“Ernesto’s going into winemaking? I feel so left out of family news.” I sorted through a pile of graphic print Ts so Gabriel wouldn’t catch my expression.

“Sorry, babe, I’ll try to share more.” While we chose two more shirts, he filled me in on the health of the horses, his niece’s tumbling class, and his grandmother’s latest cookbook project, recipes that used local wines.

“Do you know that your grandmother hasn’t answered my last phone call?”

“She’s in a tizzy.”

“Edna? She is the most tizzyless person I’ve ever met.” I loved his snarky grandmother so madly that Ian had accused me of wanting to marry Oswald just to be near her.

“Well, you should see her now. Oswald has been in contact with our grandfather and he’s coming out to visit. He’s spending time with all the grandkids and then he’s going to stay at the ranch.”

“What! What!” I said, and grabbed Gabriel’s arm. “That’s what you should have opened with, Gabriel. The mysterious AG Grant at Casa Dracula,” I said. “Spill the frijoles. What’s he like?”

“I’ve only met him twice in the last ten years. He’s …” Gabriel squinted and thought. “He’s a cool old dude. Old-school, for sure, obsessed with all of us producing children, and he looks, um …”

“Like Oswald. I know. Why is everyone so afraid to mention Oswald in front of me?”

“Because you don’t seem to be over him. You idealize your life at the ranch and you’ve always idealized Oswald. I don’t want to feed the delusion.”

“It’s not a delusion. It’s the realization that we could have done better. We should never have let the Council dictate the conditions of our marriage.”

Gabriel gave me a skeptical look and then said, “But were you two ever such a terrific match, Mil?”

“It’s normal for couples to have problems, isn’t it? We could have worked them out if only so many people hadn’t interfered with us.”

“Oswald blames in large part, as he puts it, goddamn Ian Ducharme.”

“Ian didn’t break us apart,” I said uneasily.

Gabriel touched his fingers to my hand and said gently, “Word got around that you and Ian were seen leaving Bar None together when you went by yourself to check out the hotel for the wedding.”

Guilt squeezed me harder than a vise. Bar None was a vampire bar in the foggy coastal resort town where Oswald and I were going to be married. “Does Oswald know that I ran into Ian there?”

“If by ‘ran into’ you mean ‘spent the night with,’ Oz suspects, but he doesn’t ask directly, and we don’t say anything. I’m not judging you, babe, but wasn’t that a sign that you weren’t ready to get married?”

It was too complicated to explain that I’d slept with Ian to get him out of my system and to prove that I would be able to do for Oswald what a vampire expected his wife to do: to exchange blood while making love. I asked, “Is Oswald dating anyone?”