EPILOGUE
“I’m sorry I couldn’t come back to visit the calf until today,” Grace said in her sweet, high voice as she stroked the calf’s nose. Josh was standing in the doorway to the barn watching Deena and their young visitor. “Mama said you had visitors and I wasn’t to interrupt, but when my brother saw that the car by your mailbox was gone this morning, Mama said it would be okay to come over for a little while. She said to ask about your houseguest, though.” Grace’s small face scrunched up with puzzlement. “Is he a relation?”
Deena chuckled and glanced back toward Josh. She’d known when he’d arrived, but apparently Grace hadn’t. He walked closer and took Deena’s hand in his very deliberately. He noted Grace’s start of surprise when he appeared and her inquisitive expression when Josh took Deena’s hand.
Josh was glad they’d never really explained who he was supposed to be in relation to Deena, because the cousin story would never work. And it would’ve made things awkward now. As it was, Deena’s neighbors would probably be a little shocked by the suddenness of his appearance on the scene, but that couldn’t be helped.
“Josh is my husband,” Deena replied, before he could say anything. His inner wolf wanted to howl his happiness. This was the first time Deena had claimed him as her mate in front of witnesses.
Sure, Duncan probably knew they were mates, but the actual words had remained pretty much unspoken for the most part. This declaration was something fresh and shiny. A set of words that meant something spectacular because of the context.
Grace might only be one little girl, but it was clear that Deena’s warnings about the Amish grapevine were spot on. They’d been keeping an eye on her house and knew when there was a vehicle that didn’t belong. While it was reassuring in a way that Deena had such interested neighbors, it didn’t do much for Josh’s peace of mind that nobody had come over to see if she was okay. In fact, they’d stayed away while her visitors were present. If Deena had been all alone, or in real trouble, how long would it have been before someone checked on her? Josh didn’t like to think of the answer to that question.
“You got married?” Grace asked, her voice rising impossibly higher in excitement. She was smiling, which Josh took as a good sign, but he wondered what the older members of the neighborhood would think of this rather hasty event.
Deena was smiling too, and it helped settle Josh’s concerns. She knew her neighbors better than he did. Hopefully she’d figure out a way to make this all sound reasonable so that she could continue to enjoy a good relationship with the folk in the area.
“It had been planned for a while,” Deena said, skirting around the truth with ease, but Josh would back her up no matter what story she concocted. He planned to be a good mate. He’d stand with his woman, even if she told people he was an alien from another planet.
Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.
“Our families were involved,” Deena went on making stuff up that seemed to satisfy the young girl. He wondered if Grace’s mother would be as easily fooled. “We were just waiting for Josh to be able to move here and the visitors came to help us do the paperwork and make our union legal in the eyes of man, and in the presence of the Almighty.”
Josh had noticed before the way Deena couched her belief in the Divine in terms that wouldn’t upset her conservative neighbors. Only Josh knew that when Deena referred to the Almighty, she was thinking of the benevolent Goddess and not the rather strict interpretation of divinity that ruled Grace’s family.
He wondered how Deena squared it all in her mind. He knew tolerance was a big part of being a priestess, and Deena’s heart was as big as the world. She would never turn away an animal in pain or a little girl who came from a family that had vastly different views on religion.
“Was that your bishop’s car?” Grace asked. “Did he perform the ceremony?”
“It doesn’t work quite that way in our sect,” Deena said with a kind smile. Josh noticed she didn’t go into detail about how that car had belonged to an evil sorceress intent on killing them both. That probably wouldn’t go down well on the neighboring farm.
“Are you going to grow a beard now, Mr. Joshua?” Grace asked him. Josh had to laugh. He knew that was something the Amish did, but he just couldn’t see himself with a long, scraggly, grandpappy beard.
“Maybe a small one,” he allowed, not wanting to burst the little girl’s bubble. She probably already knew that her parents’ way of life was a bit different from other people’s, but far be it from him to make things worse.
“Did you have a big party?” Grace asked Deena as she walked out of the stall patting the calf one last time.
“Not yet. Josh’s mother is coming to visit in a few weeks and we’ll hold our celebration then. It won’t be as big as your sister’s wedding last year, though,” Deena explained.
“Where is your family, Mr. Joshua?” Grace asked, walking beside him as the three of them walked out of the barn. Sure enough, Mergatroid the pony was eager to get going, as usual, and came right up to Deena for a cuddle.
“My mother is in North Dakota,” Josh answered, seeing no harm in answering the child’s question, though he couldn’t give her an answer about his father. At least not one that would make any sense to her.
“That’s very far away, isn’t it?” Grace asked, her little voice sounding sad. She asked a whole bunch more questions while she got Mergatroid hitched, and then they were off.
“The news will be all over this valley by nightfall,” Deena mused, leaning back against his chest as they both watched Grace and her pony take off down the track between the fields.
Josh put his arms around her and pulled her closer. “You called me your husband.”
“Hmm. I did, didn’t I?”
He squeezed her as she chuckled. He loved playing with his mate. That she felt comfortable enough to tease him made his inner wolf want to play like a puppy. With her. Only with her.
To all others, his wolf was still a badass biting machine, but for Deena, he was a fluffy puppy. The woman had changed him forevermore. There was just one thing…
“Who officiates at a priestess’s wedding?” he asked, curious. They were mates in the eyes of the Mother of All, but the human parts of them both probably would enjoy having an official ceremony and maybe a party to mark the occasion.
“Another priestess,” she murmured, turning in his arms. “Funny you should mention that. After you spoke to your mother this morning and went out to check the perimeter—which I think means that you just wanted to go wolf and chase bunnies through our fields—I called my grandmother. She’s going to give us a few days with your mother when she visits in December and then my grandmother’s going to pop in. She wants to meet both you and your mother. And I sort of asked her if she would…uh…officiate for us. How do you feel about a proper mating ceremony on the Winter Solstice?”
“Seriously?” He liked that she sounded as eager to make their mating official—in front of their families—as he was. He was grinning so hard, his face almost hurt. “I’d love that. Are you sure you want to wait that long, though? The solstice is still quite a few weeks off.”
She punched his shoulder playfully. “I need all the time I can get to find the right dress! And arrange the food and clean the house. There are a million things to do. I want to make a good impression on your mother.”
“She’s going to love you,” he told her, hugging her close and placing biting kisses on her neck. Then a thought occurred to him. “What about your grandmother? Is she up to the trip? Should we go to her? I don’t want to put her out. I’m happy to accommodate an elderly lady, and wouldn’t want to cause her any trouble.”
Deena’s gaze went serious as she placed both palms on his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Never. Ever. Let her hear you call her elderly. She might be my grandmother, but she’s fey, Josh. She looks younger than I do. And she outranks me to a huge degree. I think I mentioned…she’s the High Priestess. Have you ever heard of Bettina?”
The penny dropped as the name finally connected in Josh’s mind. Every shifter had heard of the highly magical woman who served at the right hands of the Lords of all werecreatures.
“Your grandmother is that Bettina? The High Priestess?” Josh felt suddenly light headed. If he’d thought his mate was a formidable power, the High Priestess was said to be a force of nature itself.
“It’s okay,” Deena told him. “She’s not as scary as all that. Especially not to you. Not now that you’re a Knight.”
“Knight in training,” he reminded her. He hadn’t really come to accept the new title yet. He’d have to learn a lot more before he’d feel truly comfortable presenting himself as a Knight. Especially with the High Priestess Bettina.
Josh wondered if even the magical armor he’d been practicing with would protect him from a wrathful High Priestess should he somehow do something to hurt his mate’s feelings. Bettina was said to eat bad shifters for breakfast and snack on evil mages. What kind of family had he gotten himself into?
“I’ll call my parents later today, and they’ll spread the word to my aunts and uncles, and cousins. I just wanted to make sure the plan was acceptable to you first, before I went ahead and started inviting people. It won’t be the size of an Amish wedding, but my side of the family will fill up the house, and then some.” Deena was smiling again, probably thinking about seeing her family again. Then she refocused on his stunned face and frowned. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Mind?” He was still trying to come to terms with the idea that Deena had a large extended family he hadn’t even considered.
“I kind of want to show you off,” she admitted in a shy tone, smiling in that way that made his heart melt.
That was the tipping point. Her happiness was his goal now, and if a big wedding was what she wanted, with all her relations in attendance, that’s what he’d give her. He’d do anything for her.
Josh bent to kiss her, pausing only to whisper against her lips, “I love you, Deena. Whatever you want is fine by me.”
Anything else she might’ve said went into the kiss, and they stayed there, locked together in their own private little world of love, surrounded by Deena’s misfit animals, who seemed to be watching with approval. Josh might be a predator at heart, but all the creatures on that farm were now under his protection. His and Deena’s.
They were a team now and with a little luck, and a whole lot of love, they’d have many decades together to perfect their magic…and their mating.
*
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