Sheila Tyler tells everyone that she met her husband in jail.

She doesn't remember seeing the former Marine when she went to the Currituck County Detention Center to bail out her yard man a few years ago. But Sheila, who has been Currituck's Clerk of Superior Court since the 1980s, would later be impressed by Dean Tyler's military bearing.

Brett A. Clark/Daily Advance (ENLARGE)

Currituck Court Bailif Dean Tyler and Currituck Clerk of Court Sheila Tyler met at the Courthouse and were recently married.

Brett A. Clark/Daily Advance (ENLARGE)

Currituck Court Bailif Dean Tyler (left) and Currituck Clerk of Court Sheila Tyler met at the Courthouse and were recently married.

Dean Tyler, now the court's chief bailiff, remembered her and, after he went to work at the county courthouse, they talked through the daily work of court calendars, inmates and hearings.

Before he could make any moves, he was prodded by one of the foremost representatives of the law in Currituck, Sheriff Susan Johnson, to pursue then Sheila Romm.

"It's kind of a funny story," Dean said. "The sheriff had talked to me one day about asking her out because she knew I was single and that she was single. So I told her, I said, 'OK, I will.'"

The day he asked Sheila, in June 2007, he had to almost run to catch her after she came in on her day off.

"I had just run up here for just a second, and I literally had on cutoffs and a T-shirt," Sheila recalled. "I mean I was not dressed. So ... he's definitely seen me at my worst."

He followed her down the hall on her way out.

"I was almost running trying to keep up ... to ask her whether she would go out and have dinner with me," Dean Tyler said. "She stopped, and she looked at me and said 'Yeah, I will.'"

He took her to the Courthouse Café in Chesapeake, Va.

The two say they're very professional at work, and Mr. and Mrs. Tyler, aged 54 and 52, don't seem connected in the courtroom as he calls no-show defendants and asks those in court to rise for the judge and she organizes and swears jurors, asking them if they'd prefer to be affirmed.

"If you didn't know when you saw us in the courtroom, you would not pick up on it," Sheila said.

Dean, who has been chief bailiff since 2006, is in charge of keeping the judge and those in the courtroom safe, and Sheila must see that the judge has everything he or she needs.

"I think we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard than most people do," Dean said.

Their work connects them, gives them a shared life and, Sheila says, each understands when the other discusses work.

They try to go to lunch together every day and sometimes take a judge with them.

"That hasn't gotten old, and I don't see that getting old," Sheila said.

Dean said a judge asked him, "Is it true, what I've heard going on?" while the couple were dating. He asked what the judge had heard and confirmed that he was dating the clerk.

Sheila's staff, the lawyers, judges and sheriff's office workers kidded them good-naturedly as they dated, Dean said. And about 25 of them came to the wedding on Dec. 15 in front of the courthouse Christmas tree, in the lobby before magistrate Melissa Ferrell.

Sheila said she knew Dean was right for her because of who he is.

"I don't think it was just one thing," she said. "It was a combination: his morals, his respect for the law, the way he treats me."

For Dean, he knew that they would have something special when they went on their first date and she touched his hand as he held the gearshift.

"It was like something electric went through me," he said. "I knew it was special at that point."

"You just didn't know how special," Sheila said, laughing. "Nor did you know I was gonna knock you off your feet."

The pair, both of whom have been married before, say it's the mutual respect, easygoing nature of each and a relaxed relationship where they can be themselves that make them compatible.

"It's very happy for me to work with her and be married to her and go home at night together," Dean said.

Dean, who held his wife's hand while they talked in Sheila's office, notices some married couples who seem in pain and see each other as a burden, and that's not them.

She said it might sound corny, but they're "like two peas in a pod."

The calm, soft-spoken bailiff in gray uniform with his gun at his side said his professional, take-charge wife cares about people.

"She'll go out of her way to help them," he said. "And that's very special to me."

Sheila said she didn't think they would have gotten together if they never worked at the Currituck Judicial Center. But Dean said they could have still met elsewhere.

"I would have probably still asked you out," he said.