From Glowing Embers

  ~ ~ ~

  “Until death do us part.” Gray clasped the gold chain of the necklace he had bought for Julie Ann, ignoring the disapproving trifocaled gaze of the justice of the peace. Julie Ann could see that the old man would have much preferred the standard gold ring.

  “Then with the power invested in me by the state of Alabama, I hereby pronounce you husband and wife.” The old man peeked over his glasses. “You may kiss the bride.”

  Julie Ann watched Gray bend toward her. She closed her eyes as his lips met hers, but not before she recognized the look of shock on his face. She was sure it matched her own. She was a married woman. It didn’t seem possible.

  They signed the license and shook hands with the J.P. and his wife, but it wasn’t until they were in Gray’s car driving in the direction of the interstate that would take them back to Mississippi that the enormity of the step she had just taken hit Julie Ann.

  “How are you feeling?” Gray asked.

  She wanted to detail her confusion, her doubts, but she knew he was talking about something more concrete. When she’d awakened for the second time that morning she had found Gray gone. For a moment she’d wondered if she had only dreamed that he had come for her. Then the front door had opened and Gray had been there again. He had been at the corner service station calling obstetricians, and he had made an emergency appointment for her with one of Jackson’s best, bypassing the public health clinic where she had been treated up to that point.

  The doctor had taken one look at her and prescribed medication for her nausea, vitamins for her anemia and four hours of bed rest every day. For starters.

  She had taken the medication immediately, and by the time they got to Alabama—the closest state with no waiting period—it had begun to help. When they stopped for lunch it was the first time in weeks Julie Ann had been able to eat and retain a small meal. She wondered, though, how much of it was the drug and how much of it was Gray’s support. From the moment she had walked into her living room and seen him standing there, she had no longer been alone.

  She had needed him so much, but had she done the right thing?

  “Sweetheart, you look like you’re going to jump out the window. Calm down.” Gray reached over and put his hand on the nape of her neck. His long fingers began to ease the tension in her muscles as he spoke. “Short of divorce, there’s no way to change what we’ve done today.”

  “What have we done?”

  “What we had to do.”

  She knew he was right, but she didn’t like having it put so bluntly. Both of them deserved so much more. She worried out loud. “Your father said he’d cut you off with nothing if you married me.”

  “Let him.”

  “I don’t think I can face him tonight, or your mother, either.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  Julie Ann tried to smile. “It’s a little cold for me to stay in the car while you tell your parents.”

  His fingers threaded up into her hair, and he tugged gently before he moved his hand back to the steering wheel. “We’re not going to Granger Junction. I’ll talk to my parents tomorrow, but this night’s going to be ours.”

  She hardly knew what to say. Tentatively she rested her fingers on his cheek. “I’m glad.”

  Before she could pull her hand away, he turned his head and kissed her fingertips. “You know, you could have done a lot worse than marry me.”

  “I could have done a lot better than to force you into it.”

  “Nobody forced me. Don’t ever say that again.”

  “We’re married because I’m pregnant.”

  “We’re married because two months ago we expressed feelings we had for each other, and they resulted in a baby. If the feelings hadn’t been there then, the baby wouldn’t be here now.”

  Something warm and wonderful began to grow inside her, where even now their child was growing. “What a nice way to think of it,” she said, her voice huskier than usual. “I want this baby. I don’t want to think of her as a mistake.”

  “Her?” He reached down and put his hand on Julie Ann’s abdomen. “Him.”

  His hand was spreading the warmth that had filled her at his words. Gray had slept beside her through the remainder of the early morning, but she hadn’t felt well enough to encourage more, and he hadn’t seemed interested, anyway. Now she realized that tonight was their wedding night.

  He seemed to read her mind. “Your job right now is to make sure our little her or him grows strong and healthy. We’ve got to get you well, and that means you’re going to rest and eat. Period.”

  “Period?”

  He grinned. “No hanky-panky.”

  “Define hanky-panky.”

  “Hanky-panky: that activity which a new husband wants to indulge in frequently with his new wife.”

  She chuckled, holding his hand against her when he started to move it. “Would you like to hear my definition?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  “Hanky-panky: that activity which the obstetrician advised the new wife to indulge in if she felt like it.” She could feel her cheeks heat as she said the words.

  His hand slipped several inches. “Shall I define goody-goody?”

  “As in someone too nice to be true?”

  “As in that’s the best news I’ve had since you told me you’d marry me.”

  She laughed, amazed that they could be having fun together in spite of everything. In the last two months she’d begun to believe that Gray was not the person he had seemed. Now she knew better. All the feelings she had worked so hard to repress flooded through her. She loved him as she loved the child inside her. If love could make a marriage work, they were off to a good start.

  The remainder of the trip passed in a blur of shared laughter and conversation. They stopped for dinner, and Julie Ann downed half a hamburger under Gray’s watchful eye. Then they resumed their drive toward the coast, arriving at the beach house by moonlight.

  “Do you feel well enough to take a walk before we go inside?” He came around to open Julie Ann’s door and held out his hand.

  The fresh, cool air was just what she needed after the long ride. Slipping her hand in his, she stood and let him lead her toward the beach, absorbing the beauty of the night. Feathery-plumed pampas grass and bush oleander lined their path until they stepped over a ridge and onto the brown sand beyond. The water lapping at their feet reflected a sky lit with stars; a pelican stood at attention on a pier ten feet out from the water, as if he alone guarded the inlet.

  Gray’s hand tightened around Julie Ann’s, and she realized that she had just sighed. “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She was all right for the first time since she had begun to suspect she was pregnant. She was with Gray.

  “I’m going to try very hard,” she told him.

  “Try?”

  “I want you to be happy.”

  He stopped and put his hands on her shoulders, then moved closer until they were only inches apart. “Why? What have I done to make you care whether I’m happy or not? Don’t be grateful to me because I married you, Julie Ann. You deserve more than I’ll ever be able to give you.”

  She could read sincerity in his eyes. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she couldn’t make herself say the words. “No one ever cared about me before,” she said instead. “Not my mother, not my father. You’re the only person in my life who ever thought I deserved anything. If I want to make you happy, isn’t that okay?”

  He cupped her face in his hands and bent to touch his lips to hers. “I’m going to try and make you happy, too.”

  “You already have.”

  “Don’t settle for so little. I can do even better.” He brushed his lips against hers once, then again, pulling her closer as he did. She could feel the strength and security of his arms around her, and the enticing pressure of his body against hers. She stroked her hands up the front of his coat and clasped them around the back of his neck, straining to deepen t
he kiss until they were both breathless.

  “Can you do even better than that?” she asked when he finally broke away.

  “Would you like to see?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then come with me.”

  Without warning, she was afraid. Julie Ann Mason had lived in a world of sadness relieved only by her dreams. Now a better life was at her fingertips, but nothing in her past could assure her that any of it would last. She hadn’t been born for this kind of happiness.

  Gray seemed to read the fear in her eyes. “Don’t be afraid, Julie Ann.”

  She nodded, but she didn’t follow when he turned toward the beach house.

  “Are you coming?” he asked, turning his head to look at her with eyes that saw everything.

  She was mute, torn between her longing to believe in their future and her fear.

  “Take your time,” he said, turning away. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  She watched him walk along the shoreline, his back straight, his head thrown back against the rising winter wind. She took a tentative step toward him, but the wind seemed to hold her in place. She could move forward and claim what Gray had offered, or she could hang back and be a victim of her past.

  “Gray, wait.”

  The wind blew her words away. Julie Ann’s hands came up as if to challenge the forces that kept them apart, but they fell into empty space. Nothing was keeping them apart except her doubts.

  Then she was running, calling his name so he could hear her.

  “Gray?”

  He waited, but he didn’t face her.

  “Gray, I love you!”

  This time he turned, holding out his arms. Fiercely she circled her arms around his waist and buried her head against his shoulder. “I love you,” she repeated. “I love you.”

  In those seconds as he held her close, and in the long night ahead, Julie Ann began to believe that both love and happiness were only as far away as the man she had married.

  ~ ~ ~

  Ten years later, in a hotel dining room thousands of miles away from Granger Inlet, Julianna wondered how she could ever have believed something so impossible.