“Good night, hubby,” I get out before he nods and he ends the call.
After putting my phone down on the nightstand, I roll over onto my back and stare up at my bedroom ceiling. “Men are weird,” I tell the room.
Then I smile and start brainstorming questions to ask Jude tomorrow.
Sometime later, as I’m drifting off to sleep, my eyes jump open as something occurs to me.
It hasn’t just been since Dad’s passing that I’ve been feeling strange. It started before that, when I first met Jude. It got worse when I left Timber Falls to come back home to Palmer.
What Idon’tknow is what that means. I just hope I can figure it out soon and find a way to fix it.
Chapter 8
Jude
This is bad. Like really bad. So bad I can’t believe it’s real.
“I’m so sorry,” Pete says, sounding just as horrified as he looked when he turned up ten minutes ago. “I didn’t know.”
“Dad, it’s OK,” Birdie says, wrapping her arm around her father’s shoulders. “It was an accident.”
He shakes his head. “It should never have happened. I’d been tidyin’ up my desk and it must’ve been in the wrong pile. Youtoldme it didn’t need to be registered.” He lifts his eyes to meet mine. “I should’ve double-checked.”
“It’s… OK…” I say, though I’m feeling anything but.
“Surely we candosomethin’,” Will says. “Like cancel it or somethin’?”
I may not be a lawyer, but even I know that unless you go for an annulment—and there are only very specific reasons you can apply for that—then my fake marriage to Em is anythingbutfake now. “The only way now would be…divorce.”
Isla crosses the room and sits down beside me. “She’ll understand,” she says, rubbing my back. “It’s not like you set out totrickher.”
“I know. And she probably will.”Hopefully. “The thing is…”
“You want it to be real,” Sutton replies. “It makes sense. You know she’s your One, so you want to be tied to her.”
I nod. “Not like this, though. This was goin’ to be a cute story we could tell our kids and grandkids about. You know, ‘remember when your mom and I pretended to get married for your granddaddy, but then we fell in love just like the mountain intended and then did it forreal?’.”
“This doesn’t change that, Jude,” Isla replies, putting her hand on my arm. “It just means your marital status haslegallychanged a lot sooner than planned.”
I shake my head. “They’ll all think we tricked them and did it on purpose.” It would kill me if Em thought that I’d been anythin’ but honest with her. That goes for her brothers too. “She doesn’t even know she’s my One and that the mountainwantsus to be together.” It’sthatthought that starts my spiral, my brain jumping from fast forward to hyperdrive, except now I’m spiraling and imagining all thebadthings that could happen.
“We’ve got the prenup. You both signed that, right? As long as you gave it to Micah to lodge through the proper channels, then there’s no way Dare and his brothers can question it. That agreement protected everyone.”
My gut sinks and I slowly lift my gaze to Will’s. “So… about that…”
My big brother’s eyes bug out, his head falling forward with a groan. “Dammit, Jude.”
“We can definitely submit apost-nup instead,“ Pete replies. “You’d just need to draw up a new document. As long as you both sign it, then Micah can lodge it straight away and it would still give y’all the same protection and provisions. That’s actually a lot easier to do than dissolvin’ the marriage, to be honest.”
I go quiet, slumping down in my chair and staring at the wall in front of me. I didn’t want any of this. I wanted to get to knowEm and let her get to know me. I wanted towooher, date her, fall in love with her at the same time shehopefullyfell in love with me too.
I wanted my own epic Call journey like Will, Case, and Sutton had with their Ones. I wanted… I wanted…
“Hey,” Case says, taking the seat next to me. “Talk to me. What’s goin’ on in that busy little head of yours?”
One thing sits at the forefront in my mind now, and as soon as it comes to me, I know it’s the right decision—theonlyone, actually.
I jump up to my feet. “I need to see her. Need to tell her in person. At the very least, she deservesthatmuch.”