Chapter 9
Marigold stood in front of her closet, hands on her hips, glaring at the contents like they'd personally offended her.
*It's just a dance lesson,* she told herself for the fourteenth time. *Not a date. Not a… whatever yesterday was. Just two co-chairs practicing for an event*.
The floral sundress hanging on the closet door called her a liar.
She'd pulled it out twenty minutes ago, considered it, rejected it, hung it back up, then pulled it out again.
The fabric was soft and flowing, the kind that moved beautifully when she walked—or danced, presumably—with tiny wildflowers printed across a sage green background that Lila had once said brought out her eyes.
*Too much,* she decided. *It looks like I'm trying.*
She shoved it back into the closet and reached for her usual work clothes instead. A simple white cotton blouse. Straight-legged black pants. Her most boring cardigan. Practical flats that she could flee in if necessary.
The mirror reflected someone who looked like she was headed to a very casual funeral.
"Oh, for—" She yanked off the cardigan and threw it on the bed.
This was ridiculous. She was ridiculous.
She was a grown woman who ran her own business and managed difficult suppliers and had survived twenty-six years on this planet without spontaneously combusting from embarrassment.
She could handle one dance lesson with one unfairly attractive satyr without turning into a complete disaster.
*Probably.*
The sundress caught her eye again.
*Fine.*
She pulled it on before she could talk herself out of it, then immediately felt foolish. The neckline dipped lower than she remembered, and the way the fabric cinched at her waist felt… deliberate. Like she was advertising something.
*You're advertising that you own a nice dress,* she told herself firmly. *That's all. People wear nice dresses. It's normal.*
She grabbed a thin cardigan—not the boring one, a prettier crocheted one in soft cream—and headed downstairs before she could change her mind again.
The shop was quiet this time of evening.
She'd closed an hour ago, but the scent of flowers still hung in the air—roses and lilies and the bright green smell of fresh-cut stems. It was her favorite part of owning the place, honestly.
The way the fragrance clung to everything.
The way she could never quite wash it off her hands.
Her mother had hated that. *You always smell like a greenhouse, darling,* she'd said, wrinkling her pert little nose. *Don't you ever want to smell a little more… feminine?*
She had bitten back the response that rose to her lips—*I don't know, Mom, what does feminine smell like? Chanel No. 5 and bad decisions?*—and changed the subject instead.
She was good at that. Changing the subject. Smoothing things over. Making herself smaller and quieter and less likely to provoke the kind of scenes her mother thrived on.
*Stop thinking about her,* she ordered herself, grabbing her keys from the hook by the door. She's not here. *She can't ruin this.*
Whatever "this" is.
The evening air hit her as she stepped outside—warm and soft, carrying the distant sound of someone's wind chimes and the smell of charcoal from a backyard barbecue.
Harmony Glen felt almost dreamy at this hour, the light going golden and hazy, the shadows starting to lengthen between the old Victorian houses that lined Main Street.
She locked the shop door and started walking.
She could have driven, but the vineyard was a good twenty minutes on foot and she needed the time to think.
To prepare. To rehearse, again, all the reasons why this was a bad idea and she should turn around and go home and text Thallos some excuse about a sudden headache or an emergency flower delivery.
*But the dance,* the practical part of her brain argued. *You have to learn sometime. The festival is in three weeks.*
*Three weeks.*
Three weeks to learn how to dance without maiming anyone.
Three weeks to survive being in close proximity to Thallos without doing something stupid.
Three weeks to figure out how she felt about the fact that she'd kissed him yesterday—really kissed him, not the brief wine-flavored brush at the vineyard but a proper, thorough, extremely memorable kiss—and had thought about almost nothing else since.
Her cheeks heated just remembering it.
The way he'd looked at her. The way he'd touched her, like she was something precious and breakable. The way he'd let her pull away without argument or guilt or the sulky wounded-pride routine she'd come to expect from men who didn't get what they wanted.
*Thank you for not pushing,* she'd said.
*I told you. I'm patient.*
Was he, though? Was anyone, really? In her experience, patience was just another word for waiting until you lower your guard. Her mother had been patient, too—patient right up until the moment she wasn't, and then the storm would break, and Marigold would spend weeks picking up the pieces.
*He's not your mother,* a smaller voice pointed out. *He hasn't done anything wrong. Maybe I could try not expecting the worst, just this once.*
She told the voice to shut up.
The Sanderson house appeared around the next bend in the road—a sprawling Queen Anne Victorian with a wraparound porch and gardens that she had always envied.
The sisters had lived there for as long as anyone could remember, though no one seemed quite sure how long that actually was.
Decades, certainly. Some of the older residents muttered about remembering them from their own childhoods, which was mathematically impossible unless the Sandersons aged backwards.
In Harmony Glen, she had learned, you didn't ask too many questions.
The porch was occupied tonight, as it often was in warm weather.
All three sisters sat in a row of mismatched rocking chairs, each absorbed in her own activity—knitting, doing something complicated with herbs, and in the youngest's case, painting her toenails an aggressive shade of purple that matched her current hair color.
"Well, well." Ellie looked up from her herbs as Marigold approached. "Someone's dressed for an evening out."
Heat immediately rushed to her cheeks. "I'm just—it's just a walk."
"In a sundress."
"People wear sundresses."
"Not usually to walk to vineyards at sunset." Ellie's eyes twinkled with barely suppressed amusement. "Unless they're hoping to run into a certain satyr."
"I'm not hoping to run into—" She caught herself. Too defensive. Way too defensive. "The festival committee has a lot of work to do. Thallos and I need to coordinate."
"Coordinate." The youngest sister didn't look up from her toenails. "Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"
"Janie," Winnie, the eldest sister, said mildly. "Don't tease."
"I'm not teasing. I'm making an observation. She's nervous. It's written all over her. And she's walking toward a man who's been mooning over her for two weeks. The conclusion is obvious."
"He hasn't been mooning—"
"Dear girl." Winnie finally set down her knitting. "Do you know how many times he's asked us about you since the committee meeting? Whether you like chocolate. Whether you've mentioned him. Whether we think you might, perhaps, possibly be interested in someone who isn't entirely human."
Her mouth opened, but she couldn't think of a single intelligent response.
"Seven times," Winnie continued calmly. "Eight if you count the afternoon he pretended to need rosemary from our garden, purely so he could 'casually' ask if you'd seemed well at church."
"We don't go to church," Ellie added helpfully.
"He knows that. He was desperate."
Janie had finished with her toenails and was now watching the conversation with undisguised delight. "Are you going to kiss him again? Because Agnes at the bakery said she saw you two the other day, and—"
"I have to go."
She said it too fast, too loud, and immediately wished she could sink into the earth. The sisters exchanged looks that communicated entire volumes.
"Of course you do." Winnie picked up her knitting again, the picture of serene innocence. "Have a lovely evening, dear. And do try to remember that not everything that feels dangerous actually is."
She stared at her. "What does that mean?"
"It means you're afraid of something that can't actually hurt you." Winnie's needles clicked softly. "Trust is a choice, not a surrender. The two feel similar, but they're not the same."
The words landed somewhere in her chest and stuck there, like a splinter she couldn't quite reach.
"I—" She swallowed. "Thank you. I think."
"You're welcome. Now go on. You'll miss the sunset."
She went.
She could feel their eyes on her back as she walked away, and she could imagine them settling back into their chairs and beginning to dissect every word she'd said. The Sanderson sisters were many things—mysterious, ancient, possibly supernatural—but subtle wasn't one of them.
*Eight times,* she thought, despite herself. *He asked about me eight times.*
It shouldn't have mattered. People asked about people. It was normal. It didn't mean anything. But the small, stubborn warmth that bloomed in her chest refused to listen to reason.
The vineyard looked different at sunset.
During the day, it was beautiful in a practical sort of way—rows of vines stretching toward the hills, workers moving between them, the business of wine-making visible in every corner.
But now, with the sun sinking toward the horizon and the sky streaked with orange and rose and deep impossible purple, it felt like something else entirely.
Like a painting. Or a dream. Or the kind of place where magic was real and nothing bad could ever happen.
She paused at the edge of the property, suddenly uncertain. The grove was just visible from here—a dark cluster of oaks against the lighter sky—and she could see the faint flicker of what might be lanterns hung among the branches.
He'd set up lights.
For her.