Page 86 of Reluctant Bride

I see it. I see all of it. That’s the whole problem with tonight.

Holt’s at the family table instead, jacket off, sleeves shoved up, arguing with Knox over something that’s got Mackenzie laughing hard enough to spill her wine. Off duty for one night. He’s earned it more than I have.

“You’re doing the thing,” Sage says, appearing at my elbow in a rust-colored sundress and her good boots, hair in a complicated braid down one shoulder, how she wears it when she’s decided a room doesn’t get her armor. “The scanning thing. Eyes doing laps around the lawn like you’re grading an evacuation drill.”

“I’m admiring the string lights.”

“You’ve looked at the string lights zero times. You’ve looked at every path and gate four times.” She loops her arm through mine, loose and easy, ignoring the dozens of relatives currently pretending not to watch us do it. “Stop working, Sullivan. It’s your own party.”

“It’s not a party. It’s a security exercise with a raw bar.”

“Then let the exercise run itself for one hour. You built the whole apparatus. Trust it.”

She’s right, and I hate that she’s right, and I love her enough right now that hating it barely registers. I make myself look at her instead of the tree line. Rust-colored sundress, whiskey brown eyes gone dark in the low light, that sapphire catching every bulb overhead like it was cut for this evening. I let my hand settle low on her back, right where the thin fabric dips at her spine, skin warm under my palm.

“You’re doing it again,” she says, quieter now, a different kind of doing it entirely.

“Doing what?”

“Looking at me like you’re trying to decide whether the party can survive you leaving early.” Her breath catches when my thumb drags once along her spine. “Which color did you land on?”

“Excuse me?”

“The lace. You’ve been staring at my back for a full minute like you’re solving for it.” Her mouth curves, wicked, and she couldn’t care less about the guests two tables over who are absolutely watching. “Guess wrong and I’ll let you find out the hard way later.”

My cock stirs behind my jeans before I can talk myself out of it, thick and heavy just from the dare in her voice, and I force my eyes back up to her face before half this dinner gets an eyeful of exactly what she does to me.

“Purple,” I say. “To match your mood when you’re about to win an argument.”

“Cheating. You’ve been looking in my dresser.”

“I’m your husband. Isn’t that allowed?”

“Absolutely not! Some secrets are worth waiting for.” She gives me a sideways glance and pinches my ass.

“One hour,” I say. “I’ll enjoy this party, then I go back to being insufferable.”

“You’re already insufferable. I’ve made my peace with it.”

Maren ruins the peace before it lasts a full minute, climbing up onto the bench seat with a fork and a wine glass in one hand, tapping it loud enough that half the lawn turns to look whether they want to or not.

“Nobody asked me to do this,” she announces, swaying only slightly, “which is why I’m doing it.”

“Maren.” Knox, already reaching for her elbow. “Get down.”

“I will not.” She holds her glass higher, out of his reach, and points it straight at Dawson and me. “I watched this man mope through two entire years of pretending he didn’t care whether a Blackwater lived or died. I have never once in my life seen anybody work that hard to be miserable on purpose. So forgive me if I want thirty seconds to say, out loud, in front of my family and the caterer, that I am unbelievably glad he finally stopped.”

“That’s not a toast, that’s an intervention,” Finn calls from three tables down.

“It’s both. I’m a woman of many talents.” Maren lifts her glass higher still, unbothered, eyes bright. “To Dawson, who took entirely too long. And to Sage, who’s apparently been patient enough for both of them. Cheers.”

The whole lawn drinks to it, laughing, and Sage’s hand finds mine, warm and steady, and I don’t bother pretending my throat isn’t tight for a second before Knox finally gets his wife back down off the bench.

Nell’s pie sits at the end of the dessert table like a dare, right next to a raw bar big enough to feed twice this crowd, and somehow both things look like they belong. My mother arranged it that way on purpose. Kathleen’s spent three weeks proving this family can throw money at a problem and still remember where it came from.

Erin finds us at our table later.

“Floor plan’s locked,” she says, tablet already out, scrolling through something with the same efficiency she brings to everything. “I want a second walk of the north hedge line before Saturday. There’s a gap in coverage where the caterers’ tent poles interrupt the sightline from the house.”