Ruby’s eyes pop when I open the box and she peers down to the delicate band set with diamonds, something else I purchased yesterday. It occurred to me—when the sales assistant asked what our bands were like—that she should also have an official one for the ceremony.
“It’s for the vows.”
I wait while her cheeks turn that unique shade of “Ruby” pink. I’m tempted to ask her if she’s thinking about last night when I slipped her engagement ring onto her finger, but Story interrupts my train of thought, waving a little ticket at me with the number 181 on it.
“You guys are up next.”
“How prosaic,” I say, easing it out of her grip. I was so focused on Ruby that I didn’t even notice the three of them next to me.
“Can I see?” asks Max, and I hold it out to him, but all he offers up is “hmm.”
“Exactly, Maxy.”
“So are you going to be my aunt?”
Ruby glances down at him, and something flashes across her face, like she’s just realizing that marrying me comes with more than she’s signing on for. I’m tempted to tell her to run, because it’s much harder to explain the Burlingtons and Valentine Nook than it is to show them firsthand. But it’ll be too late by then.
Crouching down so she’s eye to eye with him, she replies, “Yes, I guess I am. Is that okay with you?”
“I think so.” Max nods, then gets a look in his eye that Iknowmeans trouble. “Are you going to give me a cousin? I’d like a boy, though?—”
Hendricks slaps a hand over Max’s mouth before he can continue. “Okay, Maxy, one step at a time.”
The smile drops from Ruby’s face, and I swear I see fear in her eyes when she stands back up. I don’t know whether to be insulted.
“Separate bedrooms, remember?” I whisper, leaning in.
Ruby splutters a response I don’t catch, and Story drops her head to hide her amusement.
“One eighty-one.”
The announcement over the tannoy pulls us all back to the present, and Hendricks nudges me in the ribs. “You’re up.”
Ruby places her hand in mine again, and together we walk into courtroom B, flanked by Hendricks, Story, and Max, and stand in front of the judge—a small, bespectacled, gray-haired woman sipping from a mug of coffee with the wordsPucker Up, Buttercupwritten across an illustration of two flowers kissing.
She barely looks at us as she barks out her request for the marriage license, which we give her, ready to be stamped with a big red seal, and our choice of very basic legal wording for the vows from which, to my great amusement, Ruby scribbled out the word “obey.”
“All set?” she asks, her tone filled with boredom.
I stare at Ruby, search her face for any indication that she wants to back out and stay here in Aspen. I see nothing but a wide, beautifully open face covered in freckles as she stares back at me.Is she searching for the same in me? Is she expecting me to back out?
How long would it take me to count them?
Eventually, I turn back to the judge. “Yes, ma’am. We’re ready.”
“Have you got the rings?”
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the box with the wedding rings I bought with Ruby’s ruby. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good,” she says, and puts her coffee down. Pushing her glasses up her nose, she points at me. “You, repeat after me. I?—”
“I—”
She peers over her glasses. “Honey, this will go quicker if you let me get the whole sentence out. Speak when I tell you.”
I nod.
“Okay, I . . .” Her gaze drops down to the paper with our names on it, and she chuckles. “Whoa, that’s a mouthful. Let’s start again. I, Miles Barnaby William Burlington, take you . . .” She glances down again. “Ruby Jane Lanson. . . ooh, that’s better, honey, much simpler . . . to be my lawful wedded wife.”
