Page 144 of Knot in the Wedding Cards

Sawyer's quiet for a long beat.

The engine idles low between us. The last of the sun has gone down behind the marsh. The first stars are pricking out over the water. His scent has gone thoughtful and warm in the cooling air.

"You're telling me," he says slowly, "that if the opportunity came… a real one, fair one…you'd take it? You'd fill it in. You'd do the whole thing right this time, out loud, the honest way."

I look straight into his eyes.

I don't hedge. Don't soften or dress it up pretty. I don’t leave myself a quiet exit the way I've done my entire life.

For once, I just say the true thing, on purpose, and let it stand.

"Yes."

Sawyer nods. Slow. Something decided, settling into the lines of his face.

"Okay," he says, half to himself. "Okay, then."

He reaches out and claps a warm, solid hand on my bare shoulder, and there's a glint kindling in his eye that's equal parts mischief and something a great deal more serious.

"Since you helped me not miss my date," he says, "let's give you the opportunity you're yearning for."

CHAPTER 27

Two Roads

~CADE~

You learn to read a bar the way other people read weather.

I can tell you, four seconds after a stranger walks through that door, what they're drinking, who they came with, and whether they're here to celebrate something or to forget it.

It's a gift.

It's also a curse, on a night like tonight, when the Driftglass is packed wall to wall with the happiest people in three counties, and I can read every single one of them whether I want to or not.

It's a Thursday.

That's the part making no sense. Thursdays are dead — two regulars nursing the same warm beer, Iris restocking limes, me home by ten with my feet up. But some cruise ship or off-season festival or minor act of God has emptied a hundred tourists into Honeybell Harbor tonight, and every last one of them has found their way here, to the one good bar on the water.

They arethirsty.

I offered to pick up the shift. For once I'm ahead on the wedding prep —Nolan's people finally signed off on the bar package for the reception, so I've got a rare free evening— and Renzo looked so relieved when I said I'd cover that I didn't have the heart to take it back.

So here I am.

Slinging drinks behind the mahogany. Reading a room I'd give a great deal not to be reading.

Because the room is full of packs.

Established ones, the kind that move like they share a single nervous system — an Alpha's hand finding the small of an Omega's back without either of them so much as glancing down. New ones, all live-wire nerves and stolen glances, still learning the choreography of belonging to somebody. A booth in the corner with three Alphas and one Omega who's laughing so hard she's wiping her eyes, the four of them lit up like the whole world got built for that exact table.

Guaranteed things. Chosen things.

Bonds a person walked into on purpose and gets to keep for good.

Then there's whatever it is I've got.

A pack held together with a federal signature and a ten-week fuse. An Omega I have toauditionfor. A clock ticking down over all of it.