Page 33 of When I Should’ve Stayed (Red Bridge #2)

I huff and sigh and pace the small space of the tent, occasionally eyeing my sister with the kind of disdain that has her mouth spreading out into a cringe.

Fake-marry Clay Harris? Besides the first time I real-married him, this is the worst idea anyone has ever had. I growl and stomp my foot, and Norah just stands there, her tight body language showcasing her fear and hesitation.

Fuck. This is horrible.

I pace and turn and wring my hands together, desperate to find a way out of this clusterfuck. My eyes flit and wander and scour, trying to find something that’ll free me from the obligation, but instead, they find the opposite.

In Norah’s hands, she holds a pink bouquet I know is the bride’s by the size, and a wave of emotion for a little girl I helped care for right after she was born floods over me.

Summer Beatrice Bishop.

Soft giggles, pink sunglasses, endless smiles, sweet cuddles, and unbelievable happiness. She’s the embodiment of special, and now, she’s someone important not only to me and the town and Bennett and Clay…but my sister.

This isn’t about me. This is about Summer. And even if it’s torture, I have to do everything I can to help grant this wish.

I make my way toward Norah and snag the bouquet of pink flowers from her hands. “You owe me so big. So, so big, I can’t even think of the size right now. But it’s going to be huge. Bigger than this whole damn continent, do you hear me?”

Silently, Norah nods.

“Let’s get this over with,” I grumble and turn to face the section of the tent that opens to the aisle I’m now supposed to walk down.

A second later, I shoo Norah out of the way, all but pushing her through the curtain that leads to where this shitshow of a ceremony is supposed to take place and making my fake bridesmaid kick it all off with a bang.

I can’t see anything past the curtain, but soft music starts to play, and everything inside my body wants to run for the damn hills.

I imagine Clay—who is probably already standing on the makeshift altar—looking toward the curtain in front of me, and I have to close my eyes to steady my breathing.

Our ceremony didn’t look like this, and we never got to have our celebration with the town, but none of that matters.

It feels so frighteningly real I could scream.

As the Bridal Chorus starts up, my heart rate feels like it peaks at one thousand beats per minute.

Holy hell.

I might pass out.

My feet don’t want to move, and I’m just about to say fuck it and run out of the tent and away from the ceremony when a familiar head pops in through the curtain. “Mind if I escort you down, darlin’?”

Sheriff Pete. He knows enough about the past between Clay and me to know this is a royally messed-up situation, though he doesn’t know everything. No one does. Except for me, I guess.

He locks his arm with mine, a soft but sympathetic smile on his face as he looks down at me. “How about I help you get to the end of that aisle?”

All I can do is nod. If this fake wedding weren’t for Summer, I would’ve already hightailed it out of here. That little girl is literally the only thing keeping me from booking a one-way plane ticket to Mexico and never looking back.

Sheriff Peeler gives my hand one gentle squeeze before he starts to move. And I follow his lead,

through the curtain and out into the open, with the Bridal Chorus announcing my big entrance.

I hear everyone rise from their chairs, but I don’t actually see them do it. My gaze is fixated on the ground, my mind busying itself with counting each step I take down the aisle. I can’t look up and into the eyes of the man I thought I’d spend the rest of my life with. I just can’t.

“Maybe just give them a little smile, yeah?” Sheriff Peeler whispers toward me. “Will help make Summer feel like it’s real.”

It’s a touching reminder and wholly grating all at once.

I do my best to force a smile to my lips and lift my eyes enough to spot Summer sitting in her chair at the end of the aisle.

She looks so cute in her pink bridesmaid dress, and a memory of her with a pink crayon in Clay’s bar tries to find its way to the front of my mind.

I squash that memory like a bug. The last thing I want to do is start bawling my eyes out and ruin this for her.

Norah stands beside Summer, and Bennett stands beside Clay, and in a perfect world, this is how it would have been all those years ago.

The most important people in our lives, watching us pledge to love each other forever. I try to fight it, but without my permission, my gaze finds its way to the silky brown of Clay’s eyes and holds. They’re moist and, most devastatingly, hopeful.

He stands on the altar, a tuxedo adorning his muscular frame, and he looks so good, I’d give away everything I know to be able not to notice.

He rocks back and forth on his feet, and a smile that feels way too big for the pretend occasion sits on his lips. He looks larger-than-life—just like always.

It takes a monumental effort on my part to keep this smile plastered on my lips, but I do. Because I have to.

Sheriff Pete and I reach the altar just as the Bridal Chorus ends, and I get passed off to my fake groom with agonizingly jovial flare.

Clay holds out his hand toward me, that big smile so prominent on his lips it makes me ache. I take his hand, nearly flinching at the feel of his skin on mine after all these years.

He helps me step up onto the altar, and a man with a gray beard and green eyes begins to speak. He’s obviously the fake officiant that Norah said Breezy hired, and he starts his speech by welcoming everyone to the wedding and thanking them for being here.

Clay’s eyes are on me the entire time. I can feel them. And I look everywhere else but at his face as a matter of self-preservation.

“Now, it’s time for each of you to recite your vows,” the officiant says, moving this fake ceremony right along. “Josie, you’ll be first.”

God help me. I force a deep breath in and out of my lungs and make myself look at my ex-husband. And man, I hate how easily he can hold my eye contact. Hate how my mind can still think about how good he looks. Hate that my heart still aches at the mere sight of him.

So many memories are wrapped up in me and him and this town and even Summer, and this isn’t helping them fade away. This isn’t helping at all.

“Josie, do you take Clay to be your husband, to have and to hold, to love, honor, and cherish, in sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?” the officiant asks, and my flight-or-fight instincts kick in so hard that I feel my entire body vibrate.

I said yes once. Look at how that turned out.