I cut her off. “You lost your chance. I don’t owe you shit.”
She said nothing.
I turned and climbed into the truck, slamming the door hard enough to make the glass rattle. Inside, I shook. My hands, my knees, my whole body—tremors like aftershocks.
Quiad slid in next to me, took my hand, and laced our fingers together. He squeezed, gentle but firm, grounding me.
We watched the rest of the family close ranks, moving as a unit, ignoring Gloria and her hired goon. Ma looked over her shoulder, eyes hard as stones, then wrapped an arm around Gramps and led the pack to their cars. Even Bodean, who never let anything go, just flipped Gloria the bird and got in the back seat.
I sat there, breathing like I’d just run a marathon.
“I can’t believe she tried to ruin today,” I said, voice cracked. “Our wedding day, Quiad. She couldn’t even let me have this one perfect thing.”
He turned, tucked a hand behind my neck, and made me look at him.
“She didn’t ruin anything,” he said, quiet but sharp. “She can’t take this from you. Not now.”
I nodded, tears burning at the corners of my eyes. I stared at my ring, at the place where his name lived on my skin, and I let it settle. I was a McKenzie now. That meant something.
Quiad leaned in, kissed me—soft, slow, the opposite of the courthouse kiss. Then he pulled back and looked me straight in the eye. “You’re mine, Sunshine. Legally, officially, all the way. That’s what matters.”
He wasn’t smiling, not really, but the look on his face was better than any smile. It was promise. It was home.
I exhaled, slow and deep.
Outside, Gloria and the lawyer were still standing there, frozen, like maybe they’d finally realized there was nothing left to take.
Quiad started the truck, and we peeled out of the parking lot, gravel spitting in our wake. Behind us, a parade of McKenzie vehicles fell in line, headlights bright even in the daylight.
I looked at Quiad’s hand in mine, at our matching rings, and I knew: She’d never touch us again. Not if I had anything to say about it. Let her try. We’d burn her out, every damn time.
The parking lot confrontation played over in my head, on loop, the whole drive home. I kept seeing Gloria’s face—at first smug, then desperate, and then cracked right down the center when I told her she had no power left.
For the first mile I was too amped on adrenaline to feel anything, but hot, clean anger, but as the gravel turned to blacktop and the town faded behind us, it all drained out and left a hollow behind.
I gripped the door handle, my hand still shaking. I watched our convoy in the side mirror, headlights stacked like a line ofsentries. Quiad drove with one hand, the other planted solid on my thigh. He didn’t say anything, just radiated calm, steady and cold as river stone. It was a comfort, and it pissed me off in the best possible way.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked, when I couldn’t take the silence anymore.
He cut a glance over, slow and deliberate. “Mad? No. Proud.”
I snorted, but it came out half-sob, half-laugh. “She looked at me like I’d set her on fire.”
“You did,” he said. “About damn time.”
We turned off the main road, down the drive to the shop. The sun was setting, and the trees threw long shadows across the field. In the rearview, I saw the other trucks slow, peeling off to the main house or the barn. For a few hundred yards, it was just us and the creek, and the feeling of something huge and irreversible settling into place.
I let my head fall back against the seat. “She was going to say it again,” I said. “The thing about being my mom. Like I owed her the rest of my life because she showed up to ruin the first part.”
He nodded. “She’ll keep trying. That’s all she knows how to do.”
The truck idled in front of the shop, engine ticking as it cooled. For a long time neither of us moved. When I finally spoke, it was so quiet I almost didn’t hear it. “You think I was too hard on her?”
He shook his head. “You were perfect. She needed to hear it from you. And she’ll remember it, every time she tries to come back.”
I turned, and for the first time since the wedding, I let myself really look at him. The way the last light hit his face, painting the scar on his jaw gold. The way his eyes softened when he saw me, like I was the only thing in the world that made sense.
He reached for my hand, thumb brushing over the wedding band. “You did good, Sunshine.”
