Page 68 of From the Edge

Regis looked around. “Do you have room for everything?”

Rowan grinned. “We do, and it makes all the room I need.”

“Oh, wow. I hadn’t considered it would work that way.”

Rowan got out white wine and vinegar along with mustard powder in yellow and brown. She put on a mask and began to mix the two powders together with turmeric and some salt. Then she began to add other spices and heat the mix gently.

Regis watched. “Is that how you do it?”

“Yes. If you want it stable, you need to add xanthan gum. This will do for one night.”

She checked her phone, and the cheesemonger had confirmed the order for delivery on Friday. She had a plan for it. “I am going to need a cheese shredder on Friday. I want to do some stuffed burgers.”

Mell held her hand up. “Me. Me!”

Eleanor smiled. “I will babysit.”

Regis laughed. “Anyone who could is going to be here to help. This is the least formal event we have participated in, and I think we might want to do it more frequently if that is okay with you. The enormous wall and promise of privacy is intoxicating. We are all going to be here, ears out.”

Rowan could see the excitement. She said, “The bathrooms are ready for duty. Septic tank was just drained, and the field is clear, so they can do their worst.”

Regis grinned. “I was going to ask. How many bathrooms are here?”

“Twenty near the ballroom with the food. Anyone who pisses in the woods gets hosed with their own contribution. I have facilities, use them.”

“Noted. Will you have this on a sign?”

“Absolutely. It will be glowing on every building and the path into the woods.”

She finished prepping the mustard and turned the heat down while checking on the barbeque sauce. Six more hours and it would be ready.

The ladies talked about the different contributions, and Rowan realized whatever wasn’t covered could be compensated for in less than thirty minutes.

When planning was over and decorations for the shower had been settled, the ladies left, and Rowan was holding the baby and waving his tiny hand to the ladies and Avor as they drove off, some preparing to return the following day to help with prep.

Eleanor looked at her and the baby sleeping on her shoulder. “That’s a good look for you, Rowan.”

“Yeah, but you have to have sex first, and I am opting out of that little ritual.” She stroked little Rowan’s head and kissed his forehead.

“But don’t you want children?”

“I can adopt. I can do IVF. Neither involves me pinned screaming on the ground.” She looked at her grandmother. She didn’t want to be that blunt, but her grandmother was single-minded.

Eleanor started crying silently.

“Grandmother, stop it. Like many things that are survived, I am changed by the events. In my case, the change will affect the family line. I have had treatment; I have had therapy. This is as far as I can go.”

Her grandfather walked up and held his wife. “She’s mourning a future she had dreamed for you. She always saw you with little ones, and now she is upset that her vision has changed. It hurts her.”

“Ah. I will leave you to comfort her. This little guy needs a diaper change.”

Little Rowan’s dad came by and took him away.

Rowan smiled. “He hasn’t let me change the little guy once.”

Her grandfather smiled. “He owes you. You took the pain and did not kill him; you delivered his child safely, and you kept his mate from being alone in the curse.”

“It was important.”