My Own People Betrayed Me at My Engagement Barbecue, So I Took the Hill Back novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Frost

The frost had already come down on the hill when we reached the top.

The grass crunched under Pfeffer's hooves, and our breath smoked white in the starlight.

Cade tied the horses to a live oak at the edge of the cemetery.

My father's grave was the newest one, a low mound of earth still bare of grass.

A plain granite marker stood beside my mother's.

Dora Tarver's stone stood on my mother's other side.

The two women had been friends.

I had forgotten that until I saw their names so near.

I walked to my father's marker and stood there with my hands in my coat.

Cade stopped a few paces behind me.

He took his hat off and held it against his chest.

"Daddy," I said aloud, "this is Cade Tarver."

The wind moved in the oak leaves.

"You never invited him in the house. I don't know why. I'm not asking you now."

My voice shook, and I let it.

"I'm sleeping with him. I'm going to keep doing it. I wanted you to hear it from me."

Behind me, Cade made a sound that was half a laugh.

I turned around.

His eyes were wet in the starlight, and the corner of his mouth was up.

"Ten days," I said.

"Tilly."

"I'm done being angry about the ten days. I was angry at the wrong man."

"You stood here with your hat in your hands the whole time," I said.

He looked past me at the mound.

"I thought you'd go home to your own kind," he said quietly.

"Cade," I said.

"I thought if I came up the drive, I'd be the help's boy who got ideas."

"My own kind is whoever stands on this hill with me at midnight."

He crossed the frozen grass in two strides and kissed me.

His mouth was warm and tasted of coffee, and I wound my arms around his neck.

He lifted me so that my boots swung clear of the ground.

"Not here," I said against his lip. "Not in front of them."

"Where?"

"The shelf above the woodpile. Behind the rocks."

He carried me there.

It was a ledge of pink granite that jutted from the slope.

No stone in the cemetery could see it, and the stacked cedar of the pyre lay below.

The rock was white with frost.

Cade shrugged off his canvas coat and spread it across the granite, lining side up.

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