You Are Not Rejecting Me novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: Wedding on the Porch

We were married on the lodge porch five weeks later, in front of the whole pack and the new kitchen.

I stood in the doorway of Idris's room in a plain ivory dress.

Cadell stood by the bed in a suit that did not fit his shoulders.

He was trying to fix Idris's cufflinks and failing.

Idris sat on the bed with his shirt open, and the scar under his ribs was a pink ridge.

"Hold still," Cadell said.

"I am holding still."

"You're breathing at me."

"I'm alive, you ape. Do it again."

Marigold leaned in the doorway in a green dress and her barn boots.

"Give them to me," she said, and she took the cufflinks out of Cadell's fingers.

She did them both in four seconds.

Cadell watched her hands.

"You do that very well," he said.

"I put stitches in bulls, Cadell."

"I know."

He cleared his throat.

"I answered the first letter," he said.

Marigold's hands stopped.

"I wrote it last week."

He looked at the page.

"I thought I'd just hand it over, like a coward."

He took a folded page out of his jacket.

She did not take it.

"Read it to me," she said.

"Now?"

"Now."

Idris looked at me.

I looked at the ceiling, and we both went out onto the landing and shut the door.

We stood in the hall with our backs against the wall, listening.

"Can you hear?" I whispered.

"Not a word."

"I hate it."

"Me too."

After a long minute, the door opened.

Marigold stood in it with the letter in her hand and her eyes red.

"He wants me to stand up with him," she said. "At the wedding. In front of the pack."

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