The forest surrounding Shadowhaven was not really meant to be hiked, and certainly not in a wedding dress. Why she hadn’t thought to grab something else to wear this morning she’d never know. And the fact that the forest seemed to be clawing and pawing, trying to drag her back, didn’t help. Or maybe it was her regrets that were clawing at her, after all, the dress was seemingly untouched for as many snags as she seemed to have hit.

She’d never thought of herself as a coward. Her father would be so disappointed in her. He always told her to stand and face her fears. Although why she should care what he’d think… After what he did to her mother. But somehow twenty plus years of being daddy’s little girl didn’t go away just cause he’d done something inexcusable. And now as she had also done something inexcusable, hurt someone who deserved it no more than she’d deserved her father’s betrayal, all because she was weak.

And to add insult to injury, she was hopelessly lost. Maybe Tiffany could wander around the woods and find the one thing that would make her the happiest, but Jolene didn’t have that good a sense of direction. She was fine in cities. But cities had always had street signs and graffiti and identifiable buildings, forests… have trees.

All she knew was that the thick underbrush was all but impassible, except the from the direction she’d just come from. And what the hell was she doing anyway? Where was she going to go? She knew very little about the countries surrounding Shadowcrest, and even less about living in the middle ages, outside of the weird amalgamate that was Shadowcrest. She flung herself down on a rock and stared at the still water of the pond in front of her.

“The road’s back that way, if that’s what you’re looking for.” Jolene jumped and stared. The voice wasn’t familiar, no one that she knew. And at first she didn’t even see anyone, then, out of the underbrush stepped a man. Definitely not a Shadowcrestian. His teeshirt was somewhat familiar as if she should know the reference from somewhere. And he wore jeans and battered cowboy boots.

He looked–somehow–wrong in these woods, though maybe not quite as wrong as a woman in a gown straight out of the Phantom of the Opera, so it wasn’t like she had room to talk.

“The road to where?” Jolene asked.

“Kinda depends on you.” The man said with a shrug of shoulders that looked sort of how she imagined Sawyer’s would in a few years. Used to hard work and muscled from it, but not large, not bulky. He sat on the rock next to hers.

“You sound like the Cheshire Cat.” Jolene said.

“Just cause the person giving it is crazy doesn’t mean the advice can’t be sound.” He shrugged again, turning odd slate-blue-green eyes on her. As their gazes locked, she felt oddly naked, not physically, but mentally, as if he were seeing straight into her thoughts. “It’ll take you home.”

“Pardon?” Jolene said glancing away from the man who rubbed his freckled nose.

“The road. It’ll take you home.” He said after a moment of silence had passed.

“And what if you don’t know where home is anymore?”

“I bet you do, Jolene.” She stared at him, though he didn’t seem to notice. How did he know her name? Where was she? “If you’d just listen to yourself, you’d find you know.” He reminded her of someone. It was an odd, tip of the tongue sensation. While outwardly there were things that reminded her of the man who was probably currently waiting for her to show up to their wedding, underneath there was–someone else. That calm voice with just a hint of a drawl tickled the back of her mind.

“How do you know my name?” She blurted when the corners of his lips curled up into a quarter smile that she would have sworn she’d seen on–oh who? And the quiet huff of a laugh, she could hear it overlapping a memory as he caught her eyes again.

“I could tell you that–and you would never believe it.”

“Great. I fell and cracked my head open and am dying, aren’t I?” The laugh was a bit more cynical this time.

“You aren’t going to die today.” He frowned slightly. “Or at least your heart will still be beating in a day, a week, a month from now.” This was getting weirder by the moment.

“I don’t know whether to be more weirded out by your psychic routine or the fact that you make it sound like I will die today.”

“You’re at a crossroads, Jolene. I can’t tell you that if you make the right choice you’ll live happily ever after. The future is way too changing to pin it down. So the right choice won’t get you happily ever after, but the wrong choice, well…” He glanced away.

“It’ll mean that I’ll die like Scrooge?” Jolene couldn’t keep the sneer out of her voice. He chuckled, that maddeningly familiar laugh taunting her.

“No. I can’t even say that. Pinning down happiness is sort of like pinning down the wind. It’s difficult. Not impossible, but difficult. It’ll be harder to be happy.”

“So if I marry Sawyer, I’ll be happy?” She rolled her eyes.

“That also depends on you. You should know by now that happily ever after is a cheap lie. Even if you could get it, you wouldn’t want it. If you don’t work for it, it’ll never be enough for you. You can be happy if you don’t marry Sawyer, you can be happy if you do. You will regret not marrying Sawyer in a way that you won’t regret marrying him if that’s what you choose. You do have a choice, Jolene. You’ve just got to figure out what road you want to take.” The man scrubbed hands through his hair and looked up at the sky.

Then he turned and locked eyes with her again. His pupils seemed to expand, the tiny flecks of almost-silver in his irises flashing. Just for a second she thought she could see–she shook her head and blinked. His eyes were just eyes again. Sparkling, mischievous and yet sad, terribly sad.

He stood up and stretched. “It’s time for me to be movin’ on.” He started off the direction she’d come from.

“Wait, that’s it?” Jolene asked, scowling. “C’mon, even Dickens’ ghosts were less cheap than that.”

“You know what you want to do, Jolene. I don’t need to tell you that. If telling you something were gonna solve this, you’d have been settled right and tight six months ago.” The man chuckled. “I think what you needed is just encouragement to listen to yourself.”

“And you got stuck with the job?” Jolene snorted.

“More like I volunteered for it.”

“Why?” Her eyebrow shot toward her hairline as she said it.

“Indirectly, this involves someone who is very important to me. If I can pass along some sense to you, maybe down the road you can pass it along to them.” He shrugged, a rueful gesture, tantalizingly familiar in selfeffacing sort of way. “Ma’am.” He grabbed the brim of a hat that wasn’t there and nodded before turning and walking off in the direction she’d come from.

In the time it took her heart to beat three slow times, she was alone in the clearing though it had certainly taken her longer to make it through the trees than that.

Jolene looked over in the direction the man had said the road was in, and then back at the now empty clearing with no sign anyone but her had been in it–well–ever. When you don’t know where you’re going any road will get you there, the cat had said.

—

Jarrett sighed wishing there was something he could say to the young man who had by now had to have figured out that his bride wasn’t coming.

“I should have known–but–I thought…” Sawyer sighed.

“Aye.” Jarrett nodded.

“Well, I suppose I should…” Sawyer shifted in his seat.

“You don’t have to.” Jarrett told him. But he would, just like Jarrett would have. That was what they both did, picked themselves up out of the dirt and went along, regardless. The sound of shoes hitting the porch boards at a run startled them both and they turned to peer at the door.

“She’s coming!” Tate exclaimed hard on the heels of bursting through the door. Sawyer’s face was awash in conflicting emotions. “His Majesty says to tell you that she says that she’s sorry she kept us waiting, but if you still wanna do this. She will.”

—

“I’m sorry I kept you waiting.” Jolene said as she stopped under the rose arbor.

“It’s alright.” He shrugged.

“I needed a little help finding the right road.” Her eyes scanned over the wedding guests with a peculiar intensity that he could only wonder at. But then Gray was taking his place and such mundane thoughts fled. Call him a romantic, but her hold his hands in hers somehow seemed to say that they would find their way to right better than any words a silver tongue could put together.

—

Adult Content warning! This scene chunk contains adult material. You were warned!

He hesitated outside the bedroom door, slowly turning the knob before releasing it only to grip and turn it again. Somehow this was–harder–than he had daydreamed this would be. Although, wasn’t that always the way it went. “You can come in, Sawyer.” her voice called though it lacked it’s usual tone of certainty. She was laying on the bed in a white shift certainly not made to impress anyone.

“Sorry.” He rounded the other side of the bed and sat down gingerly, though he’d been sleeping in this bed in this room for weeks now. He already knew the lumps in the mattress.

“I should be the one apologizing.” Jolene said. The light glinting off the ring on her left hand. “I’ve put you through a lot and now I’m asking you to be patient while I put you through more.” He was pretty sure, given the shift she was wearing, at least part of what she meant by that.

“I understand.” He murmured towards his hands.

“I–I know it’s selfish.” She began then held up a hand as he started to protest. “But I just can’t–we can’t–I can’t.”

“At least you didn’t banish me to the couch. That’s what Livvie says she used to do with her ex-husband.” Jolene smiled at that. But it faded almost before it had finished blooming.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered again. He leaned over and started to blow the candles on the nightstand out. “Wait, Sawyer.” He turned to look at her.

“I can’t–but it’s–it’s our wedding night.” Sawyer shrugged with a nonchalance that he certainly didn’t feel.

“I’m just glad you married me.” She brushed the hair from his face with one hand.

“Liar.” She said with a snicker. “Well, maybe there is something I can do.” Her hand brushed over his shoulder and across his chest, opening his pajama top and sliding it to one side before pulling the other side off his shoulder. He sat up slightly, tossing the cloth off to one side at her gesture.

She made a noise in the back of her throat and pressed her lips to his neck right over his pulse, which started raising as she nipped gently and her hand slid down his chest, to the drawstring on his sleep trews. Even without looking at the knot, she made short work of it and then her hand slid down further. Feather light touches on his hips and belly had him hard before the first finger touched him.

“Take your pants off.” She murmured in his hair, leaving him the task of trying to manage that without sitting up because her lips were still busy at his neck and the hollow of his collar bone. Though admittedly it was the light touch of her hand, much lower on his body, that was the hardest to work around. He got them kicked off though where they fell was anyone’s guess.

“Jo–” He began.

“Hush, sweetheart, or I’ll lose my nerve entirely.” She said before kissing him. A hard, wet deep thing unlike anything she’d ever done before, almost distracting him from her free hand–almost, until it wrapped around him. He gasped into her mouth and she nipped at his lower lip, which didn’t–couldn’t entirely distract him.

And then in that usual timeless rush, it was over. Him gasping for breath, eyes wide, watching his wife who shrugged ruefully.

“Good night, Sawyer.” She said shifting herself under the covers. He slid under them himself after fishing his trews off the footboard. “I wish you didn’t have to give me the time, but thanks.” He just nodded and wrapped his arms around his wife. They’d figure it out.

“Is it sad how much I want to squee?” Jolene asked Heidi.

“Over the fact that I’m getting married–or over the fact that I’ll be moving out and you’ll have more closet space?” Heidi teased.

“Which do you think? Especially considering that Zahrah will be taking over your wardrobe space before the last of your stuff clears the stairwell.” Jolene stuck her tongue out at Heidi who laughed and stuck her tongue out back.

“Ah, well, then, no. I don’t mind if you want to squee over the wedding.” Victoria tucked a strand of her hair back into the updo and headed down the stairs.

“So, ten bucks says it’s six weeks or less before Kennedy’s firing up the old preg tester again.” Peyton was saying as she came into the living room of the barn.

“You’re betting on people’s sex lives now, Peyton?” Tiffany asked, a bit incredulously.

“Isn’t anything else to bet on. I wonder how hard it is to make slot machines.” She trailed off looking at the ceiling.

“Fairly.” Victoria pointed out as she took a seat in the empty chair to Peyton’s left. The blonde looked at her with an eyebrow quirked. “Think about it. Not only would you have to figure out the mechanics of making one, you’d have to figure out how to build a generator cause they need power to run. Besides, would you really want to dump all your money into something like that?”

“Not for me, I’d build a bank of them and everyone else could lose their money in them.”

“Right.” Victoria said. “And what would you do if someone won?”

“I’d think of something, don’t kill my buzz, Vikki.”

“Have you been drinking already, Peyton?” Jolene asked from behind them.

“Oh, you know. Just a little liquid courage.” Peyton stretched.

“For what?” Jolene sneered. “You aren’t getting married, after all.”  If Peyton was in the room, Victoria would have sworn that it was her permanent expression. Granted this was the real world and not some place occupied by fuzzy little bears or ponies who were all bff’s all the time, but Victoria still didn’t know why Jolene was so disparaging of Peyton all the time.

“For seeing my ass in this dress.” Peyton waved airily. At least Peyton got as good as she gave very rarely letting the other woman get her goat.

“I take it,” Kennedy interjected before they could get any further into a disagreement. “That Heidi is ready to go and that we should head for the chapel?” Jolene looked at Kennedy for a long moment as if judging whether she’d win a battle with the doctor, but apparently she didn’t think so because she just nodded.

Heidi had decided that she wanted to have an outdoor wedding, something that was questionable, given that it was spring, and doubly questionable considering the dark clouds on the horizon, but, as Heidi pointed out, the king was a wizard. If he could bring people from the future, he could keep it from raining on one wedding ceremony.

Though she really didn’t know Heidi that well or Dolph either, the ceremony was very sweet and apparent to everyone that the bride and groom adored each other. After the vows were said, Dolph swept Heidi off her feet and spun her around, garnering applause from the spectators.

Then it was inside, after all there was no reason to tempt fate with an outdoor reception as well. The plants did need rain so if it decided to drizzle all afternoon, they should probably let it.

“Aren’t you going to have any cake, Lady Victoria?” A voice asked by her elbow.

“I want to be able to fit into this dress for the next wedding if I need to.” Victoria said turning toward Camden.

“I think it’ll fit fine,” Camden blushed then. Oh, my. Victoria stopped herself from giggling. He’d been checking her out! Maybe walking everywhere and not being constantly stuck behind a desk going over columns of numbers was helping put her curves back where she remembered them being.

“What about you?” Victoria asked. Camden’s green eyes widened for a moment. “Cake, aren’t you going to have any?”

“Oo-oh. Uh, no–I don’t think so.” Camden glanced around. “The young lady with Alistair, who is she?” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction that Camden was looking.

“Is that Alistair?” Victoria asked. For some reason she had been expect Alistair to be–the skeezy guy in the trench coat. Someone who looked like a rat. He looked normal. Handsome, even. Then her eyes flicked onto the girl talking to him. Zahrah. She was new to Shadowcrest too.

Of course Camden would notice her. Zahrah was young and very pretty, and her curves had the benefit of never having shifted out of position in the first place. She was probably closer to Camden in age than she was. Victoria stifled a sigh, as Camden would probably notice. Still, when she turned back Camden’s eyes shot up from where they’d been settled, which wasn’t on Zahrah.

“That’s Zahrah. She came a few days ago.” Victoria said, watching Camden’s face for a hint of his eyes leaping away to look at Zahrah again. Except they didn’t. Huh?

“Hadn’t you met Alistair?” Camden asked as if the girl was no longer anything he was concerned with.

“No. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. I can’t name a single complimentary thing that was said about him.” Victoria admitted. Camden looked thoughtful for a moment. “What?”

“I’m trying to think of a complimentary thing I’ve ever heard said about him.” Victoria stifled a giggle. Alistair had moved away from Zahrah, who sat on one of the benches as Dolph and Heidi took the dance floor.

Camden grabbed a couple of glasses of wine and handed her one. She twisted the stem of the glass in her fingers before taking a sip of the wine, as Camden’s eyes swept over her profile.

The peace was broken by the sound of someone angrily hissing their breath in between their teeth. Victoria glanced at Camden who was watching Dolph and Heidi. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. Okay, it wasn’t Camden… who then…? She wondered taking a slightly larger drink of the wine from her glass.

A stir by the door caught Victoria’s attention. “Well, my loves.” Blake said, rubbing Raquel’s tummy in a way that made Victoria smile wistfully. “I think I should take you and your mommy home. It’s walk from here.”

Considering Victoria hardly knew Raquel and Blake even less, it felt somewhat wrong to watch the two of them leaving, so she turned her attention back to the wine in her glass. Whatever it was, it was a lot stronger than the wine in a box that was served at book club and it was seeming to go straight to her head. Just one glass shouldn’t have tipped her into “buzzed” but this stuff had managed.

“Lady Victoria?” Camden sounded concerned.

“I just need a little air.” At least she hoped that she only needed some air. She didn’t know how she’d live with it if she got too drunk to walk home off one glass of wine. The young knight fell into step with her, holding the door open as the still-slightly-chilly night air hit her arms and face and cleared her head.

They both stood looking up at the sky for a moment until a cultured voice speaking in a hushed but obviously angry tone caught her attention.

“Leave her alone.” She recognized the redhair and black embroidered clothes from the back.

“You–you don’t.” Whomever responded was obviously by the voice a lot younger–and a lot smaller as she couldn’t see him past Alistair.

“Oh please, come back and retort when you can do it without a stammer.”

“Go to hell.” The boy said. Alistair grabbed the younger boy and jerking him half off his feet.

“What was that, you little urchin?” The boy didn’t say anything and the redhaired man shoved him away, obviously prepared to walk away. Camden’s fists were clenched like he was about to lay into Alistair.

“Go get Sawyer.” Victoria suggested. Camden looked at her. “Please, Camden.”

“Yes, Lady Victoria.” He said turning and running back into the reception hall. Alistair stalked past her, sneering down his nose and Victoria found her own hands balling into fists. The boy, she thought for a moment, Tate had his face buried in his hands. She wanted to say something, or at least give him cookies and a big hug, but they didn’t even know each other.

And having a woman you didn’t know witness you getting bullied was sure to perk the old self-esteem back up.

“Heyla,” Sawyer said, rounding the corner, Tate pulled his hands away from his face in such a way that Victoria was sure he was brushing away tears. Sawyer didn’t act like he noticed. “What’s wrong.”

“Just–Alistair. I asked–it’s nothing.” Tate said.

“Ah, Alistair, is it? You know the first time Jarrett put him in charge of stirrin’ the laundry, he burnt his braises?” Sawyer said. “He did. He was stirrin’ the pot of laundry o’er the cook fire, and he stirs like a sissy, y’know, barely swishin’ the water an’ me an’ Jarrett are at the pond fishin’ when we smell something burnin’ Go back and there’s ‘is braises at the bottom of the pot, burned just like the tag end of a pot of porridge in a cheap inn!”

The young bard continued to tell what Alistair would surely find to be highly embarrassing tales about him until Tate giggled, just a little.

“Alistair’s a bully isn’t he?” Victoria asked.

“That’s about all I’d call him in the presence of a lady.” Camden agreed. “Why’d you stop me?”

“I hate seeing a kid picked on, but I also know that if you interfered he’d just do it again, sometime when you weren’t around. And that Tate’d feel lower than a worm’s belly.” Victoria sighed. Camden cocked his head to the side. “My brother was bullied when he was about Tate’s age.” She felt her stomach clench.

“I didn’t know you had a brother.”

“I don’t. But I used to.” Victoria said staring down at her hands.

“Oh.” Camden said.

“Lady Victoria, Sir Camden.” Sawyer bobbed his head as he sauntered past. Tate barely looked up as he murmured something that Victoria couldn’t catch.

As if that were some sort of a signal for people to start leaving, the doors pushed open only a few moments later, spilling Peyton and Ren out into the street. The two walked along for a moment before Ren caught Peyton’s hands in his. Not a drop of romance in her, my ass.

After Emanuel and Kennedy headed down the dark street toward the town gates, Sawyer, Tate, and Jolene followed.

“That’s quite alright, Alistair. Jarrett and I’ll see Zahrah back to the barn.” Nessa said as the doors pushed open a fourth time. Good, I wouldn’t want to see anything happen to Zahrah, and I’m not sure I trust Alistair any further than I can throw him. Especially not after what he did to Tate. Victoria thought. Not that anyone had asked her. But still it was always good to have one’s personal approval met.

Alistair followed a moment later, a snarl on his face. Lastly Wesley and Fox, followed by Tiffany, and Lock.

“If you’ll wait a moment, Lady Victoria, for me to say good night to Dolph and Lady Heidi I’ll walk you home.” Camden said, twisting his hand nervously. Victoria smiled and nodded.

The walk back was more quiet than talk, but pleasant still. And then they were back at the house with the familiar lanterns and the scarecrow watching lecherously over the crops. Maybe it was just her but that scarecrow was creepy.

“Thank you, Sir Camden.” Victoria tried to curtsy, not that it worked worth anything, but she tried. Camden nodded then raised his hand, tucking it under her chin and lifting it.

“Go to Raquel’s wedding?” Heidi asked, sounding horrified.

“No, dress me all up.” Peyton said as Heidi reached for a brush.

“Don’t you want to look pretty?”

“Beauty, goes the old cliché, is in the eye of the beholder.” Peyton shrugged philosophically. “Besides, this is more or less a lie.”

“A lie?” Jolene couldn’t see Heidi’s face, as she was standing behind her, but she would have laid money that the redhead was looking puzzled.

“I don’t really look like this, Heidi. Whatever you’re doing to my face. I don’t have those eyelashes, my lips aren’t that color, my eyelids don’t shimmer. I mean I know that part of why we’re here in Shadowcrest is basically as Magic Order Brides,” Jolene choked back a chuckle with a smirk. That, she guessed, was one way to put it. But Peyton was still talking. “I mean, we are here as the female half of the baby-making machine to restore the country. But the thing is even if this will help me attract one of those guys, it’s an illusion. He’s gonna wake up the morning after the wedding and my bust is going to be back to the size it was before I hoisted it with underwire and padded it to make it more impressive. My eyes and lips and all will be back to normal. That’s the woman he’s going to wake up next to for the rest of his natural life. Not this one.” She gestured at her face, then sighed and looked down at her bare fingernails.

“What?” Heidi asked. “Do you want me to paint your nails before we go?”

“No, I always chew fingernail polish off. I don’t chew my nails, except when there’s polish on them. No, I just had the sad realization that I’m gonna end up marrying Alistair. He’s not going to think any of our pedigrees are good enough for his, so he’ll wait until the rest of you are married off and then Lachlan’ll order him to marry me cause I’ll be the cheese, standing alone.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that.” Jolene just had to interject. “The king would no more order you to marry Alistair than he would order Sir Wesley to marry Kennedy, for the same reason, you’d kill him. He’d make one backhanded comment at you and he’ll spend the rest of his life eating soup cause he won’t have any teeth left.”

Heidi turned and tried to glare at Jolene. “Okay, maybe.” Peyton said. “But it still feels somewhat fake to do this just to attract a man.”

“We’re not doing it to attract a man,” Heidi said. “We’re doing it so you look and feel pretty.”

“I can live without pretty. How bout comfortable?” Peyton murmured.

“Hold still so I can get your eyeliner on and comfortable is not a style.” Heidi said. “My mother used to say that to me and now I’ll say it to you.” At that point Jolene shook her head and went upstairs to see how Raquel was doing.

Apparently, Jolene thought, seeing the girl’s shoes on the bed as she crested the stairs, not much better than she’d been doing all morning. Or for that matter, most of the week. She strangled down the feeling once again that she should be saying no. She’d been strangling down that feeling ever since Raquel had come home and had told them that Blake had proposed. Because even then Jolene had a feeling “Marry me” wasn’t “someday in the future when we’re both grown and ready for it.” It was “someday soon.”

Marriage seemed like an awfully big step, one, Jolene was sure, only slightly proceeded babies and Raquel was far too young for motherhood. Jolene hadn’t been sixteen in almost a decade and she barely thought she was ready for marriage and possible motherhood. Although she was fairly certain that, as Peyton had pointed out downstairs, it was what she was here for.

Kennedy, who–though she would never admit it–looked sorta like Belle from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in that dress with her hair like that, a very tan Belle, but Belle none-the-less and Tiffany–whose silver and ice blue dress had been chosen because it was “shiny” and Tiffany was a self-described magpie, sorta reminded Jolene of Cinderella’s dress, were pointedly not looking at the bride in her grape juice toned wedding dress.

“So how’s it going?” Jolene asked quietly, after Kennedy stopped laughing–a shade too loud and a shade too hearty to be one hundred percent from genuine mirth–at whatever Tiffany had said.

“Well,” Tiffany murmured. “She’s not crying anymore at least.”

“She isn’t ready for this.” Jolene said, looking over her shoulder at the slight girl on the bed.

“Probably not, but we’ve already tried to talk her out of it, and you know Lock’s stance on the whole thing.” Kennedy muttered.

“What do we do then?” Jolene asked.

“Hope that my lecture to Blake worked like it was supposed to.” Kennedy chuckled.

“What lecture?” Raquel asked, heaving herself onto her back.

“Oh, nothing.”

—

Agreeing with the logic behind the ceremony or not, it had been a very pretty one, Jolene thought, as she sat at one of the tables in the reception area of the church. And she cried, which was about par of the course. There had been this girl that Jolene had known back home, someone who worked at a Stop and Rob, that lived up to it’s name, getting held up often. The gas station was on Jolene’s patrol, who had gotten married to her sweetheart–Jolene used that term loosely–a couple years back. It had, Jolene had to admit, been about the most ghetto wedding ever–the priest having to pause every five or so minutes to let the groom shake out his leg and swear cause his home arrest bracelet kept shocking him, among other things. And she’d still cried at that wedding.

She was just that kind of girl.

At least Blake was the sort of man that it didn’t make you throw up a little to term him someone’s sweetheart. He would, Jolene knew, from the way he watched Raquel do his best for her, and that almost made her forget her misconceptions about the wedding. Almost.

Unfortunately, one of her tablemates, made her develop a whole new set of things to dread. For some genius had managed to sit her next to Sawyer–and if she found out that whomever had done it had done it on purpose…

He was a really sweet kid and when he grew up, he’d probably make some girl a good husband. Some girl more like Raquel, someone he could grow up with, mature with, go through all those little steps of becoming an adult and a man with. Some girl who was not her. As his hazel eyes sparkled with candle light and excitement she felt like the world’s biggest bitch, but he was too–too–Sawyer.

Like Romeo, he’d taken “love at first sight” to distressing extremes. And Jolene was determined to be his Rosaline, not his Juliet. He was too young for her. She had the better part of a decade on him, just like she had on Raquel. And he was so charming and oddly vulnerable that if she didn’t shoot him down and keep shooting him down, she’d ruin him. Because even in Shadowcrest she was all wrong for him and he would just have to trust that she knew better than he did.

And in this case, Jolene did.

Unfortunately there was another side effect that Jolene hadn’t expected of Sawyer’s infatuation… One that she could only hope the coming spring and rest of the women would cure. Everybody liked Sawyer, he was just sorta like a puppy. And while he so obviously only had eyes only for her–no one else was going to even think about it.

When there was some adorable girl, more his age, came along. Hopefully he would, like Romeo had upon seeing Juliet, forget all about her…

It was, with almost relief, at least on her part, that Gray suggested that Sawyer, who was on musician duty for the evening, start a song. Jolene wondered, as she went to grab herself another glass of wine, if it was tradition in Shadowcrest for the couple to share the first dance, as Blake and Raquel were the only ones to have moved to the open floor behind the buffet tables, or if it was something that Raquel had suggested.

She twirled the stem of the glasses in between her fingers and watched as Master and Mistress Carpenter took their turn about the floor. They were cute together. And here, quietly, in the privacy of her own head where Peyton couldn’t mock her for being a hypocrite, she thought they’d make very pretty babies together.

When that happened, hopefully in, like, five years or more.

Sawyer was, she thought, actually a very good musician. His fiddle swelled and soared and danced along with Raquel and Blake. Jolene found that she sort of lost herself in the music because somehow it was the middle of two songs later and she was still standing by the wine bottle, glass of wine in hand, and she was no longer alone as a spectator, nor were Blake and Raquel even on the floor anymore.

In one of the little alcoves set off to the side of the dance floor, sat Blake’s best friend, the blacksmith, Ren, was chatting with… Peyton? They even sorta matched. Ren’s doublet and half his hose were purple.

She was too far away to hear what Peyton was talking about, but Ren was watching her with an expression that either meant it was really interesting or something about her was. Jolene’d have to remember to tease her about that. Especially as just that morning she’d been sure that she was going to be marrying Alistair.

Granted, as Peyton was likely to point out, talking at one wedding was far from being the next one to get married, but it’d still be fun to tease her about. But it was seeing the other couple to occupy an alcove that twisted something inside of Jolene and killed all thoughts of teasing.

And the green eyed monster hadn’t even fully come into play when she wanted to kick  herself cause it was Heidi almost too sweet to be believed Heidi, who was nice to everyone. She turned away and downed her glass of wine, practically without tasting it. Which was a bad idea, she knew that as her knees seemed to quiver for a second.

She leaned against the edge of the table, not too far, even though it felt less like table set up on barrels (like they’d used at the Harvest Fair) and more like a real table they’d just stolen from some other purpose.

A few murmurs came from behind her and suddenly the last voice she wanted to be hearing right now when the wine was going to her head and she was wondering why her, was speaking her name.

“Is something wrong, my lady?” Sawyer asked.

“Uh, no. No.” She said in hasty reassurance.

“Oh.” He said, biting his bottom lip. She watched his mouth for a second and then shook her head abruptly, turning and walking away from him–except she found herself going in the wrong direction–toward the dance floor rather than toward the tables where she could sit down and get her head back.

Almost walking into Kennedy and Emanuel, who were for the moment not sniping. In fact seemed to be lost in each others’ eyes and arms. She stared for a moment at them, then for a moment at Jarrett who was playing something haunting on Sawyer’s fiddle.

“Lady Jolene?”

“It’s nothing, just the–nothing.” She shook her head. before glancing away. Then she found herself looking back in time to see him walking away, her hands, almost of their own accord, reaching out. I can’t.

Blake paused at the foot of the stairs, looking around the public room of the cottage. It was still hard to believe this was his. Being the third son of a merchant who was not known for a hardheaded practicality where the cashbox was concerned, Blake was pretty sure that there were more “to be paid later” notes in his father’s old ledger than there was actual notations of payment.

While he had always loved his father’s soft-hearted approach, he couldn’t bear to turn someone who needed something away just because they didn’t have the money right then, it had meant that Blake was set to have a lot of years of traveling to do before he would have a cozy little cottage like this one. And yet here he had one, it was all his, well it was all his for now. Soon-meaning depending on what progress could be made restoring the old chapel-he’d be sharing it.

Lady Tiffany had promised that no matter what state the old chapel was in, she could have it done by week’s end. No one had even thought about it. It had been abandoned after the priests had all died. Not that they didn’t pray, well, he didn’t know what King Lachlan or the nobles did. Nor, actually, what the ladies did. But Fox gathered them once a week and they prayed. It just wasn’t a formal thing. No sermons or speeches or preaching, just a man and the gods and whatever thoughts went between them.

It had remained abandoned all this time, mostly because no one really seemed to think about it, or why they might be needed it. But Blake couldn’t ask Raquel to marry him in the cottage. She deserved a real wedding, in the church. With all the pomp and circumstance that Shadowcrest could provide. Admittedly minimal as it might be.

He hadn’t intended to ask Raquel to marry him, not this winter, not so soon. He would have waited. Maybe he should have. But they’d been sitting on one of the hills outside of town, Shadowhaven’s walls at their backs, the light warm, even if the breeze hadn’t been. She’d shivered and he’d put an arm around her still-too-thin shoulders. She’d turned her face into his neck, and sighed. “What?” Blake had asked.

“I wish this could be like this forever.” She had admitted. And then, in a tumble of fumbled words that had made him wish that he had a silver tongue like Fox, he’d asked. And she’d smiled, one of those all-too-rare smiles that lit not just her face, but her eyes.

A knock came a moment later, startling him out of his reverie. “So, what are you up to?” Ren asked.

“Oh, just kinda rattling around the house. It’s still-what’s Raquel’s word-surreal? that it’s mine and even-odder that by this time next week, it’ll be-ours.” Blake pushed a hand through his hair, looking at the falling snow.

“Oh? What about the chapel?” Ren asked. Blake shrugged, which became an almost shiver. It was too cold for shirtsleeves out and of course he hadn’t grabbed his cloak from the coatrack.

“Would you like to come in?” Blake asked. “It might do a bit better to talk where it’s warm.”

“Aye. This is-different.” Ren hesitated in the door, looking around at the newly decorated cottage. Before, it had just been furniture really. Now it really wasn’t.

“Aye, Raquel and some of the other ladies came over the past couple of days. It is different.” Not that it looked bad, he didn’t think it looked bad at all, just it looked nothing like the cottage that he had grown up in, with it’s tapestries that had hung there for generations and the jumbled, slightly mismatched furniture. Nor like any of the other cottages he knew. It didn’t even really look like Lady Kennedy’s barn.

“Where did they get all this stuff?” Ren asked, sitting down on the sofa that Blake gestured to. Blake settled into the chair both of which were now padded with purple cushions and pillows.

“I didn’t ask, some of it was probably made, but I would assume some of it was procured with the King’s help.” Blake echoed the smith’s swallow. It was one thing to know that your king could do things that most men couldn’t, it was different to sit down on cushions that could have been created with magic. But, as he’d told himself probably fifty times today alone, the dye might have been magicked, but the fabric was most likely woven by Fox or maybe Lady Peyton or Raquel who had both gotten pretty good at weaving.

“Doesn’t it seem a bit-disrespectful-to ask the king to-to-to do something like that?” Ren asked.

“Well, to you and me, maybe, but perhaps not so much to Raquel-and definitely not to Lady Kennedy.” Ren chuckled. Raquel called Lady Kennedy a steamroller. Whatever that meant. She did, though, have a way of getting more or less exactly what she wanted. A second knock came at the door, startling Blake although Ren didn’t seem so surprised by it. The young carpenter’s eyes narrowed slightly but before he could stand, Fox had stuck his head in the door.

“May I?” The tailor asked, kicking the snow off his boots.

“Sure.” Blake said standing up. Fox looked around the cottage and said everything that Ren had said with one quirked eyebrow. Blake tried not to blush. Fox had a way of making Blake feel awkward and clumsy, like a lad rather than a man. Still his handshake was warm and hearty, and his smile genuine.

“It was Raquel’s idea.” Blake said with a blush. Rather than the sardonic grin Blake expected, Fox just nodded and sat down.

“I figured, she likes purple.” Blake nodded. He had no idea how he was going to keep her in purple fabric and dye, it was a bit beyond his or anyone he’d ever personally known’s pocketbooks, but he knew he wanted to, because Raquel liked purple.

Fox hadn’t even gotten settled on the sofa when another knock came at the door. Blake shot a suspicious look at his friends but answered the door anyway. Emanuel was standing on the small stoop, looking-well mostly cold. A lot colder than he should have been given his cottage was right next door. Then movement caught the corner of his eye and his jaw dropped a little.

At the foot of his stairs stood Jarrett. “What’s this all about?” Blake asked.

“Well, lad, we haven’t really got a tavern to take you out to, but you are gettin’ married this week an’ all. You didn’t really think we’d forget did you?” Jarrett said with a smile that while slightly shadowed was still warm.

“Come in, won’t you?” Blake asked, gesturing toward the house. As he shut up the door, he shook his head wryly. “You should have told me, I haven’t got anything for you except tea and soup.”

“We couldn’t tell you. That takes the fun out of it. Maybe it can’t be like it was, when there’d have been somewhere to go, something to do. But it’s always been a surprise, that part at least we could keep.” Ren said. Blake nodded, he had been just old enough to go to the tavern with Gregory when he’d been taken out before his wedding.

Everyone, straight down to Blake’s mother, had known what night they were going, but Gregory hadn’t.

“Lord Gray sent his-and the king’s-regrets, but between the weather and all, they figured it was probably better not to come all this way. Although he did send some ale.” Ren said with a grin.

“You invited the king?” Blake blinked.

“‘Tisn’t like it was with King Phillip.” Jarrett reminded him softly.

“Aye.” They all agreed. Emanuel passed around the bottles of ale, though Jarrett shook his head.

“I’m fine. An’ if I do need somethin’, I’ll be better off with that tea Blake’s got. Can’t be getting a head, I’ve still gotta be up to milk in the mornin’.”

Milking. Looking at Jarrett, Blake felt a wave of guilt wash over him. If anyone should have a warm snug cottage and all to be in, it should be Jarrett. He shouldn’t be living in a barn loft with the animals.

“Jarrett, do you need any help?” Blake asked, noticing that his weren’t the only eyes showing guilt.

“Lads.” The butcher laughed. “Sawyer an’ I manage jist fine, an’ if it’s too bad, we can usually nag M’lord to put in some help. We manage.” He repeated. “An’ the loft is jist fine too, I know you an’ Emanuel have space, Fox. But damned if the barn isn’t near as snug as these cottages, dunno how she did it. Sawyer says Lady Tiffany’s a wizard in her own right.”

“Still.” Fox said looking at his ale bottle.

“Aye, I’ve heard it all before. This wasn’t to be about how can we help poor ol’ Jarrett, you know. So you excited, lad? Nervous?”

“Kinda all of the above.” Blake admitted. Jarrett nodded in understanding.

“I-I remember feeling that way. It’ll pass, I think.” Shadows flickered over Jarrett’s face, settling in the other man’s dark eyes.

“So, do you know when the ceremony will be?”

“Lady Tiffany says she’ll have the chapel done by this weekend. An’ she’s never been wrong before.”

“How’s she getting that done anyway, have you been helping?” Ren asked.

“Not me.” Blake looked around at his friends all of whom shook their head. “Either Lady Kennedy bullied all the nobles into helping-0r…” Blake cut off and left it hanging.

“You never know, Lady Kennedy probably could bully all the nobles into helping.” Ren said with a nervous laugh.

“Aye, we had a talk about children the other day, Lady Kennedy and I.” Blake nodded. The other men looked at him mostly with puzzlement, except for Ren, who’d heard the story. “She told me that she didn’t care that here sixteen wasn’t too young to be having babies, nor that we were supposed to repopulating the country. I’d better respect Raquel’s wishes and-learn to keep it in my hose-I believe is what she said.”

“Keep what in your hose?” Fox asked. Blake blushed scarlet.

“You know, it.” As painfully embarrassing as it was to be talking about this with his friends it had been worse when he realized just what it was Lady Kennedy had been referring to. Women weren’t supposed to so casually refer to your manly bits. Understanding slowly crossed Fox’s face, along with horror. “And if I didn’t, she was going to break my legs, and if that didn’t work, she’d-er-do something worse.”

Jarrett chuckled as the other men cringed.

“And you like her.” Fox said, almost accusingly to Emanuel.

“Aye, so?” The apothecary shrugged. The conversation turned after that, perhaps because castration isn’t anything that most men really wish to linger on for very long. But all too soon Jarrett looked at the snow through the curtains.

“Well, lads, I’d probably be heading on home.” Jarrett said.

“I’ll walk with you.” Emanuel offered.

“Thank you, but ’tis a little out of your way. Considering it’s not even the right direction. Don’t worry, Emanuel, I can find my way home. Just follow the wall, really.” Jarrett dismissed. Blake warmly embraced the older man, thanking him again for coming, as he really hadn’t had to.

Fox was the next to leave, Emanuel right after him. As Blake saw them both off, with slightly less worry, as they only lived across the street and next door respectively, Ren put the dining chairs back and took his seat once more on the sofa.

“Thanks.” Blake said as he sat down himself.

“That’s what friends are for.” Ren told him.

“Aye. So when do you think I’ll be returning the favor.” Blake asked with a faith smile. Ren shrugged.

“I dunno.”

“Haven’t any of the ladies caught your fancy?”

“Not really, no.” Ren admitted. “But there’s only half here, you know.” Blake nodded in understanding. “Besides, I’d rather not be in Sawyer’s position. He is completely moonstruck.”

“Aye.” Blake agreed. He hoped that he wasn’t nearly that bad with Raquel, but even if he were Raquel didn’t seem to mind.

“Well, I ought to be off myself,” Ren said after a stretch. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”

“Aye, more than likely.” Blake said. After all if there was one thing the survivors of Shadowcrest knew, it was that life kept marching on.