Page 19

I still could not believe that I was married and pregnant.

Watching Wilder I realized how far he had come as well. There was no hoodie today. No turned shoulder, no careful angle. The scar was right out there in the afternoon light, and somewhere in the last twelve months the people of Lone Mountain had mostly stopped staring at it and started acknowledging the man.

Grimm, wearing an orange bandana and a look of deep, dignified suffering, leaned his full weight against my leg. Ever since my second month, he’d taken to resting his enormous head against my belly whenever I sat, eyes closed, as if he were listening for the baby’s heartbeat.

We’d been married at the courthouse. We’d expected a simple ceremony, just the two of us and two strangers as our witnesses. June had other ideas. She’d somehow gotten word out that we were getting married and the small room had been overflowing.

They had not come to gawk. They had come to support him. Several families he had helped brought gifts and more than a few words of thanks. I guess getting married made the Ghost of Lone Mountain more approachable.

Madame Zelda drifted by near dusk, scarf trailing, bangles announcing her before she even arrived. She paused in front of the booth with a smile. “Another reading?”

“I’m good, Darlene.” I patted my extended stomach. “I already know how this one turns out.”

“Do you?” She drew three cards from her pocket and laid them face down on the table, between the soap and the ornaments. “Last year I only turned over one card for you before you left.”

That was true. Once she’d said the words, tall, dark and troubled, I’d left. That had been too dramatic for me to believe in anything.

“Everyone looks at the Moon,” Darlene said, flipping over the same card she had last year. “Nobody asks what’s sitting beside it.” She flipped the second card. A blazing gold sun, with a face. I swore the baby kicked. She flipped over the third card. Same sun, same face. Another kick.

I looked from one to the other. “Darlene, your deck has a misprint. There aren’t two suns.”

“This was a new deck of cards,” she reminded me serenely. “I opened them just for you. Do you really think that mistake didn’t happen for a reason?”

Her gaze landed over my shoulder where Wilder had walked up behind me. “And you never told her what I said to you in my tent, did you?”

Wilder had gone very still.

“Not yet,” he said.

“Good. Keep it until it’s true.” She smiled at me. “I won’t spoil the surprise.”

She moved off into the crowd, and I turned around. “What did she tell you?”

“I’ll tell you when she’s right.”

“She’s always right. It’s incredibly annoying.”

His hand found my belly the way it did a dozen times a day now, like he still couldn’t quite believe he got to. He kissed the top of my head. “I think she inhales too much cinnamon this time of year.”

That made me laugh, and Grimm bark. “Whatever she meant, she was smiling, so it can’t be anything bad.”

“No,” Wilder agreed. “But I don’t need a fortune teller to tell me that.”

After the vendor part of the festival was over, we headed back to my shop because Wilder insisted I needed to lie down before we went back. I had a craving for a caramel apple and wanted to go on a hayride. Wilder took the alley without asking. He always did. A year later, he still walked it first, every time, eyes sweeping the dark.

Halfway down, Grimm stopped. His head came up. Ahead of us, a dumpster lid lay knocked askew, a dark smear ran along the brick, and claw marks scored the wall.

Wilder’s arm came across me. Not hard. Just there. “Don’t walk back here alone at night,” he said, low, repeating the very first words he had ever said to me.

“I haven’t walked anywhere alone in a year.” I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “You’re going to say that to me when I’m eighty.”

“Yes.”

At the far end of the alley, unhurried and enormous, a shape ambled through the light from the street and into the trees behind the hardware store. It didn’t so much as glance at us. Grimm growled, putting himself between me and the bear, just as Wilder had.

“Grimm,” Wilder said. “Hold.”

Grimm held while we watched until the bear was out of sight.