Page 54 of A Fae’s Guide to Tactical Botany

“Tell that to your mom!” Javi yelled.

“Dammit.” Ethan kissed Mara on the cheek. “Seems pretty silly at this point.”

“Your family loves you,” Mara said gently. “And this is important to them.”

“And to you?” Ethan squeezed tighter.

“Yes.”

“Double dammit.” He gave her one last squeeze and stepped away. “Okay. I’ll see you when you walk down the aisle. Thank god it’s a short one.”

“Have I mentioned that you talk too much?” She turned to face him, reluctant to let him leave, even for the moment. This was their day, after all.

He grinned. “Maybe you should shut me up.”

She stepped forward and kissed him. Someone in the yard whooped—possibly Javi, possibly another of Ethan’s friends. Not that his friends were the only ones in attendance, but hers were quieter…and less prudish. They would not have blinked if she and her new husband had chosen to consummate the marriage up against the Jeep that very moment.

“Go.” she finally told him, sighing as she walked in the other direction, to the tent set up for the bridal party. Which was a small one—just Ofelia and Ethan’s sister as her attendants, and of course Ethan’s mother and her own. If her mother remembered to come to the tent, or to the ceremony. She was much more interested in Mara’s apiary and the vast garden she’d created to support it.

It was not supposed to be an elaborate wedding. Just a gathering of friends and family in their back yard. Practically a camping trip.

She had underestimated the camping might of a medieval recreation society. They had shown up that morning with tents and banners, tables and benches and even a pair of thrones, and even now they were gathered under a huge pavilion as if awaiting the court of a king and queen.

(“They’re here, too,” Ethan had told her when she’d remarked on it. “I’ll introduce you later.” She was unaware that the United States had adopted a monarchy, but to be fair, she had been gone for five years.)

When she and Ethan had finally returned to the city, they had faced a quandary. He had a new lease on a small apartment with a tiny back yard, close to the university and, since he had yet to live in it, spotlessly clean. She had the home she and Tristan had lived in, which was larger inside and out, but also held the weight of their memories together. It also held five years of accumulated dust.

Neither felt right.

And so they’d compromised, living in Ethan’s apartment during the week and spending the weekends clearing Mara’s home of dust while they searched for a place that was not his or hers but theirs.

They’d found it in an old home out to the west of the city, one that sat on several acres of pristine desert, with a good-sized main building, a small barn, and an overgrowth of prickly pear and cholla that made them both nostalgic.

Well, the cholla slightly less so. Ethan might have had a few choice words when a stem had lodged itself just where his armor wasn’t on their first tour of the property. But Mara had given the cholla a good talking-to, and it had kept its stems to itself the next time.

The barn had started as a gardening shed for Ethan, a place where he could expand on the research that had finally brought him the tenure he’d sought, but shortly after they’d moved in, Mara had been visited by an old friend. Or the daughter of one, at least. The queen of the hive she had known in the hills to the east had sent her daughter-queen out into the world, and she had needed a safe place for her nascent swarm to settle.

Mara had at first offered the queen a place in the rafters, but when Ethan had pointed out the dangers of falling honeycomb, she had instead made inquiries and ordered a set of “flow hives” that allowed her to collect honey without unduly disturbing the bees. Not that they minded her visits, of course, but she preferred to be kind. Now the bees buzzed safely just past the barn and the barn itself had found a new purpose.

She used it to brew mead.

She did not sell it, of course—they did not need the money, and both she and Ethan preferred to drink it themselves, or to share it with their friends. And of course they had only the one colony of bees in her apiary.

So far.

As for the rest of their land, some of it was Mara’s for her spirit, and some Ethan’s for his research—which, of course, was for his spirit. They let it grow largely untended, other than the parts closest to their house.

There was one small patch in front of the barn that they both tended assiduously, just a few desert plants that seemed like any other. Only Mara and Ethan knew its true purpose.

Mara glanced at the clock her new mother-in-law had set on the table with her veil. It was almost time now, but she had a few minutes to spare.

She left the tent and hurried to the small, special garden.

Ethan had insisted they place a bench there—nothing elaborate, just a simple piece of wrought iron. She blessed his thoughtfulness now. She could make a seat of the earth, of course, but she was wearing a dress of white silk, and the ground was still damp from the last watering.

With a sigh, she sat and reached out to the nearest prickly pear, calling for it to bloom.

“Thank you,” she said softly.