Page 60 of Match Made In Growl

"I need a maid of honor," Steph said. "If you're interested."

Diana's hands stilled on the linen basket. Her eyes found Steph's, and for a moment the warm, determined innkeeper who managed a dozen guests and a historic property without breaking stride looked like a woman who'd just been handed something precious.

"I'd be honored," Diana said. "Truly."

"Good. Your primary job is to keep Twyla from adding a fireworks finale."

"I make no promises," Twyla said.

"No fireworks."

"Small fireworks? Tasteful ones?"

"Twyla."

"Fine. Sparklers. Final offer."

They spent the next hour at the table sketching out details on a napkin, which Twyla pointed out was technically a napkin swatch and therefore Steph had already broken her own rule. Diana contributed a list of practical considerations: chairs, lighting, weather contingency. Twyla contributed a vision that involved fairy lights strung between the oaks along the lakeside, music from the local fiddler who played at Maeve's on weekends, and a dessert table instead of a cake because, as she put it, "nobody actually likes wedding cake, they just eat it because it's there."

When they reached the processional, Twyla pulled out a small notebook she'd apparently had ready in her apron pocket for exactly this purpose. "Who's walking you down the aisle?"

"Nobody."

Twyla's pen paused. Diana looked up from the chair logistics.

"I'm walking myself," Steph said. The words came out easy, lighter than she'd expected. "I'm not being given away. I'm showing up because I want to. My own feet, my own choice."

Diana smiled. "That's perfect."

"It's very you," Twyla agreed, writing it down. "Processional: bride walks solo. I love it."

"Also, no 'Here Comes the Bride.' Play something with a fiddle."

"Done."

Steph leaned back in her chair and looked through the café window at Hollow Oak's main square. The repaired cobblestones were lighter than the originals, new stone filling old gaps. The fountain was still slightly crooked, but someone had planted flowers at its base, bright clusters of color that softened the damage. People moved through the square on their morning errands, nodding at neighbors, stopping to talk, carrying on the daily business of a town that had survived a buried truth and was learning to carry it in the open.

She'd come here to dig. To uncover something old and significant and prove that her work mattered beyond academic journals that nobody read. She'd found all of that. But she'd also found a man who'd learned to stay, a town that had let her belong, and the startling discovery that permanence didn't have to mean loss.

It could mean roots. The kind that held you steady while you kept reaching.

"Steph?" Twyla's voice pulled her back. "You okay?"

"Yeah." She picked up her coffee and took a sip. Still warm. "I'm really good, actually."

Twyla and Diana exchanged a shared look.

"Moonmirror Lake," Twyla said, tapping her notebook. "Sunset. Fiddle music. Sparklers. Dessert table. Bride walks herself down the aisle." Twyla closed the notebook and looked up. "Leave everything to me."

Steph finished her coffee, gathered her field pack, and headed for the door. She had inscriptions to translate and a chamber full of history waiting for her steady hands.

She made it as far as the trailhead before she stopped walking.

The dig could wait. For once in her life, the dig could wait.

She thought about Criss back at the cabin, probably just getting his day started. Possibly in the shower. Heat pooled low in her gut at the image of her future husband, naked, with no one to help him get clean.

Steph turned left instead of right. Her pace quickened, and somewhere between the square and the western trail, her walk picked up something close to a skip.