Chapter 6
Rejected Agreement
Narrator: Dr. Lillian "Lily" Quinn
I never thought the words Do you, Lillian Quinn, take Elias Ward... would belong to me.
Not like this.
Not in a government office with the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead and a ringless ceremony, conducted with ink and paperwork and the forced civility of two people who know exactly where the ghosts are buried.
My mother always told me that marriage would be one of the most beautiful days of my life.
This wasn't beautiful. This was a transaction.
And somehow, that made it worse.
The envelope had come from the Office of Rural and Emergency Development. Thick with forms and requirements, it detailed the funding structure for the Iron Hollow Historical Reconstruction Mission. I read through it three times before I hit the clause that made my stomach twist:
"Joint co-leads must enter into legal domestic partnership or marriage to qualify for shared housing and dual-administrative grant disbursement."
I'd called Betty Jensen immediately.
"You didn't tell me about the marriage clause," I said, keeping my voice level despite the heat in my chest.
"I needed you to agree to the project first," she replied.
"That's not how consent works."
"You need this, Lily. The town needs this. Luke would've wanted this."
Low blow.
"Don't you dare bring him into this."
There was a beat of silence. Then Betty said softly, "You think I don't miss him too?"
I hung up without answering.
The worst part?
She was right.
Not about the manipulation. Not about tying my name to a man I hadn't spoken to in five years.
But about Luke.
He would've wanted this place to rise again. He used to walk the hallways of the inn after shifts at the fire station, telling me how the moldings could be restored, how the floors creaked in the same pattern as they had when he was a kid. He used to dream out loud. I used to dream with him.
And then came the call.
The fire. The mission. The silence.
And Elias Ward, standing at the funeral, jaw locked, eyes hollow, not saying a damn word.
I hadn't spoken to him since.
Not until now.
When I saw him walk into the courthouse that morning, it was like something in my lungs collapsed.
He hadn't changed much. Still tall. Still carrying the kind of weight you can't lift off. Still quiet in that way that makes people nervous.
But there were differences too. Subtle.
The limp he tried to hide. The scar across the back of his knuckles. The harder set to his jaw.
He met my eyes like someone checking for landmines.
And all I could think was: This is the man I'm supposed to marry. For a paycheck. For a town. For a future I don't even know I want anymore.
The ceremony was short.
The clerk didn't care that we weren't smiling. She pointed where to sign, explained the paperwork, stamped it like it was a grocery receipt.
"Spouse 1: Elias Ward. Spouse 2: Lillian Quinn."
That was it.
No vows. No rings. No truth.
Just pen to paper and a legal status I hadn't even imagined for myself again.
Afterward, we stood on the courthouse steps in silence. Eli looked like he wanted to say something. I didn't give him the chance.
I got into my SUV and drove off.
My hands were shaking.
Back at the inn, the room smelled like paint and old wood. The contractors had done their best to scrub the place clean, but the memory of fire lives in woodgrain. You can't bleach that out.
I dropped my bag in the upstairs bedroom Room B – L. Quinn, taped to the door like a name tag at a conference.
Eli's room was across the hall. Two closed doors and a linen closet apart. Still too close.
I unpacked slowly, running my fingers across folded sweaters and old photos I hadn't looked at in years.
One of them fell to the floor.
It was Luke. Standing in front of the inn in his old turnout gear, helmet crooked on his head, smile lopsided. I'd taken it on my old film camera.
I pressed it to my chest and shut my eyes.
He should've been here.
He should've been the one on the marriage license.
Not Eli.
Never Eli.
We didn't talk much for the first few days.
We lived like polite strangers passing each other in the hallway with nods and clipped greetings. We took turns in the kitchen. We avoided eye contact.
We were married, but only technically.
The only warmth in the house came from the dog Ash. Some scrappy mutt with half a tail and a gray patch over one eye who insisted on following me around like I was some kind of reluctant queen.
He watched me while I worked in the study. Waited outside the bathroom door. Nosed at my bedroom every night before giving up and curling beside Eli's bed.
I started sneaking him treats when Eli wasn't looking.
Maybe the dog and I understood each other. Two wary creatures sharing space with a man neither of us quite knew what to do with.
Then came the first public meeting.
Betty had arranged for a press appearance to "celebrate the project's official launch." That meant sitting beside Eli at a long table while reporters from the local news outlet snapped pictures and asked invasive questions.
"How does it feel to be working together again?"
"Will your marriage influence project decisions?"
"What do you want your legacy to be?"
Legacy?
I wanted to scream.
Eli sat stone-faced, answering only when directly addressed. His voice was steady. Flat. Professional.
Mine was too.
Together, we presented a united front. The perfect couple. The perfect plan.
But it was all an act.
After the meeting, he turned to me in the car.
"I didn't expect it to feel like this."
"Like what?" I asked.
He stared out the window. "Like I'm back in a place that doesn't quite remember me, pretending I belong."
I looked down at my hands.
"I know that feeling," I said.
Later that night, I found the letters again.
Luke's letters. The ones he wrote from deployment. The ones I'd promised myself I'd never reread. I found myself on the den floor, knees pulled to my chest, reading them like scripture.
Some were stained. One still smelled faintly of his cologne. I don't know how that's possible.
I was crying before I realized it.
And then Eli was there.
I felt him before I saw him ,his presence in the room like a storm waiting to break.
He didn't speak right away.
When he finally did, his voice was lower than I'd ever heard it.
"I burned mine."
I looked up.
"My letters," he said. "The ones we write, just in case. I wrote three. Couldn't stand to read them after. So I burned them."
I said nothing.
"I didn't think anyone needed them."
"You were wrong," I said.
And for once, he didn't argue.
The next morning, I came back from the lumberyard to find a photo on my desk.
It was me and Luke one I thought had been destroyed in the fire. My arm looped around his neck, both of us laughing like we didn't know what would come next.
A corner was burned, curling black and jagged like memory itself.
Beneath it, Eli had scribbled a note:
Found this in the old storage room. Figured it belonged with you.
I stared at it for a long time.
It was the first kind thing he'd done since we were forced into this arrangement.
The first thing that wasn't duty or guilt or contract.
Just… kindness.
And that was almost worse.
Because it made me wonder if I was starting to see him as something more than the man who broke my life in two.
And I didn't know what to do with that.