“Beautiful name,” she said with a smile.
“Beautiful woman,” I added.
“I’m so pleased for you. Beau and Ambrose too.”
“Rosemary’s still getting ready. I just came down to see if you guys needed any help.”
“I think everything is prepared,” Aunt Helen said, gesturing at the tablecloth-covered tables. “Your mother has been up for hours.”
“Figures.”
“Daniel Boucher,” Rosemary called from the top of the stairs. “I know what you’re doing!”
I laughed as the sound of her feet pounded down the stairs.
“What?” I asked, turning to meet her. “I was ready, so I got out of your hair.”
Rosemary looked around the room, her mouth slack. “They’re already done?”
“Looks like it.”
“You shouldn’t have kept me in bed so long,” she scolded.
“Baby,” I cut in before she said anything else. “Come meet my Aunt Helen.”
“Aw, shit,” she said under her breath as she started toward us.
Aunt Helen made a sound of amusement in her throat.
“Auntie, this is my mate, Rosemary. Rosemary, my aunt.”
“It’s really nice to meet you,” Rosemary said, shooting me a look before smiling warmly at my aunt and offering her hand. “I didn’t realize anyone was here yet.”
“Rosemary,” Aunt Helen greeted. She clasped Rosemary’s hand and held it. “It is very nice to meet you.”
The scar on Rosemary’s face was very noticeable. I knew that intellectually. But over the past few weeks, I’d started not to even notice it when I looked at her. It was just part of her face, like the freckle on her chin or the little dip in the bridge of her nose or the dimple on her opposite cheek. When the bandage had finally come off and the stitches were out, my mate had stood for a long time looking at herself in the mirror. It was as if she’d been memorizing this new face she’d been given. But after that, she barely mentioned it. There was no self-consciousness, no worry about how it looked.
I’d noticed that because she didn’t seem to care that it was there, no one else really looked at it either—and I’d been watching everyone we encountered like a hawk, ready to step in.
We’d been around the same people for so long, people who knew Rosemary, that I was unprepared when Aunt Helen lifted a single finger to Rosemary’s cheek and brushed just below the scar.
“You’re lovely,” she said simply. “You wear it well.”
“Um…thank you,” Rosemary said, glancing at me.
“Not all of us get to show our scars off so proudly,” Aunt Helen said, dropping her hand. She smiled at Rosemary. “But be careful. You’ll no longer have the element of surprise when you wear a warrior’s mark on your cheek.”
She let go of Rosemary’s hand and patted my back before walking away.
“What the fuck was that?” Rosemary whispered, staring at my aunt’s back.
“Uh…apparently, you’re a warrior?”
Rosemary’s shoulders straightened. “As if that was ever in question,” she replied haughtily. “I’ve got a fucking warrior’s mark to prove it.”
“Yeah, you do.”
She snickered. “Your aunt is cool as hell, you know that, right?”
