Page 59 of Match Made In Growl

"So." Twyla set the mug down and slid into the opposite chair with fluid grace. "When's the wedding?"

"How do you already know about this?"

"Honey, I could feel the bond shift three days ago. When a claiming pair decides to formalize, the magic changes texture. Sweeter. Like bread rising." Twyla's light brown eyes sparkled. "Also, Leora told me."

"Of course she did."

"She's thrilled, by the way. Cried on my counter for ten minutes, then ordered a scone and pretended it never happened." Twyla folded her hands on the table. "Now. What are we thinking? Spring ceremony? Summer? The meadow past the northern ridge is gorgeous in June. Or we could do the lake. Moonmirror at sunset is basically unfair."

"I haven't gotten that far."

"That's why I'm here." Twyla's voice shifted from gossip mode to something more focused, the organizational energy of a woman who'd been running a café and half the town's social calendar for longer than anyone alive could confirm. "You tell me what you want and I make it happen. No stress, no pressure, no decisions you don't want to make."

"You want to plan my wedding?"

"Yes. Desperately." Twyla leaned forward. "Let me do this, Steph. It's what I'm good at, and you have a nine-month excavation to run. You don't have time to compare napkin swatches."

"There will be no napkin swatches."

"See? We're already aligned."

Steph wrapped her hands around both mugs, one for warmth, one for caffeine. She could feel Criss somewhere in the western woods, checking ward markers, steady and content. The awareness of him was still new enough to catch her off guard at odd moments, a second heartbeat surfacing during quiet pauses, reminding her she wasn't operating solo anymore.

She'd spent her whole career in motion. Turkey, Peru, the Yucatán, Southeast Asia. Six countries, dozens of sites, a life designed around impermanence. She'd told herself it was the work that kept her moving. The next dig, the next discovery, the next grant cycle that would take her somewhere new. But the truth, the one she'd been avoiding for years, was simpler than that. She'd kept moving because standing still meant commitment, and commitment meant trusting someone or something enough to build around it, and every time she'd tried, the foundation had cracked.

Grant had been the last attempt. A year and a half of trying to be the version of herself that someone else wanted, and when it failed, she'd added it to the evidence file: permanence equals loss. Proved by data. Case closed.

Except Hollow Oak hadn't read the file. The town had let her in through the Veil, given her a site that responded to her touch, refused to let her leave when she'd tried, and handed her a man whose entire arc over the past two months had been learning to stay.

And now she was sitting in a café planning a wedding and the lightness in her chest was so unfamiliar it had taken her three days to identify it.

She'd stopped fighting herself. That was the thing. The constant low-grade resistance she'd carried for years, the tension between what she wanted and what she'd allow herself to have, had gone quiet. Not silenced. Released, the way the magic in the chamber had been released. Something held down for too long, finally given air.

"Moonmirror Lake," she said. "Sunset."

Twyla's face lit up. "Perfect. How many people?"

"Small. Just the town. Whoever wants to come."

"In Hollow Oak, that's everyone. I'll handle the invitations. Food?"

"You're asking me about food? You own a café."

"I'm asking because some brides have opinions about menus and I've learned the hard way not to assume."

"Feed people whatever you want. I trust you."

Twyla pressed her hand to her chest. "That might be the most romantic thing anyone's ever said to me."

The door opened with a chime and Diana Merrick walked in, honey-blonde curls loose around her shoulders, carrying a basket of fresh linens from the inn's laundry. She spotted them, read the table, and changed course.

"Wedding planning?" Diana asked, setting the basket on an empty chair, freckles scrunching as she smiled.

"She's psychic," Twyla said.

"I'm observant. Two coffees, Twyla in project mode, and Stephanie looking like she swallowed something that tastes good but she's not sure she's allowed to enjoy it." Diana smoothed the front of her knit cardigan and sat down. "What do you need?"

Steph looked at the woman who'd welcomed her into the inn on her first rainy night in Hollow Oak, who'd left sandwiches outside her door when she forgot to eat, who'd bandaged her head after the square attack without asking a single question she wasn't ready to answer. Diana, who ran the inn with a quiet warmth that made everyone who walked through the door feel like they'd come home.