Chapter 19: The Honeymoon Cabin

The reception lasted until the fire burned down.

Somebody hauled hay bales into a ring in the yard, and the barn lights came on, and the guitarist played everything he knew.

Neighbors who had left the rehearsal dinner in silence stayed to eat brisket off paper plates.

The old rancher found Ryan by the cooler and shook his hand, hard and short, and said nothing at all.

Ryan stood there afterward looking at his own palm.

Kat danced with Ryan once, a fast one, laughing, with her dress swinging, and they stood a perfect arm's length apart.

I laughed out loud, because every person watching them could now see it was a dance between friends.

Then the guitarist slowed down.

Kat walked straight across the hay to me, took my bouquet and put a key in my hand.

It was an old iron key on a loop of twine.

"North pasture," she said. "Grandpa's line cabin. Somebody stocked it for the honeymoon."

"Kat."

"It's my honeymoon, and I'm giving it away."

She kissed my cheek.

"I'm sleeping at Abuela's with the dog. Don't come out before noon."

"You don't have to."

"I have owed you for six years," Kat said. "Go."

Ryan was already standing at the edge of the firelight with his jacket off and his sleeves pushed up.

I took his hand without a word.

We walked up the pasture in the dark, with the fiddle fading behind us and the grass wet against my ankles.

The cabin was one room, with a stove, a quilt on an iron bed and a lantern already lit on the table.

He shut the door behind us, and I put my back against it.

"We have never met," I said. "Strangers, remember?"

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