30. Evie
Evie
Three Days Later
A goat is at my wedding.
I know this before I see it because Maggie says, very clearly from downstairs, “Tom Sutton, get that creature off my porch.”
Tom protests. A goat bleats. Something metal crashes.
I close my eyes. “No.”
Mom pauses with a pearl-tipped pin between her lips. “No, what?”
“No goat.”
She removes the pin from her mouth. “I didn’t bring a goat.”
Another bleat carries up from below, and I turn toward the window.
My mother catches my shoulders before I can move. “Absolutely not.”
“I’m only looking.”
“You’re seven months pregnant, half dressed, and getting married in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty-two,” Delaney corrects from near the wardrobe. “Allowing three minutes for the walk from the house to the barn.”
Mom glances at her. “Does that include goat-related delays?”
Delaney looks down at the notebook in her hand. “No.”
I’d put my hands on my waist if I still had one. “I am not having a goat at my wedding.”
Jenna grins, sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed with three different shades of lipstick laid out on a towel. “Did you put it in writing?”
“I didn’t realize I needed legal counsel.”
Luna laughs softly from beside the window. “Legal counsel is always wise in this family.”
Shay mumbles something as she kneels at my feet with a needle clenched between her teeth.
“What?” I ask.
She removes the needle. “I said, this is what happens when you marry into a family that treats livestock as wedding guests.”
I glare at Kitty. “Your husband is the one who brought it.”
From downstairs, Tom yells, “Cheese Puff is an independent citizen.”
Maggie’s reply is too quiet to hear.
A door slams, then silence.
I look around the room. “Is the goat gone?”
Kitty tilts her head, listening. “No hoofbeats.”
She returns to the small circlet of greenery in her hands. Moss, tiny white flowers, and trailing leaves that she identified by their Latin names while my eyes glazed over. Somehow, she’s turned a lot of green foliage into something delicate enough to wear.
My dress drapes my body in soft cream folds. The waist sits high enough to fall cleanly over the curve of our daughter, who’s been awake since dawn, when she decided to play soccer with my bladder. I love that the fabric skims my pregnant belly rather than hiding it.
That matters to me. I spent too many years making myself smaller for a man who wanted me quiet, grateful, and easy to control. Today, I plan to take up every inch of space I have.
Mom steps behind me to pin the last section of my hair. She arrived two days ago in a dusty truck towing a horse trailer, with two duffel bags, three bridles, and a red mare she insisted she could not possibly leave with anyone else.
Gabriel took one look at the horse and said, “Figures.”
Mom has spent the last few days moving through Stoneridge talking horses with Gabriel, arguing feed ratios with Jacob, and letting Maggie put food in front of her without pretending she isn’t hungry.
We mentioned Alexander only once, in the kitchen on Mom’s first night here, after I told her everything he’d done.
She went still for a long moment. Then she crossed the room, put both hands around my face, and said, “You never have to speak to him again.”
No questions or guilt. Just certainty.
I watch her in the mirror now.
Her hair is more silver than I remember, and she has new lines around her mouth. We share the same eyes and nose and high cheekbones. I have more of my mother in me than my father, which I’m grateful for.
“You all right?” she asks.
“I think so.”
“That sounds convincing.”
“I’m getting married.” I press a hand over my racing heart. “Oh God, I’m really getting married.”
Mom sets down the final pin.
“That man loves you more than his own life,” she says softly.
“I know,” I whisper.
“You’re allowed to be happy and terrified at the same time.”
I look down at my hands. Our rings are downstairs in Jacob’s pocket, both simple gold.
Kitty crosses the room and settles the circlet into my hair. “There.”
I look in the mirror. The greenery follows the curve of my pinned-up hair, soft and wild and exactly right.
“What is it?” I ask.
Kitty names six different plants. I understand none of them.
“Flowers,” Shay translates.
Kitty sighs.
A knock sounds at the door, and everyone goes still.
“Who is it?” Delaney calls.
“Me,” Maggie answers. “And nobody open this door unless Evie is decent.”
“I’m decent.”
“Emotionally or dressed?”
“Mostly dressed.”
Maggie enters carrying the small velvet pouch from the night she read Ruth’s letter. Her eyes find me, and her mouth trembles before she presses her lips together and crosses the room.
“Well,” she says. “Look at you.”
I swallow. “Is Gabriel okay?”
“He’s pacing holes into the barn floor while Daniel threatens to sit on him.”
“That means he’s okay.”
Maggie opens the pouch to reveal a narrow gold chain. A small stone rests at its center, pale and bright against the dark velvet. “Ruth left six stones for the wives she knew were coming.”
Their meaning will become clear with time. I remember Ruth’s words from that night.
“The other wives already have theirs. Now it’s your turn. Maggie lifts the necklace. “May I?”
I turn so she can fasten it behind my neck, the stone settling against my chest.
Her hands remain on my shoulders. “She would have loved you.”
The tears come then.
Jenna immediately reaches for a tissue. “Don’t rub,” she orders. “Blot.”
Maggie kisses the side of my head. “Ready?”
No.
Yes.
Our daughter rolls beneath my ribs, and I place my hand over her. “Ready.”
Mom walks beside me.
The path from the house to the barn is lined with low lanterns and the small living arrangements Kitty built from moss, succulents, and pieces of weathered wood. In the daylight, they look like tiny patches of the mountain brought down to mark the way.
The air is warm, and the wind moves softly through the grass. Beyond the fence, Chance stands with her head over the rail, watching me approach.
The barn doors are open, and everyone I love is waiting inside.
Daniel stands beside Delaney, his hand resting at the small of her back.
Ethan and Jenna are next to them, Ethan wearing glasses and already looking suspiciously emotional.
Henry holds Max against one shoulder while Shay quietly tries to remove a fistful of straw from their son’s hand.
Angus stands close behind Luna, scarred face softened whenever he looks at her.
Tom has one arm around Kitty. His other hand is empty. I check. No goat lead.
Ben stands near Jacob, the two brothers shoulder to shoulder.
Wire is at the back beside the veterans.
Caleb leans against a post with his hat in his hands, weight shifted carefully off his bad knee.
Maggie takes the seat in the front row beside two empty chairs with small bunches of wildflowers resting on them. Ruth’s chair. Caroline’s chair. Their presence acknowledged.
Then I see Gabriel, and everything else disappears.
He stands beneath the old central beam in a dark suit that fits across his shoulders and pulls slightly when he breathes. He’s not wearing a tie because he said it made him look like he was appearing in court. His hair curls at his nape. His jaw is shadowed.
One blue eye. One green. Both fixed on me.
Jacob stands beside him.
Gabriel’s hand rests briefly over the device beneath his collarbone, an unconscious check.
Then he sees me notice and lowers it.
My feet stop.
Mom’s arm brushes mine. “You good?”
“No.”
She smiles. “Perfect.”
I take another step. Then another.
Gabriel doesn’t look away. By the time I reach him, his eyes are wet.
I hold out my hand, and he takes it carefully.
Mom kisses my cheek and whispers, “You chose well.”
I smile. “I did.”
She squeezes Gabriel’s shoulder before taking her seat beside Maggie.
Gabriel looks down at me. “You’re beautiful. Still wanna marry me?”
I shrug. “Might as well make an honest man of you.”
The officiant clears her throat, and we turn toward her.
I hear very little of the opening. Something about family. Land. Promises made before witnesses.
Gabriel’s thumb moves steadily over my knuckles.
The officiant asks who stands with us.
“Everyone,” Maggie says from the front row, earning a murmur of agreement from everyone else.
The officiant smiles. “Then we’ll proceed on that basis.”
Jacob reaches into his pocket when the officiant asks for the rings. His fingers shake slightly when he places mine in Gabriel’s palm.
Gabriel notices, and their eyes meet.
Jacob closes Gabriel’s fingers around the ring. “Your mom would be proud of you.”
Gabriel’s face changes. The old hurt is still there. It probably always will be, but it’s joined by understanding and acceptance now.
“I wish she was here,” Gabriel says.
Jacob looks toward the empty chair nearest Maggie. “So do I.”
No one tries to fill the silence that follows because it belongs to them.
Then Jacob steps back.
The officiant asks whether we have written vows.
“We have,” I say.
Gabriel looks surprised. “You did?”
“You didn’t?”
“Shit,” he mutters.
Laughter spills out of me at his hunted expression. “It’s okay, cowboy. I know words aren’t your thing. Just say ‘I do’ in the right place, and we’ll call it a success.”
“Evie,” the officiant prompts, “would you like to go first?”
I take a deep breath and hold Gabriel’s gaze. “I spent a long time believing leaving first was the only way to stay safe. Then I met a man who kept showing up.”
His fingers tighten around mine.
“You showed up when I ran. When I was frightened. When I tried to make decisions for both of us because trusting you felt harder than losing you.”
My voice wavers.
Gabriel’s eyes never leave mine.
“You gave me a frightened horse because you understood that healing is work. You gave me a home. You chose me. You chose our daughter before you knew anything about her except that she was ours.
Our girl chooses this moment to move beneath my ribs.
I smile through the tears. “So I promise to keep choosing you. I promise to ask instead of running. To tell you when I’m afraid. To come to you when I get lost inside my own head.”