I need five minutes with her."

"You can have thirty seconds," I said, "and you can have them from there."

He took a step in anyway, and saw the ring on my hand.

I watched it land on his face.

"Maia, no. Don't. I was going to end it with Zara. Before the wedding. I swear on my life, I was going to do it."

"You announced it to three hundred people."

"I was scared. I thought you'd always be there. You were always there." His voice cracked. "I love you. I think I've loved you since the day you put a lemon tart in my hands. I just didn't know it until I saw you walk out."

Bev said, loudly, to nobody, "Well, that's convenient."

I looked at the man I had waited seven years for.

I had expected to feel something huge. I felt tired, mostly, and a little sorry for him.

"It's too late, Preston," I said. "I'm somebody else's wife."

He turned to Eli, white to the lips.

"Of everyone in this town. Him."

"Congratulations on your engagement," Eli said evenly.

Preston stood there a moment longer with his hands open at his sides.

Then he turned and walked out, and the door swung shut on its slow hinge.

Bev patted my knee. "Well. That was a lovely service."

Eli's phone buzzed in his pocket.

He read the screen, and I saw his jaw set.

He turned it toward me.

It was from Eldon Ward. It said: Sunday dinner. Bluff Road. Bring your wife.

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