Page 48 of Marrying the Accidental Groom
“Noted,” she said, trying to ignore how intimate all of this was: his chest at her back, the steady rise and fall of his breath, the way the click of each buckle sounded suspiciously like trust.
A gust teased the fabric, lifting it like a living thing, then letting it sigh back to the ground. The world narrowed to the soft drum of the wind and the thrum of her heartbeat and Gideon’s voice near her ear.
“We’ll wait for a clean cycle,” he murmured. “See the streamers? When they lift and hold, we go.”
Juliana studied the little ribbons he’d clearly tied to a pole ages ago. They fluttered, drooped, lifted, flirted. Apparently, even the wind on this mountain enjoyed being dramatic.
“While we’re waiting,” he said lightly, “tell me your safe word.”
“My what?”
“For if you decide you don’t want to go at the last second. You yell it, we stop. If we’re in the air, I’ll get you down as soon as possible.”
She considered, then lifted a corner of her cheek. “Spreadsheet.”
He snorted. “Of course.”
“It’s comforting,” she said cheekily.
His chuckle warmed the back of her neck. “All right, Ms. Spreadsheet. Ready?”
She stared down the gentle slope. Somewhere far below, the Triple R Chapel’s glass wall was a slice of mirror against the valley. The barn, where she’d just danced under a thousand strings of lights, looked like a toy. The pastures stitched the land in soft greens and golds, and a thin ribbon of creek flashed silver as it curved around a stand of cottonwoods.
“Ready,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t give away the part of her that wanted to run in exactly the opposite direction forever.
“Wing up,” Gideon called, and the fabric surged above them with a rustle like a thousand silk skirts. “Run.”
They ran into the wind, up the slope of the ridgeline.
The harness tightened. Lines hummed. The ground tilted and then—impossibly, unbelievably—simply...fell away as they were tugged backward, the ground letting go. They were flying.
“Sit back,” he said, and she did, because her legs did not seem interested in participating in terrestrial life anymore, and then the seat caught her.
Flying.
All the air she’d been hoarding in her lungs snapped free in a laugh she didn’t recognize as her own. The valley opened like a book. The ridges unrolled, layer after layer, each one softened with dusted snow and winter light. The town tucked itself in like a secret. She could see everything at once. She could see where they’d been, where they were going, the crisscross of trails he guided, the long gravel lane to the lodge, even the narrow cut of the road where she’d crawled out of his truck to escape digestive disaster. From up here, even that was small. A ridiculous story with a punchline.
“Hey, Jules,” Gideon said softly. “Look right.”
She turned her head and the wing whispered as they shifted, gliding along a shelf of air that felt as solid as a hand. A hawk traced a lazy circle below them.
“I can’t—” she tried, and had to start over. “This is...”
“Better than a spreadsheet?” he offered.
“Blasphemy,” she said, but the word came out on a laugh.
The harness held her. Gideon’s presence steadied her. Juliana’s hands settled on the risers just where he told her. “Want to steer?” he asked.
She made a strangled sound. “That seems like a job for someone with a pilot’s license and fewer control issues.”
“You won’t break us,” he promised. “Lean your hips left. Just a little. I’ve got the rest.”
She did it tentatively, and the wing answered like it had been listening to her the whole time. They arced, smooth as exhaling. A squeak—fine, an undignified squeal—escaped before she could trap it.
“There she is,” he said, approval low and pleased. “Natural.”
For endless suspended minutes, Juliana forgot to be the woman who planned her joy in thirty-minute increments. She forgot about Leo and the ruined wedding and the smug Paris video. She forgot about the barn dance and the way her heart had thudded when an old acquaintance offered a job that six months ago would have made her dizzy with ambition. She let go of everything except the cold bite on her cheeks, the heat of Gideon’s chest, the way the world unfurled obediently under a fabric wing and a bit of faith.
