Page 47 of Marrying the Accidental Groom
“By all means,” Gideon said, stepping aside and letting Juliana be claimed by the younger Reynolds. He watched her crouch to crawl into a blanket cave while Chance tried to charge a toll in goldfish crackers, and Juniper toddled after them with an empty measuring cup like a royal scepter.
Then his dad sidled up beside him at the sink, two men equal in height and stubbornness, staring at the same domestic calm.
“She fits,” Dad said, almost to himself.
Gideon didn’t answer. Couldn’t without saying too much. His dad didn’t need the words anyway. He clapped a heavy hand on Gideon’s shoulder before stepping away. Gideon stayed where he was for a beat longer, listening to the house he’d grown up in, and then went to join Juliana.
He found her in the middle of the living room floor, legs tucked to the side, Chance climbing into her lap with the confidence of a child who’d decided she belonged to him, Stetson explaining fort ventilation systems with waving arms. Juliana looked up when Gideon stepped into the doorway of the fort, eyes catching his like a winch line, and smiled.
Not public-relations bright. Not brave-for-the-crowd. Just for him.
The pressure, the teasing, the questions, and the not-so-subtle talk about ownership wouldn’t stop. Not anytime soon. But maybe it didn’t have to crush him. Maybe the answer wasn’t disappearing into tours and jokes and letting life happen around him. Maybe it was this: walking into the middle of the noise, taking the hand offered, and choosing to show up.
“You ready to head out, Mrs. Maybe-Reynolds?”
17
JULIANA
Juliana should’ve known something was up the moment Gideon told her to “wear something you can run in” and then refused to elaborate. That’s generally code for exercise, humiliation, or both.
“Okay, mister. Define run,” she said as Ethel climbed the narrow service road toward a rust-red ridge that looked like it had been painted into the sky. The air had a sharp, clean bite that made her lungs feel brand-new.
“You know,” he said, a little too casually, “the thing you do when you move your legs faster than walking.”
“Cute,” she muttered, tightening her scarf to ward off the slight chill in the early morning air. “If this involves bears, I’m out.”
“No bears,” he promised, eyes sparkling. “Just wings.”
Wings? She had no idea if he was serious or not, but clearly it was no use trying to get Gideon to spill his secrets. She spent the rest of the drive contemplating what he meant.
Ten minutes later, she was standing on a shoulder of the mountain, boots crunching on the lingering frost, staring at a crescent of bright fabric unfurled across the ground. Gideon wascarefully spreading it out as he explained he was taking her paragliding. She’d heard the word before but had filed the term under “things other people do on purpose.”
Gideon had traded his flannel for a thick thermal quarter-zip and a harness that looked simultaneously very technical and very much like an adult-sized baby carrier. Her pulse tapped a staccato little drumline in her neck.
“You brought me up here to jump off a mountain,” she said, aiming for aloof and landing somewhere around squeaky.
He grinned. “We won’t jump. We’ll be pulled. Big difference.”
“Enormous,” she deadpanned. “Honestly though, that sounds way worse.”
He paused what he was doing and came to stand in front of her, hands warm on her elbows. “Jules, listen. We only go if you want to. But I got up this morning and the weather and wind is absolutely perfect. I wanted to glide today, and I really wanted you to come with me so you could experience the pure joy of it. But I’m not in the business of scaring you.”
Pure joy. The two words knocked against that wary place in her chest.
“I’m not scared,” she lied, very convincingly, she was sure.
He tipped his head, amused. “You’re vibrating like a hummingbird.”
“Fine,” she said on an exhale. “I’m terrified. But I also hate being left out. So, congratulations, you’ve trapped me with peer pressure.”
He laughed softly and brushed a loose wisp of hair behind her ear. “You won’t be alone. This is tandem. I’ve got you. I do all the work. You just enjoy the ride.”
The words sank through every brittle, over-planned layer she’d wrapped around herself for years.I’ve got you.
“Okay,” she said, because the alternative was running back down the mountain, and if she was going to run today, it may as well be in a direction that wasn’t backward.
He moved into confident and patient tour guide mode, a combination that was dangerously attractive. He talked her through the harness as if he’d been born with webbing and carabiners attached. “Arms through here. Step in. Good. I’m behind you,” he said, settling close and clipping them together. “The wing will come up. We’ll run directly into it. When I say sit, you’ll jump and lift your feet, sit back and the seat will catch you. You’ll want to adjust it when we’re in the air, and move your arms behind these risers. Then, your job is to breathe and look at pretty things.”
