“Promenade,” I repeated, as Camille zipped me in.
“That’s Meghan’s restaurant,” she replied.
“You’ll love her,” Hazel said. “She’s like a petite tornado in chef whites.”
“She’s been talking about you this morning,” Camille added, stepping back to assess her work. “Reading your articles. She takes her research seriously.”
That sent a flicker of unease through me. I lived for research. Being on the other end of it felt … exposed.
Camille must’ve seen something on my face, because her tone softened. “She’s on your side,” she said. “We all are. That’s why we wanted to meet you before we throw you into the full lion’s den. The Charleston wives can be … enthusiastic.”
“Enthusiastic, how?” I asked.
Hazel perched on the ottoman, tucking one leg under her. “Well, they’re all married now. Portia—she’s Silas’s wife—is a wedding planner. One of the best-known in the country. She planned this insane joint wedding for all the Charleston Danes. Seven weddings, one day. It was like a military operation with chiffon.”
“Seven,” I echoed, brain snagging. “Wow. So that’s seven Montana Danes and seven Charleston Danes.”
Hazel nodded. “Yeah. Byron apparently made it his life’s work to overpopulate the gene pool.”
I let out a low whistle. “Fourteen Dane sons. No wonder the man walks around like he’s seen things.”
Camille stared at me, then laughed, a little helplessly. “You might need a spreadsheet.”
“We’re going to need Portia to stop smiling every time we say ‘wedding,’” Hazel added. “The Montana brides are only just starting to talk about it, and she’s already got three Pinterest boards ready.”
I snorted. “That … is terrifying.”
I meant it as a joke, but something in me fluttered—low, sharp, unexpected.
Marrying Levi.
The thought slid through me like a breath I’d been holding for two years without realizing it. I’d imagined it once, in those months when we were falling in love overseas—quick flashes of rings and vows and a life that didn’t involve briefing rooms or classified nightmares. I’d buried it after he disappeared, shoved it so deep it calcified.
But sitting here now, with women who loved Dane men …
Was this real?
Was my life changing shape in front of me?
Was I really the kind of woman who could end up at one of those joint weddings they were laughing about?
The thought didn’t scare me.
It warmed me.
“You’ll meet Portia,” Camille promised. “And the others. They wanted to be here today, but we convinced them it was better if we did this in stages.”
Hazel handed me a pair of low-heeled sandals. “Here. Walkable, still cute. You’re about to eat some of the best food of your life. You don’t want to do it with blisters.”
I slipped them on. In the mirror, I looked like a slightly more polished version of myself. My freckles were still my freckles. The circles under my eyes were still there, just slightly blurred by concealer. But there was something new in my eyes. Something softer. Something that looked suspiciously like hope.
“Ready?” Hazel asked.
No.
“Yes,” I said.
Promenade sat on the Battery, in the ground floor of a historic home that looked like it had been plucked from a movie set about old Charleston and carefully, painstakingly maintained by someone with expensive taste.
