“Oh, dear. I wonder if we should tell Ginger. Maybe this has something to do with the tiara disappearing.”
“No! That warning could mean anything. I am not having my best friend freaked out right before her wedding,” Marigold said indignantly. “Dark cloud? Could mean it’s going to rain on the wedding day, in which case, the ceremony can be held indoors right there in the Beaudreau mansion. Wolf in sheep’s clothing? Could be a shifter wearing sheepskin. So, we are not going to tell anyone. Are we?”
“Of course not, dear,” Imogen said, looking smug. She hurried out of the room, heading in the direction of the kitchen.
“Why do I get the impression she’s scampering off to tell everyone in Blue Moon County?” Lainey asked.
“Because you’re very perceptive. My great-aunt is best friends with the gossip columnist at The Tattler. Everybody in town is going to know about this by nightfall,” Marigold sighed.
“I’m not going to the wedding,” Lainey added. “Why did the witch say that?”
“Actually, you are,” Marigold said, standing up. “You are going to the wedding. Here, let me show you where your room is.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
But Marigold had already headed toward the stairs. Lainey rushed to keep up with her. They entered a bedroom with a cherry wood sleigh bed, a Victorian-era nightstand with an oil lamp sitting on a doily, and hand-painted folk art pictures of cows and chickens.
Lainey’s suitcase was on the floor next to the bed.
“All right, let’s go get you some lunch, and then we need to make sure that you’ve got something to wear at the wedding. If you don’t have anything, there’s a store in town we can go to, or Ginger could lend you something. She’s about your size.”
“Why would I be going to the wedding?” Now Lainey was following Marigold down the hallway, down the stairs, and back to the kitchen. Marigold, like her great-aunt, apparently moved really fast when she was excited about something.
“You’ve got to go, of course. Because he’ll be there.”
“Who will be there?” And is “Blue Moon Junction” a code name for “giant nut house”?
“He will be. Your fated mate,” Marigold said, as if she were perfectly sane and Lainey was the crazy one.
Imogen was talking on an old-fashioned black wall phone with an actual phone cord, but when they came in, she started and looked guilty.
“I’ve got to go. Remember, Bea, not a word,” she said in a loud whisper.
There was a pause as she listened to a squawking voice on the other end. Then she said loudly, “I SAID, I’ve got to go, and remember, not a word!” She banged the phone down.
Marigold rolled her eyes. “Beatrice, the gossip columnist, wears a hearing aid. This is great. Just great. Now everyone’s going to know.”
She turned to her aunt, put her hands on her hips, and frowned. “You promised, Aunt Imogen. Not that I expected you to keep your word.”
“Promised what? Oh dear, it’s time to gather the eggs.” Imogen left the kitchen, looking mildly guilty.
“No it isn’t, we gathered them this morning,” Marigold said to the slamming door. “Who gathers eggs in the afternoon? Nobody, that’s who.”
“She’s long gone,” Lainey pointed out. “Probably off to call everybody else in town.”
“I know. I’m just venting. We’ve got chicken salad sandwiches in the refrigerator. Let’s go sit on the back porch and talk about what you’re going to wear to the wedding. Chop chop. Time’s a-wasting. We’ve got to figure out your hair, your jewelry, your makeup…”
“I wasn’t even invited. And I don’t have a fated mate.” Her mother had told her in no uncertain terms that the whole concept of fated mates was a myth, an old wives tale that no respectable, modern shifter would give any credence to. Only ignorant, backwoods shifters even talked about fated mates any more, her mother had insisted.
Blue Moon Junction’s one claim to fame was that they had a month-long festival which lasted for all of October, where single shifters from all over the East Coast gathered, supposedly in hopes of finding their fated mates. Lainey had mentioned it to her mother once, pointing out a magazine story about all the shifters who met their mates at the festival, but her mother had turned up her sculpted nose at the notion. “It’s infatuation, not fate,” she’d said scornfully. “All those shifters, acting like animals. Disgusting.”
We are animals, Lainey had thought to herself, but she knew how much her mother prided herself on being an assimilated, civilized shifter, one who acted like a human and never an animal.