Dance Away with Me(71)

By the time they’d reached a downtown parking garage, she was bitterly regretting the trip. She followed him out into the afternoon sunshine. He was walking fast, and she lengthened her stride to keep up with him, but no matter how quickly she walked, he stayed a few steps ahead.

He eventually stopped in front of an imposing redbrick building. His face was set in stone—furrowed brow, narrowed eyes, grim mouth. She read the sign.

knoxville county courthouse

“This is it, Tess.” It was more a hiss than a sentence. “This is my grand gesture.”

He might know what he was talking about, but she didn’t. “I don’t understand. What—”

He strode into the building ahead of her. She hurried after him. “Ian! Will you stop? What’s this about? Why—”

“No questions!” He spun on her. “Let’s get this over with so we can pretend it never happened.”

“Get what over with?”

His eyes bored into her. Unflinching. She stared at him. Seconds ticked by. She didn’t understand.

And then she did.

She felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her body. “Oh, Ian . . .” She grasped for air. “This— Are you sure?”

“Hell, no, I’m not sure! Do you have any other stupid questions?”

Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. She shook her head.

*

The paperwork took forever. Birthplace. Parents. Education. She paused as she reached the questions about marital history.

Last Marriage Ended Date:_______________

Last Marriage Ended Reason:_____________

Tess filled in the information with a knot in her stomach—not from the grief that had debilitated her for so long, but from the trepidation of someone stepping unprepared into the next stage of her life.

There was no waiting period, but advance appointments were required for an actual ceremony. Somehow Ian managed to coerce an officiant—possibly by threat, because he certainly didn’t do it by charm—into performing the dirty deed.

The officiant was a cheery brunette who barely looked old enough to drive and who became decidedly less cheerful as the brief ceremony unfolded. Who could blame her? The grim-faced groom and robotic bride weren’t exactly the embodiment of starry-eyed newlyweds. When it came time for Ian to give her a ring, he was momentarily baffled, then pulled a ballpoint pen from his pocket, picked up Tess’s free hand, and drew a line around her ring finger.

As soon as it was over, Tess fled into the restroom, sealed herself in a stall, and tried to absorb the contradictions between the insanity of what they’d done, its looming complications, and the elation of knowing Wren could now be hers forever.

Unless the Dennings changed their minds.

When she came out, he was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, head down. A man defeated. She owed him everything, and all she could do was touch his arm. “What made you change your mind? Why did you do this?”

“Because you’re that little demon’s mother, and you’re the best person to raise her, and this is for damn sure what Bianca would have wanted.”

One more debt he believed he owed Bianca. A debt he’d long ago paid in full.





Chapter Fifteen




On the long, silent return trip, Tess stared at her ballpoint ink wedding ring. Her real wedding ring was sealed away in a box in her bottom dresser drawer. As she studied the smudged ink around her finger, she knew she had to stop drifting. Everything had changed. If the Dennings kept their word, Wren would be hers, and Tess would have to get her life in order. That meant finding a real job that would support the two of them, something the Broken Chimney couldn’t offer.

The miles slipped by. As much as she wished otherwise, she could come up with only one solution. She had to go back to nursing. There was no other way she could provide a decent living for them.

The images from the nightmares swept through her brain. The blood. The helplessness. Nursing, yes, but not midwifery. Never that. Geriatrics maybe, or dermatology. Anything that didn’t involve coaxing another slippery, cone-headed, vernix-coated infant into the world. A job where she’d never again have to watch a young mother slip away.

By the time they picked up Wren at Heather’s house, she’d resigned herself to the inevitable. She had no passion for either geriatrics or dermatology, but she’d do what she had to.

Heather opened the door, took one look at Tess’s and Ian’s stony faces, and grimaced. “Congratulations?”

Tess spun on Ian. “You told Heather what we were doing, but you didn’t tell me?”

“Heather’s like God,” he retorted. “You can tell her anything.”

Heather chided them as she handed Wren over. “Babies pick up on the energy around them. Be patient with each other.”

Ian and Tess replied at the same time.

“Tell her, not me.”

“I’m always patient.”

Heather fingered her mala beads. “You could both benefit from a regular meditation practice.”

“Especially him,” Tess said.

Heather sighed.

At the schoolhouse, nothing had changed. Ian’s boots still lay where he’d abandoned them. The morning’s dishes remained in the sink. Tess carried Wren upstairs and managed to transfer her into the sleeping nest without waking her.