“Yeah, I’ve got it.” Sami rolled her eyes. “I know what I’m doing. I’m not an idiot.”
“Well, you are your mother’s daughter,” Aric teased.
“Keep it up,” Zoe warned. “I’ll make you two listen to me sing along with the radio the whole way home if you’re not careful. It’ll be all hair-band stuff, too.”
“Oh, geez, way to threaten us,” Sami groused. “I’ll be good. You have my word.”
Twenty-Seven
Cormack called a local designer and asked that she bring in dresses for us to try on for the party. No matter how we expected things to go, he said, we had to look our best for what was to come.
He spared no expense.
“I can’t even believe this dress.” I stared down at the beaded black dress I wore and shook my head, dumbfounded. “I’ve never seen a dress like this in real life.”
Aisling, who seemed a bit sad she wasn’t selecting a dress for herself, chuckled as she moved to stand next to me. We’d taken over one of the second-story rooms — I had no idea what it was used for under normal circumstances — and there were at least fifty fancy dresses available for Zoe and me to try on.
“It looks good on you,” she noted, running her hands over the sides of the dress. “Under different circumstances I would say I’d like to see you in a bright color, but you don’t want to stick out too much. The black is nice.”
“Yeah.” I studied my reflection for another stretch and then shifted my attention to her. “Are you sad you’re not going?”
She worked her jaw and then tilted her head, ultimately shrugging. “I don’t like being left out — you know that — but it feels right this time.”
“Because of Griffin?”
“He’s afraid of the gates.”
“Are you?”
“I don’t want to be afraid of them.” She offered up a rueful smile. “It used to be that I didn’t think I was afraid of anything. I thrived on fighting with people ... and finding trouble. Now it’s different.”
“It’s the baby,” Zoe offered from her spot in front of another mirror. She’d selected a dark purple sheath that showed off her legs and left her arms free should she need to wield magic, which seemed like a foregone conclusion. “Once you’re responsible for taking care of another human being, it’s impossible not to change.”
“You’re going, though,” Aisling pointed out.
“My baby is fourteen and capable of leveling a house if she puts her mind to it. Your baby is completely vulnerable ... and you’ve recently gone through a terrible ordeal. I can’t imagine how hard it was for your husband when you disappeared through that gate. Up until that point, you assumed no one would be able to cross back over, right?”
Aisling nodded, her expression hard to read. “When I woke up on the other side I was too frightened to allow myself to think about not returning. The only thing going through my head was that I’d been ripped off and would never get to see Lily grow up.
“I knew Griffin would take care of her, be a wonderful father and give her everything she could possibly need, but I didn’t want to miss out,” she continued. “I also didn’t want him eventually getting over me and finding someone else … even though I would’ve tried to spin it so I was magnanimous in the aftermath. The idea of him being with someone else really ticked me off.”
Zoe laughed. “I understand that feeling. When I died — or came close to death, whatever — that was one of the last things I wondered about. Would someone come along and take over my family? I didn’t want to imagine that but thinking of them suffering alone was too much.”
“Yeah, I thought about the suffering aspect, too,” Aisling admitted. “Ultimately I decided I was fine with it because misery loves company. I knew I would suffer without them. Plus, all I could imagine was Angelina trying to sneak her way in and Griffin being so angry at me for leaving him that he actually started dating her.”
That had all three of us laughing.
“I don’t think either of you have to worry about that,” I offered, smoothing the dress down one more time. Honestly, I loved the way I looked in it. That somehow seemed shallow to think about, given what we were about to do, but there was no rule about not looking your best for a potential war. “Both your husbands seem to love you beyond measure.”
“Definitely,” Aisling agreed, her ego on full display. Despite her bravado, her eyes were cloudy when they met mine. “Are you worried about Braden? Do you think he doesn’t love you that way? Because let me tell you something, my brother is a goner where you’re concerned. I think he fell in love with you the moment he saw you.”
It was a nice sentiment, although not entirely truthful. “He didn’t like me when we first met.”
“He didn’t dislike you,” Aisling countered. “He just didn’t like the feelings you stirred up in him.”
“Much like your merrow,” Zoe added. “The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference. Collin and Claire are not indifferent to one another. I guarantee Braden was not indifferent to you when you first crossed paths. My guess is he was attracted and didn’t like that fact because it meant his days of playing the field were over.”
“We did have an early connection,” I admitted, although reluctantly. “I don’t think it was love at first sight, though. Love is one of those things that has to be earned.”
“I agree with you there.” Zoe took up position next to me so we could stand together in our dresses. “These will do.” She flashed me a smile. “As for everlasting love,
