Teresa Hill - Matchmaking by Moonlight

Just the other day he’d had a couple in his courtroom who were ending a marriage after forty-four years. Forty-four years? How could you endure forty-four years and suddenly decide it wasn’t working? Had it worked for forty-three years and then stopped? Or had it been kind of bad all along, but not bad enough, until that last year? The last week? Last day?

Ashe really didn’t understand.

“I preside over divorces as part of my duties in family court,” he said. “One of you needs a divorce?”

“Oh, no. We’re not married. It’s for a series of classes at the estate—”

“Wyatt said you might be able to help us,” Kathleen said.

“Possibly,” Ashe said, knowing better than to agree without knowing what he was agreeing to first this time. “What exactly do you need, ladies?”

“A ceremony.”

“A divorce ceremony.”

Ashe was confused. “We don’t really have a ceremony.”

“But you could do one, couldn’t you? You’re a judge. You can marry people, can’t you?”

“Well, yes, I’m legally empowered to marry people.” Although that was one duty he had yet to perform.

“Fine, just do that in reverse.”

Ashe was starting to worry about the perfectly sane comments. “It doesn’t exactly work that way, ladies. Why don’t you tell me precisely what you need.”

“A divorce ceremony. Could you make one up?” Kathleen suggested.

“Or we could make one up. I’ve been divorced,” Eleanor said. “I remember everything about my divorce.”

“I’m a widow,” Kathleen said.

“And I’ve never been married,” Gladdy said.

Ashe helped himself to another cookie, chewing slowly, striving for patience, and then asked, “Why do you need a divorce ceremony?”

“For the classes,” Eleanor said, as if that made perfect sense.

Ashe smiled. They were kind of sweet and definitely interesting, but maybe not completely sane. “Ladies, what kind of class requires a divorce ceremony?”

“One for people who are divorced,” Kathleen said.

Of course .

Why had Ashe even needed to ask?

“So, you’re having classes for people who are divorced?”

“Yes,” Eleanor said.

Ashe shook his head. “But, if the people coming are already divorced, why do they need to have a ceremony?”

Kathleen frowned. “It may be better if Lilah explains it. It sounds so much better when she does it.”

Lilah? Ashe hadn’t been warned there was a fourth one. He wondered if the whole concept would sound saner if Lilah explained it. Couldn’t sound any crazier, he decided.

“All right,” he said. “Where is Lilah?”

“She should be along any moment,” Eleanor said.

And that’s when Ashe looked up and saw … well, it looked like a mostly naked woman running across the back lawn.

“Oh, dear,” Kathleen said. “I so hoped they would be done with all that before you arrived.”

“I believe you may be a bit early, Judge,” Eleanor said.

“Although I’ve always appreciated punctuality in a man,” Gladdy said, giving him a not at all shy smile.

Ashe was really worried now. One of them was flirting with him, and one of them was nearly naked. He hoped it wasn’t the nearly naked one who was supposed to make sense.

“Ladies, I’m not sure if Wyatt told you, but I have to stand for election next year to keep my seat on the bench.” Eleanor should understand. She had long been active in local politics, successfully raising money for a number of candidates in addition to her work with various charities. Someone Ashe should know better, he’d been told. Still … “I’m not sure I’m the right man for this job. I’d really like to help you, but someone in my position in the community has to maintain a certain level of propriety—”

“That doesn’t sound like any fun,” Gladdy said with a smile.

“Gladdy, please,” Eleanor said.

She gave a little shrug, not looking at all sorry for her comment. Was she really flirting with him? A man less than half her age? He feared she was.

“I don’t think it will be much fun, either,” Ashe admitted. “But the election comes with the job. So, if you ladies will excuse me, I’ll just—”

“You can’t go yet,” Eleanor said, grabbing him by the arm. “You haven’t even met Lilah.”

Ashe was honestly a little afraid to meet Lilah. What if she was even crazier than the rest of them?

“She’ll be done soon,” Kathleen asked. “And then she can explain everything to you.”

Ashe wanted to ask exactly what Lilah was doing but wasn’t sure he wanted to know. From what he could tell, someone was on the back lawn of the estate, naked or nearly so, with a long, flowing wedding veil. She seemed to be running around, the glossy white veil trailing after her, and another woman was either chasing her or perhaps photographing her?

Yes, maybe that was it. Now he saw a third person, carrying around some lights on a pole. Photographer’s lights?

He hoped so. That was the sanest explanation he could come up with. That what he was seeing was a photo session.

What could a divorce ceremony possibly have to do with the photo session of a scantily clad bride? No matter what, it couldn’t be good for a judge facing election soon. People wanted their judges to be above reproach, respectable, steady, solid and, of course, to show good judgment in all things.

Ashe turned his attention from the back lawn of the estate to the three little old ladies with him. He would swear they were trying to look perfectly innocent.

“It’s not what you think,” Eleanor tried to assure him.

“I have no idea what I think,” Ashe admitted.

“And I bet it’s been a long time since a woman surprised you,” Gladdy said. “We all need to be surprised every now and then, dear.”

No, really, he didn’t, Ashe thought, smiling uneasily.

He liked his life just the way it was.

“Perfect. We got it. Exactly what we wanted.” Lilah Ryan lowered her camera with a satisfied sigh. She’d been a budding photographer in high school and through her first year of college, then put it aside for a more practical life, until she realized that being so practical meant losing so much of herself in the process. She wasn’t doing that anymore. “Thanks, guys. I really appreciate your patience.”

The man carrying the heavy lights for the shoot, Ben—actually her model’s boyfriend—groaned as he put the lights down. “Only took twice as long as it was supposed to.”

“But we got it right,” Lilah said, then turned to the model she’d hired for the shoot. “Zoe, thank you so much. You were great. You’re going to look beautiful, I promise. And the posters will be all over town.”

Zoe stood tall and slender, the wedding veil wrapped around her, until she slipped into the robe Ben offered. “I don’t think they’ll let you put these all over town.”

“They will, you’ll see.” Lilah was certain.

The image would be both provocative and tasteful. Lilah would make sure of it. And everyone would wonder what was going to happen at her classes, which was exactly what she wanted.

Lilah had promised herself she was going to do all that she could to get everything she wanted from now on. No more waiting. No more putting aside her own wishes for anyone else. She’d done that for too long.

The three of them picked up their equipment and headed back to the house. It really was lovely, the perfect setting for a wedding. Which also made it the perfect setting for Lilah’s classes.

She said goodbye to Zoe and Ben, who helpfully offered to pack up their equipment for her, then went to find Eleanor, whom she called a cousin, but was actually her mother’s second cousin’s aunt. Eleanor claimed she knew the perfect person to perform the divorce ceremony, and he was supposed to stop by this afternoon.