Page 12 of Pin-up Girl

He was right not to. She made that outfit look incredible.

Clint and I kept up a steady stream of back and forth the entire way to the courthouse. As we walked up to the front door, Clint squeezed my hand, and didn’t let go.

For show, I assumed. But having him here to ground me reduced the number of butterflies in my stomach a tad.

I was grateful he told the clerk at the window what we wanted—license and wedding—because I wasn’t sure I’d say the words right.

“Did you fill out the forms online?” she asked.

We could do that? I shook my head.

“No,” Clint said.

Her grunt was one of displeasure. She handed us a clipboard, pointed to various fields on the form and told us to fill them out as if she did this a hundred times a day.

Which I assumed she did.

We took a seat to fill out our form. It wasn’t too bad, and there wasn’t a line of people. Apparently not a lot of people were getting marriage licenses on Tuesday afternoon in August. We were back at the window quickly, handing the clerk our form.

She gave it a glance, clicked a few things on her computer, and started typing. “So, how’d you two meet?”

Her question was delivered with the same flat tone as her form explanation had been, but it instantly made me feel like I had to pass a test. What if we got the answers wrong? What if they found out we weren’t really in love?

What if they didn’t care?

“We’ve known each other most of our lives,” Clint said. “Since before high school.”

The clerk looked over her glasses at us and stared for a moment. “Took you a while to figure it out, huh?”

I bristled at what sounded a lot like a dig at our ages. So what if we were in our mid-thirties? We could have been high school sweethearts.

We weren’t, but we could’ve been.

The clerk stopped typing, and scowled.

She clicked a few times, did a lot of backspacing and retyping, and muttered some things I couldn’t hear.

“Is there an issue with our paperwork?” I shouldn’t ask. That might tip them off to the fact that we weren’t doing this right.

This was why I could never be a criminal. Even something like this made me terrified we were going to get caught.

“No. It’s not…” Her frown deepened. “You were married previously, Mr. Marsh?”

“I was.” Clint’s reply was measured.

The woman drummed her fingers on the keyboard, but didn’t press any keys. Her gaze darted between us and the screen. “And you’re still married to Regina Greene?”

“No I’m not. Because our divorce was finalized.” Irritation crept into Clint’s voice.

“The system says?—”

“The system is wrong.” Most of the time Clint was sweet. Unassuming. But angry-Clint was that quiet kind of terrifying, and that version of him was creeping out.

The clerk shook her head. “It says here you filed divorce paperwork years ago, but it was never finalized.”

“I assure you it was.” Clint ground out the words. “Do I need to call my attorney’s office and have them send someone down to speak with you?” He phrased it as a threat rather than a question.

“I’ll be right back. Give me a minute, please.” The clerk slipped from her chair and hurried toward one of the offices behind her.

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