It started as a comment. I said offhand that Silver Ridge had everything except something to look at in December, and Ross said the mountain above town would make a good canvas if someone wanted to light it up. I couldn't stop thinking about it after that.
Vernon Cooper was immediately enthusiastic. Autumn threw herself into the food coordination with the focus of someone who'd been waiting for a project. I handle the technical side — three miles of LED string lights, mapped to the mountain slope above Main Street, all wired to a single control hub.
I design the pattern myself. I don't tell Ross what it says.
Saturday night is clear and cold, the mountains sharp against the dark. Most of Silver Ridge is on Main Street: Vernon Cooper in his good coat, Darlene from the diner, a dozen families I've learned by name over these months. Garrett and Autumn are near the back with Lenny, who's got Emma tucked under hisarm and is working hard at looking unbothered by the crowd. Everyone in town has decorated their cabins and shots with lights.
Autumn is visibly, roundly pregnant. Garrett's hand rests on her back without him seeming to know it's there.
Ross is beside me.
"Ready?" he asks.
"Yes." I hand him the control. "You do it."
He looks at it. "You designed it."
"You wired it. You're the electrician."
He takes control. He looks at the dark mountain, three miles of unlit wire, and presses the trigger.
The lights come on in a cascade— I built in a three-second sequence, each section from the base up, so the words form gradually out of the dark.
MARRY ME.
He goes completely still.
The crowd figures it out in waves— a ripple of sound, someone laughing, someone gasping, Vernon Cooper saying something audible three rows back. Autumn says something to Garrett. His hand moves from her back to her stomach, slow and deliberate.
Ross sees it. He looks at them for a moment, then back at me.
"You arranged this," he says.
"You wired it into the mountain. I considered that participation."
"You knew what it said the whole time."
"I drew the plans, Ross." I look up at him. "Yes, I knew."
He looks at me for a long time. The lights are burning bright behind him. Behind me I can feel the warmth of the crowd, the people who have been my neighbors for eight months, who brought me groceries during the storm and waved from their trucks on Birchwood Road and sat with me in Juniper's and let me ask them endless questions about their internet speeds.
Ross puts both hands on my face.
"Yes," he says.
"I haven't asked yet."
"Yes." His thumbs are at my cheekbones. "Ask me in whatever order you want."
I lean up and kiss him, and the crowd makes a sound that starts with Vernon Cooper and becomes everyone.
When I pull back, I say it against his mouth: "Will you marry me?"
"Yes." He says it the way he says everything that matters — once, plainly, like a fact that has always been true.
Above us, the lights spell it out across the mountain, burning steady and clean.
eight
