Page 49 of Accidentally Wedded to a Werewolf (Claw Haven #1)

Warm sand between her toes. The sun shining on her bare stomach. Exotic food available at all hours, with drinks waiting at the bar.

It was the kind of day Luna would’ve given anything for two months ago.

Now it felt…empty. Her old college friends were down below, playing volleyball on the long patch of sand that would host her wedding tomorrow afternoon.

Luna had given her wedding planner a reasonably sized portfolio and told her to go nuts, but she’d still had to sign off on the final decisions.

This time tomorrow, the sand would be filled with tasteful yet sturdy white chairs.

There would be an archway covered in lace and real flowers, though Luna could no longer remember what kind.

Nor could she remember what they were serving, since it had been such a hassle getting everyone’s dietary requirements that she just told the chef to go nuts, too.

As long as everybody has a good time, Luna had said, then I’m happy.

It was still true. Sort of. But there was still that emptiness as she watched her old college friends giggle and throw a ball around, sleek and picture-perfect in their stylish bikinis.

Clancy fell into the deck chair beside her. “Loser sitting all by herself says what?”

“What? Oh, screw you.” Luna leaned over and shoved him. Clancy snorted, feigning falling off the deck chair before settling back into place.

“Seriously,” Clancy said, with the irony-soaked tone of a boy who had never been serious in his life.

“What are you doing? Hec’s over there. Your friends are down there.

The bar’s back there. And you’re over here, all weird and sad.

It’s the night before your wedding, you should be doing…

I don’t know. Something. Not sitting on the balcony staring out at the ocean like you’re waiting for your long-lost love. ”

Luna laughed. It came out much more bitter than she’d intended. She twisted her engagement ring, working it up and down over the cut Oliver had given her. She couldn’t stop fidgeting with it. At this rate, she was going to open it back up.

Clancy looked nervous. He gave her a hopeful nudge. “Go on and play some volleyball. Everyone flew to Bali to see you.”

“Everyone flew to Bali to have a party,” Luna replied.

Clancy frowned. “What are you talking about?”

The old Luna would’ve pulled up a smile.

Would’ve said Sure, I’ll play some volleyball.

Then she would’ve gotten a drink and made a game out of keeping it in her hand while she played until she inevitably dropped it or had it smacked out of her hand, and she would have made it fun.

Even if she wasn’t having fun when she started, she would’ve kept at it until it was. Fake it ’til you make it, right?

“I don’t know those girls,” she admitted.

“I know a bookseller in Alaska more than I know any of them. I never asked about their lives, you know? All through college, even after college, I was just…fun times. Any hard topic was solved with a subject change and a Jell-O shot. Then with a margarita and—I don’t know—flotation therapy or a seaweed mask. ”

She pointed at the girls piling on each other after too many dove for the ball at once. They were laughing, clinging to each other.

“They’re close. I’m just the friend you heart-react to but never talk to. They only came here for a fun party with the fun party girl.”

“And you paid for their flights,” Clancy added.

Luna smacked him in the arm.

“Ow,” Clancy said. “Um, wow. We were kinda hoping you’d go back to normal before the wedding.”

“And what if I don’t want to?”

“Uh…” Clancy twisted to look behind them.

Their parents were sitting under a sun umbrella with Hector, who was holding up a strangely shaped olive for them to examine.

Dad was nodding, scratching at his chest. He was still in his sleepshirt, a too-big T-shirt with the Stack’s Appliances logo on the front.

“Then you’re going to be a real bummer of a bride,” Clancy said, turning back toward her. “Seriously, what was so good about Claw Haven that it’s got you like this?”

Luna lay back in her chair. The evening sun was warm on her skin, her college friends shrieked with laughter down below, and her parents chuckled with her fiancé not far away.

And she was longing for a tiny town in Nowhere, Alaska.

A town with a terrible cell connection and spotty data service even after she changed providers—where everybody knew each other’s business and there wasn’t a single spa, frozen yogurt place, or even a mall.

She missed it. She ached for it down to her bones.

“It was…intimate,” she said, grimacing even as she said it. “I don’t know; don’t make that face. People were so down-to-earth. They cared about stuff.”

“We care about stuff,” Clancy protested.

Luna ignored him. “And they talked about what was going on with them! Even if you had to pry it out of some of them first.”

He made a face. “Since when do you pry?”

Luna didn’t answer. She was too busy thinking about Oliver’s scowl finally softening.

Of him watching his family bicker at the dinner table, unable to hold back a fond smirk.

He’d kissed her forehead sometimes when he thought she was asleep.

He had such a big heart. She’d felt it pressed against hers, late at night.

Beating in perfect unison with hers. Warming her up in ways she’d never felt before or since.

She sat up and rummaged underneath her deck chair.

Clancy groaned as she pulled out the laptop she had hidden in a blanket. “Come on, Lu.”

“I’m just checking in,” Luna said. “It’s my wedding day tomorrow, so you have to let me do what I want.”

She clicked on her emails. She had a few more from potential sponsors interested in the buzz she’d been making about the town, but she ignored them to click on the pottery store’s latest email.

She beamed. “Oh yay, the plushies arrived! We were so worried. And they’re going to do a face painting stall!”

A voice boomed across the deck: “There’s that big smile!”

Luna looked up.

Hector was padding toward her, biting that weird olive and tossing the toothpick back into his drink. “What’s my girl smiling about, huh?”

He leaned down, kissing her cheek. Luna tried and failed to not think about Oliver’s hot arms wrapping around her, his nose brushing hers, and his eyes, which were so dark as he murmured, You smell like mine.

“Paint,” Luna said, pushing the laptop screen down.

Too late. Hector zeroed in on it and sighed. “Okay. I see emails.”

“Wait!” Luna grabbed for it, but Hector was too fast, tossing her laptop back onto the blanket under the chair. “Come on! It’s my prewedding day! You’re supposed to let me do whatever I want!”

“And you’re supposed to want to have fun,” he said with an incredulous look. He turned toward the others, raising his arms. “Who wants the bride to put away the emails and have a good time tonight?”

Her friends jumped up and down on the sand, whooping. Her parents let out a half-hearted whoop from their table.

Hector dragged her arm over her head, pulling a twirl out of her. “Live a little, babe. You deserve some fun after the last few months of being stuck in that town.”

Luna stilled. He tugged her arm, trying to get her to complete the twirl.

He still had that hopeful smile, like he was waiting for her to giggle and pose.

For her to roll her eyes fondly and kiss him and run into the sand, her worries forgotten.

He still didn’t fully believe that she’d had a good time in Claw Haven.

He believed she’d had good sex, sure. But she could see the disbelief in his eyes every time she told him how nice it was to do something for the town, even with all the annoying admin work she’d had to learn on the fly.

He couldn’t believe the nosy townsfolk had grown on her.

He nodded blankly and waited for her to bounce back to her old self, ready to party and go on vacations and remodel the house to her heart’s content, never delving deeper.

She ripped her hand out of his grip. “I don’t just want fun,” she hissed. “I want to do something; I want to do something! Ideally, something that actually matters! I can’t live like this, party after party and nothing under the surface!”

Hector wavered. Trying to smile, even as he shrank back against her vicious tone. She didn’t do vicious with him. Just light, breezy fun. He’d only seen her like this a few times, and he’d retreated from her every time.

“I think someone needs a mai tai,” he said, turning toward the bar.

She grabbed his shirt, jerking him back to face her. “I don’t want a mai tai! And I—and I don’t…” She lowered her voice. The others were staring, but they didn’t need a full-volume blow-by-blow of what was about to happen. “I don’t want to be with a guy who only wants fun and nothing else.”

Hector stared at her. His smile shrank, ticking at the edges. Still hopeful that she was joking.

She slid her engagement ring off and pushed it into his hand. He took it, numb and automatic.

“I’m sorry,” Luna whispered and stepped past him. She could hear the girls muttering down on the beach, her parents whispering at the table behind their drinks.

“Whoa,” Hector said, shoving in front of her. He was still holding the ring. “Wait, you’re serious?”

Luna badly wanted to shoot him a one-liner and flounce off. But she and Hector had been the perfect couple for a long time. She couldn’t leave him like this.

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “I just… I need to go.”

“To Claw Haven,” Hector said disbelievingly. “You seriously want to go back there?”

“I’m sorry,” Luna repeated. “I wish I could go back to normal, but I can’t. I really can’t.”

She stepped around him. There had been a second back at the mud pool that felt chillingly like closing a door, but she hadn’t walked through it. Now she was full speed ahead.

“Hey,” her dad called behind her. “Hey!”

Luna sighed. She paused and turned back to face her dad, who had gotten up from his seat to chase her.

“What are you doing?” Dad asked. “You can’t— This isn’t— Your wedding is tomorrow.”

“Throw a party instead,” Luna said icily. “We’re good at that.”

Dad scoffed. “You’re actually leaving? Don’t tell me you’re going back to that nothing town; they’re using you for your money! You won’t see a cent from me if you leave, then where will you be?”

Luna laughed back at him so loud that he jumped.

“I’m going to be fine, Dad! Wanna know a secret?

I’ve been working for years! That logo on your shirt?

I designed that, and everyone at work loves it.

I’m good at what I do. And I want to do it there.

In Claw Haven, where people care about each other! I don’t know if the Musgroves—”

She stopped, pain fluttering through her chest as she thought about those last hugs in the common room. Then her goodbye to Oliver. The way he’d looked at her, right at the end. Like he’d been trying so hard to shut down, to not feel anything, and failing miserably.

“I don’t know if they’ll want me back,” she managed. “But I have to try.”

She swallowed and looked up at the deck.

Mom gaping at the table, Clancy half risen from the deck chair and staring like she’d grown two heads.

Her old college friends whispered behind them.

Her dad’s face contorted in disbelief, fingers twisting in his own shirt.

Hector stood behind him, dazed, his eyes wet.

“I don’t understand,” Hector croaked. “We were—we were good!”

Luna sighed. Hector did have a heart, even if it was shallow.

“It’s not you,” she told him. “We really were a good match, once. I just… I want more than this.”

“Him,” Hector said weakly. “You want him.”

“Yeah,” Luna whispered. “Sorry, babe.”

She looked back at her dumbstruck family and fluttered her fingers. “Toodles.”

Then she ran out.