Prince Charming Can Wait (Ever After) by Stephanie Rowe Page B

house.
    Emma's heart was still racing as she followed everyone into the living room. At Iris's urging, she tore open the tissue box and pulled out a couple. With the three of them watching with expressions ranging from Iris's delight, to Ned's well-humored tolerance, to a heated smolder in Harlan's eyes, she quickly shoved them past the neckline of her tank and into her bra. "Okay, ready."
    Ned walked them through the documents, winking as he signed the form stating that he'd seen both their birth certificates. "You both were surely born, so I'm okay with it." Both she and Harlan signed their own names, and then Ned was ready.
    Iris thrust a bouquet of slightly wilted flowers into Emma's hand, and then stood by her husband beaming as Ned married them. It happened too fast, and suddenly Ned and Iris were staring expectantly at them. "Where's your ring?" Ned asked.
    "We don't have any," Harlan said. "We didn't really plan ahead."
    Iris set her hands on her hips. "You can't not give her a ring—"
    "No, it's okay." Emma realized that not having a ring was perfect. A ring was like a trap, and she didn't want the symbol of it. "We'll get one. We have time for that. We want it to be perfect," she added, not wanting Iris to decide to rush off and pluck one from her own collection.
    Iris tsked her disapproval, but Ned seemed satisfied, and minutes later, he was commanding Harlan to kiss his bride.
    His bride.
    She was a bride again.
    Fear started to ripple through her, but Harlan's kiss was swift and cursory, not demanding and proprietary like Preston's had been at their wedding. She barely had time to register it before Iris was hugging her and offering cookies, chattering with delight. And then, before she knew it, they were back in his truck, two copies of the wedding certificate in her hand.
    Married.
    Again.
***
    He was married.
    To Emma.
    To the woman who had haunted him since the day he'd first seen her in Wright's.
    Harlan gripped the steering wheel as he drove them back toward her house, his truck bumping over the old roads. Her scent seemed to fill the car, that delicate fragrance of fresh soap and spring. He couldn't believe the surge of protectiveness and connection that had filled him the moment that Ned had pronounced them a couple. It had raged through him, a need to claim her for his own, to seal her as his so that even when he left her, even when he lay dying in some hellhole, a part of him would always be there with her. He'd barely brushed his lips over hers for the post-wedding kiss, knowing that if he got even one taste of her, he would have carted her off to the nearest closet and taken her right there.
    Which was totally fucked up, but at the same time, he couldn't shut the emotions off.
    She was fidgeting beside him, playing restlessly with their marriage certificate. She was pale, and her breathing was still shallow. Protectiveness pulsed at him. "You okay?"
    She looked up, her face shadowed by the dim light of his dash. "I'm a little freaked out."
    Her honesty made him relax. He liked that she didn't play games with him or try to be what she wasn't. "Second thoughts?" Weirdly, when he asked the question, he didn't want an answer. He was afraid she would say yes.
    She met his gaze. "No."
    Relief rushed through him as he turned the corner onto the dirt road that led to her house. "Good."
    He pulled up in front of her cabin too soon, not wanting to walk away from her yet. He felt like it was unfinished, like there were things he should say to her before he walked away to die. She didn't get out, as if caught in the same trap that had him.
    For a moment, they sat in silence, but it wasn't the same companionable silence that they'd had on the boat. This one was heavy with tension, with the stark reality of what they'd done, and what they were heading towards.
    "I never thought I'd get married," he said finally.
    She looked over at him. "Why not?"
    "Because my father destroyed my stepmother when he married her. I