Page 16 of The Bride
Where we would live our lives together for the next sixteen months.
It was strange. To me this day had been all about getting a chore taken care of. A bit of legal work that needed to be signed and done. I wouldn’t have thought in any way that my feelings would change.
Ellie was Ellie. The girl I knew since she’d been born.
Except when I looked down at her, I realized I did feel different. More connected to her. More bonded to her than ever before. She was officially my responsibility.
Our marriage would only ever be a piece of paper.
But the immediate future was about us being a team. Me helping her through her grief. Getting her up to speed on what it meant to run a ranch. Her helping me figure out all the things Sam did that I probably didn’t know.
Team JakeandEllie.
It was crazy, but I really liked the sound of that.
“I got snot all over your suit,” she said when I got to the truck.
“If I put you down to open the door, are you going to be able to stand?” I could feel her nod against my neck.
I set her down and had her lean against the truck. I opened the passenger side door and then lifted her in. She felt like a limp doll.
I rounded the truck and got behind the wheel. She’d managed to get her seat belt on.
I took a deep breath. “I know this sucks to hear right now, but I swear you will get through this.”
She didn’t say anything. Just leaned her head back against the seat.
We had planned to have dinner in town. With Howard, as a thank you for arranging everything, rather than any kind of celebration. I was pretty sure he would understand if that didn’t happen.
“Can we go home?” she asked.
Home. To our bizarre new world.
“Yep. Let’s go home.”
Five
Ellie
“Ican’t believeyou’re married to Jake Talley,” my friend Chrissy said.
It was Saturday and she’d come over to the house to work on a science project together. We were supposed to be creating water or something from ingredients, but I was pretty sure we were going to blow something up.
Science was not my strongest subject. Right behind math. I kept my average up with English, History and Spanish. Spanish I rocked because Javier and Gomez, who came to work during calving and sell-off season, helped me to be almost fluent.
“Get over it,” I said back.
I pretty much had. It had been a week since the wedding. I was back in school. Jake was living in my dad’s room. For the most part, things were settling back into normal. Weird normal, sad normal, but normal.
I was still crying myself to sleep every night, but I did it into a pillow so Jake wouldn’t have to hear.
“Are you, like, allowed to drink now?”
Not according to Jake. Which I thought was lame.
“Uh, no. I’m married, I didn’t suddenly turn twenty-one.”
“Oh. Are you going to have to take him to the prom?”
