Chapter One – Rowan #2
I stop. Turn. And with her chin tipped up, I gently free the snag where her hair caught in the curve of her earring.
My fingers slide lower as I smooth the side back, not touching skin, but so close we both feel it.
The air thickens. She looks up, lips parted.
The world narrows to my breath and a strand of blond pinned behind her ear.
“Rowan.” She whispers my name like a secret.
“Yeah,” I answer, rougher than I mean to.
“OH MY GOD!”
My older sister Lila’s voice detonates like a champagne cork from the backyard. “You brought Ivy Quinn to my wedding?!”
And that—unsurprisingly—ends it.
Lila comes in hot, satin skirts swishing like she’s cutting water. I think about stepping between them for a half second. I don’t. Ivy straightens on her own, sunglasses slid back into place like she remembered she owns armor.
“You’re gorgeous,” Lila blurts, then clamps both of Ivy’s hands in hers like they’ve known each other since Girl Scouts. “I mean—hi—welcome—oh my God, I’m Lila, and I’m not usually like this, but today, I am absolutely like this.”
“Hi.” Ivy laughs, the tension around her eyes easing. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Lila breathes, and for once, there’s no follow-up plan spilling out of her. Just joy. “Eat. Drink. I can’t believe Crew invited you and didn’t tell me.” I don’t miss the way Ivy’s eyebrows shoot up toward the sky as her eyes dart over to mine.
Thankfully, Lila’s swept up by the maid of honor—Ashvi with the flower crown—before I can threaten to revoke speech privileges. The rest of the yard clocks Ivy in a ripple—heads lift, whispers bump, then everything smooths again. Coral Bell Cove is nosy but not cruel.
People go back to shepherding toddlers and topping off tea and arguing about the correct way to hang lights, giving Ivy a chance to breathe. Immediately, I swoop in.
“Okay?” I ask, low.
She tips her chin. “Okay.”
“Good.” I nod toward the drinks. “You want something?”
“In a minute.”
We move through the edges—shady side of the oaks, where the breeze threads cool fingers through shirts.
I keep half a step ahead, not to lead, just to clear space—an aunt here, a chair there.
She tracks like she’s used to slipping past cameras and elbows.
She’s also barefoot by the time we hit the grass, heels dangling from her fingers.
It shouldn’t be something I notice, yet I do anyway.
Bailey spots us first—dark hair in a scarf, sundress, brain like a switchboard operator. She’s the owner of our town bookstore and someone I look at like an additional sister.
“Ivy Quinn, as I live and breathe,” Bailey says, but she says it like the name is a person, not a product. “I’m Bailey. By the look of things, I nominate myself as your handler for the next ten minutes.”
Ivy huffs out a real laugh. “I could use one of those.”
“Great, because I’m bossy.” Bailey tucks herself at Ivy’s elbow and aims them toward the dessert table. “We’re going to start you with tartlets and end with strawberry cake because I believe in building trust.”
“Go,” I tell Ivy when she looks at me like she’s asking for permission she doesn’t need. “Bailey won’t let you trip over my family.”
“He’s right,” Bailey says. “I’m a menace, but good at shielding.”
They peel off together. Far enough to feel like they’re on their own, but close enough that my protective instincts are satisfied.
It takes all of thirty seconds for the air to soften around Ivy.
Bailey tells a story with her hands, causing Ivy to laugh with her whole mouth.
I find myself leaning against the porch post, arms folded, letting the sound run through the tight places I didn’t know I’d cinched shut.
Crew, my brother and quarterback for the Tennessee Stallions, finds me like a shadow. He’s got sunglasses pushed into his hair and a beer balanced in a way that says he’s thinking about nothing and also everything. That smug little brother grin’s in place, which means he’s bracing for sport.
“You look nice,” he says.
“Don’t,” I warn.
He follows my line of sight. “Huh.”
“Don’t,” I repeat.
“I didn’t get word from her agent that she was coming,” he says, and for once it sounds true. “Thought she was out in California.”
“She ran off the road on her way to find you.” I keep my voice flat as a pasture .
“Of course she did.” He takes a swallow. “You okay? Did she say what she wanted? Never thought I’d see her out this way. Not really her kind of atmosphere.”
“You can ask her yourself, Crew. I’m not her messenger. And why wouldn’t I be okay?”
Crew shrugs. “Because you rescue damsels like it’s muscle memory and then glower at them for needing help.”
“I didn’t glower.”
“You did your version of glowering,” he says.
“The quiet kind—all jaw, no volume.” I drag a hand over my jaw and aim my eyes anywhere but him.
Bailey has already crowned Ivy with a flower ring, like she’s part of the decor and also the point of it.
Ivy tilts her head, and the flowers tilt with her, summer sitting easy on her shoulders for the first time all afternoon.
Crew knocks his knuckles against my arm. “You want me to—”
“No.” The word comes out sharper than I intended. I smooth it. “Eat. Be present. It’s Lila’s day.”
He studies me for a beat. Then, surprisingly, he nods. “Yeah. It is.” He peels off toward the groomsmen like a man who knows better than to light a match in a dry field.
The backyard swells and settles with the ceremony.
The someone’s-uncle string band finds its key, the officiant wipes his glasses, and the kids line up like feral ducklings.
Ivy ends up three chairs away because Bailey puts her there, and I take an aisle spot because I always do.
The vows are honest and a little messy—good ones always are.
Lila cries at her own words, Dean kisses her knuckles like he rehearsed, and when the sun drifts under a ribbon of cloud, the whole yard exhales like God dimmed the world for a second to let us see better.
Applause snaps and spills. The band slides into something porch-slow.
I’m pinned by handshakes for a minute—neighbors, vendors, and a cousin who thinks I should buy a boat.
When I find Ivy again, she’s crouched to kid level, listening to a preschooler talk about dinosaurs like it’s a TED Talk.
She says “no way” with perfect gravity when he reveals a fun fact about T.
rex arms, then taps the brim of his tiny paper crown and sends him strutting back across the grass like she knighted him.
I don’t want to notice any of that, yet I do.
Bailey steers Ivy back toward me with two champagne flutes. “Hydration,” she says, shoving one at Ivy. “Supervision,” she adds, handing me the other with a knowing look. “I’m going to track down Aunt Andrea before she redecorates the cake with her opinions.”
“Godspeed,” I say.
“She’s a menace,” Ivy murmurs, watching Bailey go with fondness that sounds like it surprises her.
“An effective one.” I offer my flute. She clinks without making a ceremony out of it.
We drink. The bubbles are ridiculous and perfect. For a moment, we stand shoulder to shoulder in a pocket of quiet no one else uses.
“So.” Ivy looks over the yard, then at me. “I’m intruding.”
“You’re here,” I correct.
“Uninvited.”
“My sister and her now husband claim most of the county. You count by default.”
She tips her head. “That sounds like logic you made up just now.”
“It is.” I let my mouth twitch. “Still true.”
Her smile is small and dangerous. “Thank you. For not making this weirder.”
I take the opening. “Do you want this to be weirder?”
“No,” she says quickly. Then she repeats a softer, “No.”
“Good.” I nod at the barn. “Avoid the group of older women currently surrounding the dessert table unless you want to be adopted by Ethel Mae.”
She mimics my nod like it’s a language lesson. “Beware of Ethel Mae.”
“Exactly.”
We drift to the edge of the porch when the inevitable line dance tries to organize itself without music.
She watches, amused and unthreatened, bare toes pressing crescents into the cool painted wood.
Close-up, the flower crown is listing like a boat; a strand of blond escapes, tracing the same path I smoothed earlier.
I reach to fix it before I think better of it, then my hand closes on the railing instead.
I’m not doing that in front of half the county.
“Why Coral Bell Cove?” I ask.
She takes a slow sip, eyes on the yard. “Returning something to Crew. Getting away from something else.”
“That jacket.”
She doesn’t flinch. “Yeah.”
“You want me to get him?”
Her gaze flicks to me. “I don’t know yet.”
I respect that. “Alright.”
We watch a while longer—Lila in Dean’s arms, his hands bracketed at her waist like he found the exact place she’s anchored.
The light warms, then leans; the band slips into a waltz that half the town fakes.
Ivy’s shoulders soften in increments I can track.
Her mouth keeps finding the same almost smile, like she’s remembering how.
By the time the cake is cut and the kids have weaponized frosting, the margin between noise and night shrinks. The cooler air pulls people toward shawls and porch steps. I find the swing empty and tip my head toward it. “You want quiet.”
“Please,” she says with relief, and I give her the corner without making a thing of it.
The swing creaks as we set an easy rock. From here, you can see the silhouettes of the oaks against the bruising sky, the barn glow, the slow orbit of lightning bugs like somebody tossed glitter and it learned to breathe.
We sit in the kind of pause that tells on you. If you panic, it’s awkward. If you trust it, it’s peace.
“You’ve got a place to stay?” I ask because this is where responsibility lives, and I know for a fact the one inn with a vacancy sign tonight is lying.
She exhales. “No hotel will be thrilled about me showing up. I’m trying not to ruin things for… anyone.”