Page 32 of Marrying the Accidental Groom
She gave a weak smile and leaned her head back against the seat. “I’m fine. So, what? You want to just...date your wife?”
“Pretty much.”
“And what if we reach the end of the road and figure out we never should’ve taken the pineapple truck detour to begin with?”
He shrugged. “Then we’ll know. And we’ll walk away knowing we tried. Or maybe we’ll look back and realize it wasn’t a detour. It was the start.”
Juliana closed her eyes for a beat. She didn’t have the answer. But for the first time in a long time, she didn’t feel the need to pretend she did.
“Okay,” she said at last. “We try.”
He turned to her, smile spreading wide. “Yeah?”
She let the silence stretch, warm and almost unfamiliar. For a second, she imagined what trying might look like. Letting someone in. Lettinghimin.
Her stomach gave a warning twist. Perfect.
She pressed her hands to her churning abdomen. “Yeah. But if you ever feed me gas station Indian food again, I will file for an annulment and burn your truck to the ground. It’s a thousand degrees in here.”
“It’s really not, Jules. Maybe we should get you home.”
“Well, you’re wrong,” she snapped, tugging at the neckline of her blouse like it might give her lungs more air or maybe teleport her out of this nightmare. “Your truck is a convection oven of despair. I think I need to lie down.”
“In here?”
“Preferably in a sterile medical facility, but sure. In here works too.”
Gideon looked mildly concerned now, which was almost as irritating as when he wasn’t concerned at all. “Was it the curry?
“Was it the level 4 spicy Indian food from a sketchy gas station, you mean?” she bit out. “Yes. Yes, I think it was.”
“You said you wanted to try something new.”
“I didn’t meandysentery, Gideon!”
He reached for the shifter, but as he attempted to shift out of park, the truck engine sputtered and fell silent.
Juliana blinked. “Did you just turn the truck off?”
“No, it just died.”
He turned the key a couple times, only to hear the engine sputter in response.
“Why isn’t it starting?” she asked, her voice betraying the edge of her panic.
She reached for the door handle on reflex, pulling it toward her only to be met with no actual opening mechanism. Nothing. Just a loose wobble and an audibleclickof betrayal. Her stomach gave another ominous churn, and she sucked in a sharp breath through her nose.
“Let me out,” she snapped, fingers now scrabbling uselessly at the edge of the door like she might find a secret latch.
Gideon flinched. “You know the doors only open from the outside.”
She turned toward him slowly, eyes wide with outrage. “Let. Me. Out.”
He held up both hands, all fake calm and unhelpful Zen energy. “Just breathe, sweetheart.”
Juliana barked out a laugh—if a laugh had ever sounded like a death threat. “I’m going to breathe my way through my intestines?—”
But she didn’t finish the sentence. Because her stomach made a noise that didn’t belong in a human body. It belonged in aJurassic Parkreboot. A deep, gurgling, prehistoricwarning.
