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“No, not when we were originally going to do this ten years ago,” Justine admitted, and Tyler filled him in on the basic need to knows.
“Well that makes a lot more sense than the two of you deciding to stop being enemies and getting married all in a week,” Sheriff Davies said before his brows furled a bit again as he studied them. “So, what exactly did you want to see me about? There haven’t been any calls about a major battle anywhere in or around town, so I take it your families don’t know you’re together let alone married yet.”
“That’s actually what we wanted to talk about, well, warn you about maybe,” Tyler said dropping a kiss onto Justine’s templeas a bit of tension crept back into her body. “We’re done hiding this and intend to tell our families…”
“Today,” Justine finished for him. “Since the church is technically located outside of the city limits, we thought we’d give you a head’s up so you can potentially ward off any major issues.”
“You’re going to tell everyone at church today?” he said, and they nodded pulling a whistle from him as he shook his head. “Well that’s certainly not something I had on my bingo card of things likely to happen this century but thank you for the warning. I planned to be there already so that’s not an issue and a few of my other deputies likely should be in attendance as well. I’ll have some cars on standby and if you don’t mind, coordinate with Chief Klein so there’s additional coverage in town.”
“We figured you’d need to work with him or at least give him a head’s up to keep an eye on things around town in the coming weeks. We know this isn’t a lot of warning, but we didn’t want the risk of it getting back to our families and finding them on our doorstep,” Justine said pulling an understanding nod from him. “We know it might ignite an uproar that will affect more than just us, and that’s the last thing we’d ever want, but we’re tired of living a lie. It’s all I’ve done the last few years and now, being back, being here with Tyler, we just want the chance to live our lives—together.”
“I understand Justine, especially with what your job entailed. I wouldn’t want you to have to continue to sneak around to be together when you’re both consenting adults. We’ll make sure you’re able to go about your days peacefully. Although, I have to ask. Are you going to continue to work with the FBI? I can’t imagine how that would work living here,” he said, and she drug in a short breath before answering him.
“No, while I love being able to help people, I need a change. I technically was on medical leave and not vacation when I gothere due to my last assignment and things that’d happened. Mainly the fact that I was compromised and the group I was investigating burnt down my house thinking I was in it,” she admitted, telling a very condensed version of what happened. “Hopefully they’ll never figure out that I’m actually still alive or who I really am, but it’s something we also need to be prepared for as a possibility.”
“Well, thankfully strangers are noticed around here pretty easily and while your families might not like each other, they do love the two of you separately and would likely inform you if they saw someone strange lurking around. I can assign someone to patrol the area a bit more regularly for the next few days if that helps as well.”
“That won’t be necessary right now,” Tyler said dropping a kiss onto the top of her head, his hands running up and down her arms calming her worries down once more. “We plan on heading out on a honeymoon right after we tell everyone. Figured it’d be for the best to be out of easy access while they’re processing things. We’ll be using Daniel Thatcher’s cabin so they’re also not likely to figure out where we are.”
“Daniel? As in Angela’s ex-husband she left town with a week before the two of you were supposed to get married, Daniel?” he questioned, and they nodded.
“They were our witnesses and it’s no longer ex-husband. They’re remarried already,” Justine added pulling chuckles from him as he looked between them.
“We were only getting married to shut people up. Me with my mother because I never wanted to marry anyone for real other than Justine, and her with some of the men around town that constantly hit on her regardless of if they were single or not.”
“So combined with Justine being back in town, you weren’t upset the wedding was called off I take it?”
“Not at all. I was already trying to convince Justine to make our relationship real again at that point, so that wedding was never going to happen. Angela simply called it off before I did,” Tyler said, and he nodded in understanding.
“Well, I’m sure you won’t hear much of it when you tell everyone but congratulations. I sincerely wish you both the best. And if you’re interested in continuing to help people, I think both the chief and I could use someone with your skills in tracking down information online, helping find kids that go missing around the area. I’ll understand if you want to avoid everything with online predators, but if you’re interested, we could probably manage to find a way to pay you something in the city and county budgets,” the sheriff added before he headed out and Justine smiled a bit thinking it over.
“Do you think that’s something you’d want to do?” Tyler asked as they settled in to wait until just before the service would start to head over to the church so no one would see them in the same vehicle.
“Yeah, it might be. Not totally sure if I’m near ready to dive back into that world but maybe we’ll see how things look when my leave is officially up. Between the insurance payout from my place and my savings, I don’t have to worry about finances for a while. When I was undercover, everything was either paid for by the bureau or using money I earned at my secondary jobs, so what I brought in didn’t go for much beyond my house payment.”
“If you’d rather look for a new house…” he began to offer and Justine lifted up, giving him a long, lingering kiss, smiling brightly his way.
“And not be able to see our spot in the distance when there’s no fog out? I love the house, Tyler, it’s perfect. For us now and even if we have a couple kids, it’ll still be perfect,” she added sending a flash of desire through his gaze that made her grin.“We can do some more practicing later and talk about when we want to move from practice to trying, yeah?”
“Absolutely babydoll,” he agreed, holding her close until it was time to go and even then, he held her hand, his thumb running over her wedding band she was definitely tired of having to remove whenever she left the house. His gleamed as he pulled the car into the church parking lot and her eyes slid around the area, taking note of the deputy sheriff’s car idling on the far side of it. “Looks like we’ll have help if we need to make a quick getaway.”
“Hopefully we won’t have to,” she mused but they both knew she was just dreaming. Their families would flip learning the truth.
They waited until the doors closed to get out and headed into the vestibule, the sanctuary doors closed as the strains of music ended and they heard the pastor begin his normal welcome. Tyler gave her hand a squeeze when he got to the part of asking if there was anything anyone would like to share, and she slipped into the back of the sanctuary with him sucking in a deep breath as a few heads turned their way the moment they heard the doors open.
“Actually there’s something we’d like to share,” Tyler said, bringing nearly every head around to look at them and there were several gasps and exclamations seeing them standing there together but that was nothing to those that took note of her hand in his.
“And we’d love to hear it,” Pastor Adams said making Justine bite her tongue to stop from laughing because his expression spoke volumes. The man had been pastor there since before they were born, spent countless hours counseling the families to choose to peacefully coexist, so she was sure he was holding his breath as to whatever it was they had to say.
“I’ll preface this by saying to those that aren’t family, we’re sorry to pull you into the middle of this but it seemed to be the best place to do this so neither side could claim favoritism,” Tyler said pulling a few chuckles from them. “As I’m sure you all know, our families have been participating in a feud that began long before our existences were ever a thought, and I don’t know if anyone even knows why or how it began nearly two centuries ago. It’s something that has ruled our lives for far too long. Something that cost me ten years with the only girl I ever loved,” he added glancing down at her and the gasps in the room, shouts of their names seemed almost distant when the adoration in her eyes wrapped her up in the sweetest emotions.
“Tyler James!” someone said loudly breaking the little spell between them and he glanced up the aisle towards his mother who was standing along with his father, while her mother held back her father from getting up from their pew.
“For the last nearly fifteen years I’ve been in love with her, spent two and a half years loving her in every way she let me while we snuck around behind all of your backs,” Tyler said with a smile that made her fight to not giggle gleefully seeing the looks her siblings threw her at that news. “This ridiculous feud stole her from me because two grown men couldn’t behave like adults, wanted to tear down the other for whatever slight they felt was committed or to push aside the things they couldn’t control,” he added towards his father pulling a dark grunt from the man.
“We knew the only chance at having the life we wanted was to leave here, go away together, love each other as much as possible while we waited for the ‘grown-ups’ in our lives to start acting like them. But then, two of you decided that just vague push and shoves wasn’t enough, and you were hellbent on destroying one another. Which led to us having vastly different ideas of what was best, and ultimately, to Justine leaving here without tellingme she was, and I spent ten years missing the one person that I wanted to do nothing but love. So when she came home two and a half months ago, I knew I couldn’t let her go. Not again. Not for any of you,” he said pointedly towards his family as he pulled her closer to him. “And thankfully this time, the love between us won out over worrying about anyone else’s feelings or needs, and last week, we went up to Vancouver and did what we’d originally planned to do ten years ago…”
“We got married,” Justine said, smiling despite the shouts it brought about from their families.
