someone who looked like the embodiment of an adolescent romantic fantasy. What was worse, it was a romantic fantasy that touched something deep inside her. Something she hadn’t even been aware had existed. And that was on their first meeting. What would she feel like after a few weeks?
She didn’t know. Possibly her initial attraction would fade beneath the demands of daily living. Or it might mellow out into something more comfortable.
And Nick had no idea how he’d impacted on her emotions, she mused, soothing her frayed nerves. Nor was she some overeager adolescent who couldn’t control her own reactions. If she didn’t act on her impulses, they’d remain just thoughts, known only to her.
Ann pressed her lips together in unconscious determination. There were no guarantees, but she had a decent shot at making this marriage work. Mainly because Nick was as committed to its success as she was. She took a deep, calming breath. She’d marry Nick and she’d build a solid relationship that would be a comfort to both of them, she vowed as she headed upstairs to change into the cream wool suit she’d bought because it had looked vaguely bridal without being fussy.
To her surprise and slight hurt, when she came back downstairs she found that Nick hadn’t bothered to change. Telling herself that their marriage wouldn’t be any more valid if he were wearing a suit, Ann climbed into the cab of the truck.
Her sense of purpose held through the trip to town despite Nick’s monosyllabic answers to her few tentative stabs at conversation. Knowing that he was probably worried about the cow who had had the calf early, she refused to allow her sense of unease to grow. If Nick had changed his mind about marrying her, all he had to do was say so-much as Snake was doing in the jump seat of the truck, Ann thought wryly as she listened to his mutters about one more good man biting the dust.
“If you feel that way, why are you coming to the wedding?” Ann finally asked.
“I’s hopin’ he’ll change his mind,” Snake shot back.
“I’m not going to change my mind, Snake.” Nick’s voice sounded loud and overly emphatic in the close confines of the truck. Who was he trying so hard to convince? Ann wondered. Her? Snake? Or maybe himself?
“Jake’s Market is down that street.” Nick pointed to his left as they entered the tiny town. “He delivers. Just call and tell him what you want.”
A large dose of self-confidence would be nice, Ann thought ruefully.
“Aren’t we going to the courthouse?” she asked as they passed the red brick building with its identifying sign in front.
“Should be,” Snake muttered. “Marriage should be a crime.”
“No.” Nick ignored Snake, and Ann gamely followed his lead, although her growing impulse was to say something rude. Very rude. “Judge Adams is recovering from a heart attack, and he’s at home so his wife can keep an eye on him.”
Nick pulled up in front of a neat, two-story white clapboard house and cut the engine.
“This is it,” Nick said baldly.
“The end of the line,” Snake agreed somberly.
“Change is the essence of the human condition,” Ann offered, as much to encourage herself as to rebuke Snake. Scrambling out of the car, she nervously brushed the front of her suit, checking to make sure it was still spotless. She took a deep breath, clutched her best Italian leather purse in her icy fingers and fell into step beside Nick as he mounted the porch steps.
Nick paused at the top and turned to look for Snake. He was standing by the car, drinking from a flask he’d pulled out of his back pocket.
“Need a snootful of whiskey ta face up ta this,” Snake muttered at Nick’s raised eyebrows.
Ann squashed an impulse to ask for a swallow herself and turned to Nick. “Doesn’t it take two witnesses?”
“Mabel, the judge’s wife, offered to be our second witness,” Nick said as he rung the doorbell.
The door opened before the sound of the chimes had died away to reveal a short, plump, elderly woman who took one look at them and burst into noisy tears.
Nick instinctively stepped back and glanced over his shoulder as if checking his escape route.
“Have we come at a bad time?” Ann asked uncertainly.
“No, no.” The woman beamed at them through her tears. “I always cry at weddings. I just love romance. By the way, I’m Mabel. The judge’s better half.”
“Glad to meet you,” Ann murmured, leaving the woman to her illusions. There wasn’t much romance to be found in this particular wedding.
“Come in, come in.” Mabel made a shooing motion into the house. “You, too,” she called to Snake, who was still standing by the car. “And wipe the barnyard off your boots and keep your stupid ideas to yourself,” Mabel ordered as Snake slowly climbed the porch steps. “This is my house, and I’ll not be listening to your antifeminism.
“You want to put him in his place from the start,” Mabel whispered in an audible aside to Ann. “Snake’s like most men, only worse. Come on now. The judge is waiting in the study, although I should warn you that there’s been a slight hitch.”
“Oh?” Ann asked when Nick didn’t respond.
“The poor man set his glasses down when he was through reading the paper this morning, and he’s blind as a bat without them,” Mabel explained.
“And now he can’t find them?” Ann hazarded a guess.
“Oh, no. He knows right where they are. Not that it’ll do him any good. You see, the puppy carried them off and chewed them. He scratched the lenses something awful. Now the judge can’t see to read the marriage lines. But don’t you worry none. We’ve thought of a way around the problem.” Mabel nodded emphatically. “I’m going to read the words to him, and he’ll repeat it to you.
“Come along.” Mabel hurried down the hallway and flung open the door at the end. “Here they are, dear,” she announced.
“Ah, good morning, Nick. And this must be the happy bride?” The judge squinted in Ann’s direction.
“Yes.” Nick performed the introductions with a shortness that increased Ann’s nervousness.
Think of this as the roller-coaster ride at the amusement park, she told herself. Just blank what’s happening out of your mind and hang on until it’s over.
“You got the license, Nick?” the judge asked, and Nick dug into his pocket and passed over a well-creased piece of paper.
“Good, good. Now if you and your little bride will stand here—” the judge gestured to a spot in front of him “—we’ll have this over before you know it. Dear, if you’ll begin…” He nodded to his wife.
Mabel sniffed happily, blew her nose and picked up a book from the cluttered desk.
“Dearly beloved,” she began, and her husband parroted the words. “We are—” She broke off as a loud snore suddenly sounded from the corner.
“Drat.” The judge looked exasperated. “I forgot about Pa. He always takes his morning nap there.”
“Don’t wake him on my account,” Ann said weakly, feeling as if she’d stumbled into a badly written farce. This wedding was about as different from her first one as it was possible to be. That one had taken place in a huge church with hundreds of guests, six bridesmaids and three flower girls. A soloist had sung “The Wind That Breathed O’er Eden” while she’d floated down the aisle in a cloud of white satin and antique lace.
But for all its grandeur, that wedding had been a disastrous flop, she reminded herself. This one might be stripped down to the bare essentials, but perhaps it would be all the more real for that.
The judge turned to his wife.