“Come on, sweetheart,” I say. “We’ll eat first. Then I take you under that pine and let the whole mountain hear you say yes again.”
Her mouth trembles. “Yes,” she says, stronger this time.
I swear the cabin itself holds its breath around us.
Supper passes in a blur of voices and firelight and Briar’s hand finding mine under the table every few minutes.
I let her.
The clan does too.
Nobody makes a spectacle of her voice. Mercy’s eyes shine when Briar says a quiet thank you over the cornbread, but she only smiles and tears off another piece for her plate. Boone looks like he’s trying not to grin himself in half. Elias keeps his head down, but I catch him shaking it once into his stew. Silas, broody as ever, lifts his cup toward Briar in a small salute and goes back to eating but still scanning for threats.
Mama Rue waits until the last plates are cleared before she rises.
“That’s enough feedin’ for one night.” She taps her cane once against the packed earth. “Bring your girl, Rafe.”
I carry the cradle under one arm as Briar walks beside me toward the old pine. She is barefoot again. Hair loose down her back. Chin up. Her hand finds mine without hesitation, then slides into it fully, fingers lacing with a certainty that nearly drops me where I stand.
The clan forms a loose circle around us. No one crowds. No one gawks. The torches throw low gold across their faces and the tree above us rustles with the wind.
Mama Rue steps forward and looks first at Briar. “You come here of your own will, child?”
Every person in that clearing knows what it cost her to get even one word back.
Briar turns and looks at me.
I do not help her. I do not speak for her. I only hold her hand and let her find it on her own.
“Yes,” she says.
Clear.
Strong.
The word cuts through the clearing.
No one moves.
For a second, I don’t either. I just stand there with my heart splitting open in my chest while Mama Rue’s face goes soft with a kind of joy I have never seen on her before.
“There it is,” she says quietly. “The mountain gave it back.”
Briar’s eyes go wide, the sound hanging in the air. Then she says it again, this time with her shoulders back and her voice carrying farther.
“Yes.”
Mama Rue nods once, satisfied. “She came to us wild, but she was never lost.”
Then she binds the cloth around our joined hands.
I barely hear the rest of the words she speaks over us. I am too busy staring at Briar, at the woman beside me who chose me once in private and now again in front of every soul that matters on this mountain.
When Mama Rue finishes, Briar turns her face up to mine.
“Yes,” she whispers one last time.
I know I will spend the rest of my life earning it.
