Carly lifted her hand, her expression troubled. “You shouldn’t have, Hank. This must have cost a fortune.”
“It wasn’t that much.” Watching her, Hank found himself wishing . . . hell, he wasn’t sure what he wished. That things were different between them? That he could propose in a more conventional way, and that she might accept? “If we’re going to do this, we may as well do it right. If worse comes to worst, you can give it to our son or daughter someday.”
She flashed him a wary look. “If worse comes to worst?”
Bad choice of words. He glanced at his watch. “We’re already running way late. We’d better make tracks.”
“It’s a lovely ring, Hank. Thank you.”
She looked none too happy about wearing it. Hank supposed it was the symbolic meaning that bothered her. Traditionally, an engagement ring was a promise of forever, and a wedding band sealed the bargain. A man was also staking his claim when he put a ring on a woman’s finger.
That worked for Hank. He didn’t know what it was about her, but she touched him in ways no other woman ever had.
Chapter Twelve
Hank and Carly were late for their own wedding. Only by thirty-five minutes, but for those who had shown up on schedule, that was a long time to wait. It resulted in lots of family—his family—standing elbow to elbow in the overly small room, sweating in their Sunday best, fidgeting and growing impatient. It also meant that the JP was growing irritable. He stood beside a small table along the back wall, his eyes as searing and censorial as Judge Roy Bean’s.
As Hank pushed open the door, Carly pressed close to him, one hand knotted on his jacket, the other clutching her bouquet. He considered assuring her that there was no need to be so nervous, but the moment he saw his parents, he decided to let them convey that message to her themselves. If there was anything Hank had always been able to count on, it was his mother and father’s kindness.
Carly moved beside him like a robot with faulty wiring. Hank instinctively slipped his arm around her shoulders and drew her close to his side as he led her into the room and closed the door. Rubbing her shoulder, he tried to convey without words that these were friendly people who’d welcome her with open arms.
The JP’s glare made it clear that he was anxious to get this show on the road, but Hank refused to rush Carly into saying “I do” until she had at least been introduced to the individuals who’d come to witness the nuptials. He’d make it up to the JP later with a generous tip.
“Mom, Dad, this is Carly. Carly, I’d like you to meet my parents, Mary and Harv Coulter.”
Hank had never been more proud to be a Coulter than in that moment. His mom flashed a delighted smile and stepped forward with her arms spread wide. “My name is Mary, dear heart, but I hope you’ll call me Mom. It’s so lovely to finally meet you!”
Despite her nervousness, Carly’s natural poise seemed to kick in. She flashed one of those radiant smiles that had sideswiped Hank that fateful night at Chaps. “I’m equally pleased to meet you! Hank’s told me so many nice things about you.”
Mary beamed with pleasure. Hank glanced past his mother to see Bess emerge from the press of bodies. She beamed a smile but hung back, clearly not wishing to interrupt. Harv grinned broadly as he gathered Carly into his arms for a hug. Over the top of her blond head, he caught Hank’s gaze, his expression conveying that he wholeheartedly commended his son on his good taste.
“You look so much like Hank!” Carly marveled as Harv released her from his embrace.
Harv chuckled. “The Coulter stamp. My sons are all cursed.”
Mary came over to give Hank a hug. “She’s beautiful, sweetheart. Absolutely beautiful.”
“Thank you, Mom. She’s a really special lady.”
By now, everyone in the Coulter clan knew about Carly’s eye disease and consequent vision problems. True to his word, Harv had kept silent about the pregnancy, but he’d felt no such compunction about sharing the other information that Hank had given him.
“She’s amazing,” Mary whispered. “Just by looking, you’d never guess she couldn’t see such a short time ago.”
Hank was about to move back to Carly’s side when his father handed her off to Zeke, who gave her a hug, kissed her cheek, and passed her on to his twin brothers Isaiah and Tucker. Hank quickly shouldered his way through the milling bodies to reach Carly’s side in time to make the introductions. When he slipped an arm around her waist, she jumped as if he’d touched her with a hot coal.
Hank firmed his hold, met Tucker’s twinkling gaze, and said, “Sweetheart, I’d like you to meet my brother Tucker. Tucker, this is Carly Adams.”
Carly squinted and leaned closer to peer at the twins. “Oh, my God,” she whispered in genuine dismay. “I’ve started seeing double.”
Tucker threw back his dark head and barked with laughter. Isaiah, the quieter and more reserved of the two, merely grinned.
“You’re not seeing double, honey. Isaiah and Tucker are identical twins,” Hank explained. “It’s even hard for me to tell them apart sometimes.”
“Really?” Carly studied each of them with amazed curiosity. “I’ve heard of identical twins, of course, but I’ve never actually seen any.” She glanced up at Hank. “They look a lot like you.”
“Like Dad says, we all kind of look alike.”
Tucker sent Hank an amused glance. “So, tell us about yourself, Carly,” he said, his gaze warming when he shifted it back to her upturned face. “Mom said something about your being a teacher?”
“Oh yes. I’m on a sabbatical right now to attend grad school.”
That was a subject dear enough to Isaiah’s heart to prompt him to engage in the conversation. “Really?” he said. “What will you be getting your master’s in?”
Unaware that everyone in Hank’s family already knew about her blindness, Carly explained about her lattice dystrophy. “Growing up blind and knowing firsthand how difficult it can be for blind kids in public school, I want to focus on special ed and work with visually disabled students.”
“That’s great,” Tucker inserted. “I’ll bet there’s a shortage of teachers in that field.”
“A shortage of good ones, anyway,” Carly agreed. “All the better for me. It’ll be much easier for me to find a position after I’ve finished grad school. With only my bachelor’s, it was difficult to find a steady job. I subbed for a year and finally got lucky, but only because a teacher grew ill and had to retire. The ease of finding a job wasn’t my reason for wanting to attend grad school and focus on special ed, though. Having been blind myself, I honestly feel I have something special to offer.”
The conversation continued for a couple of minutes, and then Tucker steered Carly away to meet their sister Bethany, who had recently opened a riding academy for disabled kids. That gave the two young women something in common. Gazing after his future bride and twin brothers, Hank breathed a sigh of relief that everything was going so smoothly. Before this day was over, Carly would probably love every member of his overlarge family whether she wanted to or not.
Confident that she would be okay with Tucker to look after her, Hank took the opportunity to take care of last minute details with the JP.
Contrary to Hank’s belief, Carly was not okay. She had been expecting only a few people to show up for the ceremony. Instead there were at least twenty, possibly more, and the sea of unfamiliar faces was making her dizzy. She would never remember all their names. Even worse, Hank’s relatives and friends clearly believed this was to be a real wedding, with forever as part of the package. Knowing otherwise, Carly felt horribly guilty.
She didn’t believe in lying, and this was the biggest lie of her life, pretending to love a man she barely knew. The only thing she and Hank had in common was their baby. In two or three years, they would get a divorce and go their separate ways. How was she supposed to look these people in the eye, smile, and pretend this was the happiest day of her life?
She couldn’t do this
. It was one thing to sign papers and get married for financial reasons. It was quite another to pass this off as a real wedding and let people welcome her into their family with such sincerity. Bethany was so friendly and interesting that Carly loved her on sight. Ryan Kendrick, her husband, looked enough like Hank to be part of the Coulter family—a tall, dark cowboy with twinkling blue eyes and a friendly grin. Indeed, they were all so nice that Carly found herself pulling back, not wanting to like them too much or encourage them to like her because she knew this marriage was nothing but a farce.
After visiting long enough with Bethany to be polite, Carly turned away to look frantically for Hank, who was nowhere to be seen. As though sensing her change of heart, Zeke suddenly appeared at her side and slipped a hard arm around her waist. “Getting cold feet?”
Carly cast him a miserable look. “Very cold feet.”
“Hank’s over this way,” he said as he led her through the crowd. “Everyone gets nervous, you know. It’s normal. In five minutes, it’ll all be over.”
The way Carly saw it, in five minutes it would only just begin. Because she knew Zeke had been present last Friday night when she’d spoken with Hank over the phone and agreed to this crazy idea, she felt safe in saying, “I can’t deceive everyone like this. They think this is a real wedding.” She clutched his hand. “Would you get me out of here, Zeke? Please? I can’t go through with it.”
He stared down at her in appalled alarm. Then, tightening his hold on her hand, he yelled, “Hank? Yo, Hank!” He waved to get his younger brother’s attention. “Conference time. Your bride needs you.”
Carly wanted to die. Now everyone in the room was staring at her.
Zeke gave her fingers a comforting squeeze. “Don’t worry about it. No one knows what you need to talk to him about.”
Carly realized she was clinging to his hand like a lost child, but when she tried to slip her fingers free, he tightened his grip. “Don’t take off,” Zeke murmured, his deep voice so much like Hank’s that it was uncanny. “Hank’s coming. At least talk to him before you make like a runaway bride.”
A tweed jacket suddenly swam before Carly’s eyes. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
Hank’s voice. Carly leaned toward him, relieved when Zeke relinquished his hold on her hand. “I’ve decided I can’t do this,” she said weakly. “It’s all a lie. A big, horrible lie. I just can’t do this.”
Hank slipped an arm around her shoulders and bent closer. Feeling him, being held by him, worked on Carly’s nerves like a soothing balm, which struck her as the greatest insanity of all.
“Hey,” he said. “Nothing’s changed. This is just a technicality.”
“Not to your mother. She asked me to call her Mom.”
He rubbed her shoulder. “She’s maternal by nature. Even the neighborhood kids call her Mom or Grandma. Calm down, sweetheart. Remember our reasons for doing this?”
Carly nodded numbly.
“We have to think of our baby. Right?”
She nodded again, wondering why it seemed so sensible when he talked about it and always seemed so insane when she was left with only her thoughts bumping around inside her brain.
“In a few days,” Hank assured her, “we’ll come clean and tell my folks our plans. All right?”
“Then they’ll despise me for using you.”
“No, they won’t. They’ll think you’re a wonderful, brave young woman who’s doing the very best she can for their grandchild.”
Bess joined them just then. Hank quickly explained that Carly was having second thoughts.
“You can’t back out now,” Bess insisted. “You’ve come this far, Carls. Just do it. Forget everything else and just think about the baby.”
The JP called for silence just then and asked who was going to give away the bride. Bess raised her hand. “I am!” she hollered.
Every head in the room swiveled toward her.
“Carly’s father isn’t here,” Bess explained with a shrug. “We’ve been best friends all our lives. It only seems right that I should be the one to give her away.”
Laughter followed that pronouncement. Bess ignored it and straightened the flowers in Carly’s bouquet, talking softly as she gently fluffed each blossom. “You have to do this, Carls. Don’t think. Just stand up there with Hank and say the words. They don’t mean anything.”
“Since when?”
“Since you and Hank agreed they don’t.”
The crowd parted. Hank went to stand to the JP’s left. He straightened his shoulders, looking like Zeke at a distance. Carly’s stomach tumbled, and she was afraid she might get sick. That was all this awful gathering needed, the bride puking in the trashcan. From a distance, she couldn’t tell one brother from another. Not that it mattered. Zeke, Hank. She couldn’t honestly say she had a preference. She didn’t care who married her, just so long as she got a husband who’d pay the bills. It was ugly. It was a sacrilege and a mockery of everything holy. She couldn’t believe she’d sunk this low.
“It’s not right to deceive his family and friends like this.” Carly’s heart bumped wildly against her ribs. “They’re all so nice, and they’ve been so kind.”
Bess patted another flower and smiled. “And aren’t you lucky that they are? People like these will understand why you did this, and they’ll be glad of it.”
A dark head leaned down to their eye level just then. Carly almost jumped out of her skin. Zeke. He touched a hand to her shoulder. “Your friend is absolutely right. My niece or nephew is the primary concern at this moment. Don’t worry about anyone else. If they can’t understand the necessity of this marriage, I’ll personally set them straight.”
Bess smiled and said, “Oops. I didn’t realize we had an eavesdropper.”
Zeke grinned. “I have a talent for listening in when I shouldn’t.” He turned a friendly gaze back to Carly, and his expression softened. “In all seriousness, honey, you have no choice but to do this. And don’t think of it as a big deception. When it comes to the welfare of a child, who the hell cares?”
Carly took that thought with her to the front of the room, where she stood beside a man she barely knew to become his lawfully wedded wife.
Hank said his vows first. He turned her hands palm up as instructed, supporting them with his own, and repeated his lines after the justice of the peace. “These hands will be yours, from this moment forward, yours in times of sorrow to comfort you, yours in times of hardship to sustain you, yours in time of danger to protect you. With your help, they will work to make your dreams come true. They will give you strength when your own falters. They will give you courage when you’re afraid. And I swear to you before God and all these witnesses that they will never be lifted in anger against you.”
Tears blurred Carly’s vision, which was a bad thing because then she couldn’t even see him. His hands were there, though, holding fast to hers, already fulfilling two of the promises he’d just made, lending her strength when her own was flagging and courage when she was afraid. The rest of his vows entered her brain and resounded to create a jumble of disjointed words.
Then the JP said, “Carly Jane Adams, please repeat after me.” He went on, cueing her with short lines, which she parroted, word for word, promising to love and honor Hank Coulter until death did they part. She didn’t hear the word obey in the vows she was asked to repeat, but she was so upset and nervous that, for all she knew, she’d just recited the Gettysburg Address.
Somehow, she got through the ceremony, allowing Hank to slip the rings onto her finger, then managing, with his assistance, to slip a ring onto his. When the justice of the peace pronounced them man and wife, Carly’s legs turned watery, but Hank’s arm was there, strong and hard around her waist, to hold her up. When he was told that he could kiss his bride, he kept the kiss light and impersonal, a feathery touch of his lips on hers that was more dream than reality.
It was done. Carly turned with him to face their guests. The JP introduced them as
Mr. and Mrs. Hank Coulter. Everyone rushed forward to congratulate them.
Afterward, Carly went through the motions, signing her name to a paper she could barely see, then hanging onto Hank’s arm to leave the courthouse. The drive to his parents’ house passed in a swimming blur, and once they arrived, Carly once again went through the motions, feeling as if she’d become trapped in a nightmare. Voices erupted around her—white noise that penetrated her eardrums, filled her head, and didn’t register. She would get through this. She had to get through this.
Hank never left Carly’s side. Though she tensed every time he touched her, he frequently slipped an arm around her, feeling a need to reassure her.
After circling the room to chat with everyone, Bess joined Hank and Carly by the fireplace. “This is a lovely reception,” she said. “I can’t believe Mary pulled it off on such short notice.”
“My mom is pretty amazing,” Hank replied. “And she loves to entertain, probably because she has such a knack for it.”
“Everything’s perfect,” Carly inserted. “When I think of all the trouble she’s gone to, it makes me feel awful. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
Hank had already apologized for the size of the gathering and the fact that his mom had insisted on a reception. Mary started circling the room just then with a platter of hors d’oeuvres. When she reached Hank and Carly, Carly politely took a small plate and dutifully selected several of the offerings.
“Yum!” Bess said after sampling a stuffed mushroom. “How delicious!”
After filling a plate for himself, Hank complimented his mother on the preparations and thanked her yet again for all her hard work.
“It was nothing!” Mary protested. “You know me. I love doing things like this.” She beamed a smile at Carly. “It’s a very special day.”
After Mary moved away, she frequently glanced around the room to make sure all of her guests were attended to, which prompted her to look back at Hank and Carly each time she scanned the room.
“If the hors d’oeuvres aren’t to your taste, you don’t have to eat them,” Hank whispered to his bride. “I know your stomach is easily upset right now.”