That got their attention.
Inside, the house hummed with evening life. Momma stood at the stove, stirring something that smelled like tomatoes and basil, her hair pulled up. Daddy sat at the kitchen table with Lily perched sideways on his lap, her math homework spread out between them.
Cassie leaned against the counter, scrolling on her phone, pretending not to listen but absolutely listening—just like Mason and Bo, who hovered nearby with the restless energy of kids who still belonged to this house in a way I no longer did.
“You look like you’re about to burst,” Momma said, turning with a knowing smile. “Shoes off, honey.”
I kicked them off by the door automatically. “Okay, but I’m telling you now—I’m not waiting until dinner.”
Daddy looked up, eyebrows raised. “That serious?”
“Serious,” I said, bouncing just a little on the balls of my feet. “Okay. So. A wedding planner came into the shop today.”
Cassie snorted. “They all do.”
“Not like this one,” I said. “She’s … well, she’s very put-together. And she’s planning a wedding in Montana.”
“Montana?” Mason repeated. “Like … mountains?”
“Yes,” I said. “And she wants to fly flowers out. From here.”
The kitchen went quiet.
Momma set her spoon down slowly. “Fly them?”
“With a plane,” I said quickly. “She’s providing it. She wants to bring a piece of Charleston with her. Our flowers.”
Daddy leaned back in his chair, studying me. “That’s a big ask.”
“I know,” I said, nodding. “But it’s doable. With the right varieties. We’d have to plan harvest timing carefully, temperature control, hydration?—”
Momma smiled then, soft and proud. “Listen to you.”
“It gets better,” I added. “She wants to meet at Dominion Hall.”
Cassie’s phone dropped to the counter. “The Dominion Hall?”
“That’s what the card said,” I said, pulling it from my bag like proof I hadn’t imagined the whole thing.
Dominion Hall wasn’t something you knew so much as something you’d absorbed by living here long enough. Everyone in Charleston had heard of it—stories passed along in lowered voices, half-joking, half-serious. A place tied to money and rumors. To power that didn’t advertise itself. No one could tell you exactly who lived there or what went on behind its gates, but that almost made it bigger, like a myth that didn’t need details to feel real.
Bo’s eyes went wide. “Are there guards?”
“Probably,” I said, smiling. “That’s not the point.”
Lily looked up from her worksheet. “Does Montana have flowers?”
“Yes, they do,” I said. “Just different ones.”
Momma reached out and squeezed my arm. “You’re excited.”
“I am,” I admitted. “It feels like … I don’t know. Like we get to represent Charleston. Like our farm was picked for something special.”
Daddy nodded slowly. “You’d be good at that.”
The warmth in my chest spread, steady and grounding.
After dinner—after plates were cleared and homework finished and Sunny finally collapsed by the back door—we walked out to the fields together. The air had cooled, crickets starting their nightly chorus, the sky streaked pink and lavender.
