Page 111 of Mountain Man’s Mystic Touch

“That sounds like something a person says immediately before presenting a wedding gift.”

“It’s a sample.” She sets it carefully on the table beside my bouquet. “The actual gift is at your cabin.”

Inside the globe, a miniature bride and groom stand beneath a timber arbor surrounded by copper-colored trees. The groom wears black, while the bride’s ivory dress is painted with tiny vines. When Harper turns the key beneath the base, the first notes of the music chosen for our ceremony fill the room.

She gives the globe a gentle shake. Gold leaves and pale, rose-colored glitter swirl around the couple.

“Oh, Harper.”

“You like it?”

“I love it.”

Her smile brightens. “Good, because I made twenty-four of them.”

Ava stops folding the garment bag. “Twenty-four?”

“One for each household. I did not make one for every individual guest.”

“That would have been excessive.”

“Thank you for recognizing my restraint.”

Sharing retail space with Harper has taught me that her artistic impulses are no more containable than my own. Six months ago, we discovered an empty storefront near the center of Cady Springs with two front windows, a private room in back, and enough square footage to divide without making either business feel crowded. It was perfect timing, of course. Harper’s lease where she was had recently been raised and she needed to reduce her expenses.

One window now displays Harper’s snow globes and hand-painted winter scenes. The other holds my crystals, candles, and botanical products. My massage and reading room occupies the quietest corner, protected by walls thick enough to keep the bell above the front door from disturbing my appointments.

Rocco designed the security system. Harper decorated the cameras with tiny vines until he discovered what she had done. He removed them. She put them back. They have reached an understanding neither will explain to me.

Ethan appears in the open doorway. He looks first at Harper, as though the rest of us have temporarily ceased to exist, then directs his attention toward me.

“Rocco is attempting to reorganize the security staff.”

Chloe sighs. “They’re already organized.”

“I told him that.”

“Did he listen?”

Ethan considers the question. “He stopped speaking.”

I reach for my bouquet. “It means he is reorganizing them silently.”

Rocco’s company has spent the past year growing beyond anything he expected. Sentinel Mountain Security now handles private events, corporate retreats, and high-profile assignments throughout Colorado and several surrounding states. Cady Springs could never provide enough large jobs to keep his employees busy, but it has become the place from which he leaves and, more importantly, the place to which he returns.

Earlier this summer, Jack and Chloe hosted the wedding of a country singer whose millions of followers had made privacy nearly impossible. Rocco coordinated everything from transportation routes to airspace restrictions after someone attempted to fly a camera drone over the ceremony.

The wedding took place without a single unauthorized photograph appearing online. When we selected a date for our own wedding, Chloe refused to discuss the venue fee. Rocco insisted.

Jack told him the high-profile wedding had brought enough publicity to book the property through the following summer. Chloe then threatened to increase our fee every time Rocco attempted to pay it. He stopped after she sent an invoice for nine million dollars.

I suspect he has found other ways to compensate them. New exterior cameras appeared around the property last month, along with upgraded locks and emergency lighting Chloe claims she never ordered.

No one has mentioned them.

Ethan steps farther into the room. “He asked me to tell you everything is ready.”

The air moves strangely around those words, lifting the fine hairs along my arms.