Kitty and the Silver Bullet

by Carrie Vaughn

  He sighed. “I like it just fine.”

  “You’ve said that for all of them.”

  “I’m not going to be looking at the dress. I’ll be looking at you.”

  And that was one of the things that made Ben a keeper. I got a little misty eyed. He was thirty-four years old, a lawyer in private practice, and rough around the edges, because most of the time he just couldn’t be bothered with appearances. It gave him almost rebellious good looks. His shaggy brown hair was always in need of a trim, the collar of his shirt stayed open, and his suit jacket and tie could usually be found in the trunk of his car. He also had a smile to sigh over. He was smiling now.

  We might have sat there staring goofily at each other all night. He’d only proposed a month ago, and we were still in the first flush of it all. Once again, I was amazed at how readily I had fallen into the stereotype. I was supposed to be cool and cynical.

  Shaun interrupted us, bopping over to our table. “Hey, you guys need anything? More soda? Water?”

  Shaun, late twenties, brown skin and dark hair, simultaneously hip and unassuming, managed New Moon. He’d jumped in to make the place his own, doing everything from hiring staff to setting a menu. He was also a werewolf. In fact, I counted six others here tonight, all part of our—Ben’s and mine—pack. This was going to be a werewolf wedding. It seemed like a formality, because our wolf halves had established us as the mated alpha pair. I wouldn’t say it was against our wills, but it all seemed to happen very quickly. Our human sides had taken a little while to catch up. But they did, and here we were, getting married. We were both still a little shell shocked.

  I had wanted New Moon to be a haven for people like us. Neutral territory, where lycanthropes of any description could gather peacefully. So far so good. The place had an interesting smell—the alcohol, food, and people smell of any downtown restaurant, along with the smell of the pack. Fur, musk, wild. My pack, distinctive as a fingerprint, and because New Moon had a touch of that, it felt safe. Here, my human and wolf sides came together, and it felt like home.

  “I’m fine. Actually, we should probably roll out of here soon.” I started gathering up the mess on the table.

  Shaun regarded all the smiling faces of beautiful brides. “You pick a date yet?”

  “Not even close,” Ben said.

  Crouching by the table now, Shaun rested his elbows on the table and looked like he was settling in for a long chat. His grin seemed amused. “Are you changing your name?”

  “Please. That’s so last century,” I said.

  “Hey, what’s wrong with O’Farrell?” Ben said.

  I glared. “Kitty O’Farrell? That’s not a name, that’s a character in a bawdy Irish ballad.”

  Fortunately, I didn’t have to explain myself any further, because they both laughed.

  “I’ll catch you guys later,” Shaun said, departing for other chores.

  “You know, we’re not any closer to making any decisions than we were when we sat down.” Ben now regarded the brochures and paperwork with something like hatred.

  “I can’t make any decisions,” I said. “I keep changing my mind, that’s the problem.”

  “Then why are we even doing this?”

  “Because you asked me to marry you, remember?”

  “But do we really need the big production? We could just go to city hall and fill out the paperwork.”

  “If we did that my mother would kill us.”

  Mom wanted a big wedding. And these days it was really, really hard to say no to my mother, who was a third of the way through chemotherapy treatments for breast cancer. She hadn’t been crass enough to drop “I may die soon so you’d better get married now” kind of hints. But then, she didn’t have to. She just had to look at me, and her thoughts bore into me like laser beams.

  “She’d understand. She’s not unreasonable.”

  “What does your mom say about it?”

  “She’s ecstatic that I found someone willing to shack up with me at all.”

  That left me giggling. When I thought about it, Ben was right. I didn’t want a big wedding. I didn’t want to have to decide on a caterer, open or cash bar, and I certainly didn’t want to hire a DJ who couldn’t possibly do as good a job as I could, having started my professional life as a late-night radio DJ. But I did want the dress. And I wanted to do something a little more interesting than waiting in line at some government office so we could sign a piece of paper.

  That got me thinking. I tapped my finger on a catering menu and chewed on my lip. What if there was a way to save all the time, the organizational nightmare, and yet still have the spectacle? All the fun without the headaches? I had an idea.

  “What are you thinking?” Ben said, wary. “You’ve got that look.”

  “What look?”

  “You’re planning something.”

  What the hell? The worst he could do was say no, and that would just put us back where we started.

  “Las Vegas,” I said.

  He stared. “Your mother really would kill you.” But he didn’t say no.

  “You can do nice weddings in Vegas,” I said. “It isn’t all Elvis ministers and drive-through chapels.”

  “Vegas.”

  I nodded. The more I thought of it the better it sounded. “It’s like the wedding and honeymoon all rolled together. We’d go straight from the ceremony to the swimming pool with a couple of froufrou drinks with the little umbrellas.”

  He just kept looking at me. We hadn’t been together all that long, not even a year. Before that he was my lawyer and always seemed mildly in awe of the problems I managed to get myself into. But I couldn’t always read him. The relationship was still too new. And we still wanted to get married. God help us.

  Then he turned his smile back on. “Big, scary werewolf drinking froufrou drinks?”

  “You know me.”

  “Vegas,” he said again, and the tone was less questioning and more thoughtful.

  “I can get online and get us a package rate in an hour.”

  “And we won’t be paying four figures for a photographer.”

  “Exactly. More money for froufrou drinks.”

  He shrugged in surrender. “All right. I’m sold. You’re such a cute drunk.”

  Uh . . . thanks? “But I’m still getting a really great dress.” Maybe something in red. Me, Las Vegas, red dress . . . Forget the bridal magazines, I was ready for Vogue.

  “Fine, but I get to take it off you at the end of the day.”

  Oh yes, he’s a keeper. I smiled. “It’s a deal.”