Chapter 24: After the Wedding

Rhett did not kneel this time.

He stood at the porch rail in the falling snow, with his hands at his sides and white on his shoulders.

"Jessa Pierce," he said.

It was the first time anyone had called me that out loud.

"Yes."

"Will you marry me?"

"Not because of a treaty."

"Not because you can't live without me, either."

"I could live without you." His voice roughened. "I'd hate every day of it, but I could."

"Better."

"I'm asking because I want to be the one standing next to you, for the rest of it."

I looked at him for a long time.

I had said Accepted to this man in front of three hundred people, and it had been the worst word of my life.

"Ask me the other way," I said. "The way you'd ask if nobody was watching."

He took a breath.

"Do you want me?"

"Yes," I said. "Always. You."

I kissed him on my father's porch with the snow falling on both of us.

Dad opened the kitchen door and closed it again without a word.

The wedding was on the Saturday after.

They held it in the round room at the Blackwater hall, on the bare stone floor, with the high windows full of white.

I picked it.

I wanted it where Hiram had put his hand on the stone and lied, and where I had put mine and told the truth.

Three hundred Blackwater wolves stood on one side, and Cedar Ridge on the other.

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