Page 24 of The Claiming of the Shrew (Fated Mountain Lodge #4)

The wedding took place on a gorgeous early autumn day after the lodge officially closed at Labor Day, and in reality went to its off-season all-shifter winter clientele.

The whole place was decorated. Leah knew that Joy, Bar, and the lodge staff had been working busily.

It was the lodge’s first big private event, and Leah was also aware that Bar was the one who had paid for it, but she was willing to let it slide, just this once.

Joy was glorious, as well as gloriously pregnant, as the matron of honor. She clutched a blue and white bouquet and occasionally used it to hide her face as she sniffled.

“Pregnancy hormones,” Joy moaned to Leah, helping with the final adjustments to Leah’s bodice and hair.

Leah wore a simple white dress with a train short enough not to tangle up in her crutches, and Joy had done her hair and makeup.

Leah’s hair, which she considered limp and unbecoming at the best of times, actually looked good; Joy had put it up in strings of white beads, and it was, if not exactly glamorous, then classy and tasteful.

So were the touches of makeup: a little coral lipstick, a dusting of blue-green eyeshadow.

She didn’t exactly look like someone else, but she supposed that she looked like a slightly classier version of herself.

Sam and his daughter were there. Leah was enjoying getting to know him.

Sam was more or less Fawkes’s opposite, a calm and reserved man in early middle age with silvering hair, the stable anchor of the business.

They were still working out details of how their three-way professional partnership might work, especially since Leah was also busy with the theater company, but Sam liked the idea of having another partner to share the workload with.

Leah had met Fawkes’s grandfather, who was a grumpy and plain-spoken working man who had barely said three words to her.

But it was clear to her that he and Fawkes adored each other, and she thought he seemed to like her; the two of them just needed to get used to each other.

He was unable to attend, but had made it clear that if the newly married couple would enjoy a laid-back honeymoon on the farm, they were welcome to come out for a week or so. Leah thought she might like that.

As she made the final adjustments, looking at herself in the mirror, she found herself assailed with an unexpected flurry of last-minute doubts.

Was this really what she wanted? She had changed her mind on a daily basis about what she wanted to do with her future for her entire life.

How could she make huge decisions like this?

Her heart felt like it was beating as rapidly as her shrew’s.

What if she changed her mind, what if she was wrong, what if, what if . ..

The music started.

And then she walked out into the garden, leaning on Bar’s arm with a crutch on her other side.

Fawkes was waiting for her, looking nervous and stunningly handsome in a suit under the balloon arch they had put up that morning.

Above him, the sky was cloud-flecked blue, the mountains and autumn-colored trees a stunning backdrop.

Joy had already started sniffling as she stood in her matron of honor spot by the arch, opposite Sam as best man on other side.

But all of it—her awareness of the scenery and the other people, as well as her uncertainty—fell away as Fawkes looked up and met Leah’s eyes.

For the first time in her life, everything felt right.

She was exactly where she was meant to be, doing what she was meant to do.

And whatever came of it, she had no doubts about this decision, none at all.

She walked forward on Bar’s arm as the music played—toward Fawkes, toward her future, toward the rest of her life. All her shrew had to say about it was a single, thrilled EEEEEEEEE !!

You and me both, Shrew , she thought as Fawkes took her hands in his and looked into her eyes and everything else ceased to matter. You and me both.