He Thought I’d Stack One More Stone, I Threw the Last One Away Chapter 07

He Thought I’d Stack One More Stone, I Threw the Last One Away Chapter 07

By the time that little scene was over and we rode into the courtyard, the place was packed.

My mom stood right at the front, her hands twisting the hem of her dress.

When I climbed down off the horse, her eyes were already red, tears welling faster than she could blink them back.

The woman beside her gave her a quick pat. “Don’t you dare cry, not on a happy day like this!”

“Elias, honey, all those meals I fed you when you were knee-high, I knew they’d pay off!”

The whole courtyard cracked up.

Elias went red down to his collar, and when he spoke to my mom, he couldn’t even look her in the

eye.

“Ms. Vance, I’ll take good care of Hazel. I promise.”

Everyone laughed even harder. “Ms. Vance? You’re still calling her that?!”

Elias blanked for half a second, then it clicked, and his ears went red enough to bleed. “Mom!”

He nearly shouted it, fast and eager, like the word wouldn’t count if he hesitated.

The yard roared.

The old folks started hurrying us along. “Quick now, don’t let the hour pass!”

We exchanged our vows facing the ridge, grounding our promise in the earth and the mountain air.

The old Keeper lit a candle of blessing for us.

“Under the mountain’s eyes, may you never part until the mountain crumbles and the rivers run

dry.”

That was the moment the courtyard door slammed open.

“I object!” Julian stood in the doorway, eyes rimmed red.

The whole yard went silent.

Julian’s voice cracked. “There’s nothing between Chloe and me. Come with me.”

Chloe broke into sobs at once. “Hazel, I swear I never meant any of it…”

“You know I’ve got no parents. I was just so scared of being alone. I’m not trying to take anything

from you…”

Ms. Sterling let out a put-upon sigh, like she had no choice. “Hazel, sweetheart, that temper of yours is just too much.”

“I only wanted to test you a little, teach you how this family works. You weren’t supposed to take it to heart.”

“Come on now, get this tantrum over with, and you’ll still make a fine daughter-in-law.”

I looked at that gracious, doing-me-a-favor smile of hers, and something in me wanted to laugh.

“A test?”

I took a step forward. Elias’s hand stayed wrapped around mine, never loosening.

“Eleven years together. Eleven years your son never once came to propose, and stood in the courtyard beside mine building another woman’s cairn instead.”

“That was a test?”

“My mom’s hair went half gray, and this whole town whispered about me for eleven years. All for a

test?”

Nobody said a word.

I turned to Chloe. “You say you’ve got no parents. But mine treated you better than they ever treated

me.”

“This town checked on you every single day, gave you the best food, the best clothes.”

“When you got sick, my mom carried you into town on her back. When you built your cairn, the whole town turned out to help.”

“What more could you possibly want?”

Chloe’s sobs hitched. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Ms. Sterling’s eyes swept the yard, settled on Elias, and curled into a sneer.

“She’s used goods anyway… Who’d want her? That backwoods idiot behind you?”

The words dropped like a rock into still water.

Half the courtyard came to their feet at once.

“What did you just say?”

“Elias is our Keeper!”

An old man pushed himself up on his cane, his voice cracked with age but ringing all the same. “Elias kept the old chapel up on that mountain for eleven years.”

“Praying over Stone Creek, sitting with the sick, holding vigil for our dead.”

“When the mountain road washed out, he went and fixed it. When folks were too sick to walk, he carried them down the mountain to the hospital himself.”

“The winter the snow sealed us in, he hauled grain to every door in town, sack by sack.”

“Now what did you call him?”

Ms. Sterling went white. Her lips moved, but she didn’t dare answer.

Julian didn’t look at any of the people on their feet. He looked dead at Elias, his eyes webbed with

red.

“Hazel’s my girlfriend. Eleven years, the two of us.”

“You really don’t care about that?”

Every eye in the yard turned to Elias.

“Hazel is everything I ever wanted. She’s the sacred flower of this mountain.”

Elias held onto my hand and said it slowly, each word landing on its own. “No one gets to say one ugly word about her.”

“You’re not welcome here. Somebody see them out.”

A handful of the younger men stepped up and had Julian and the rest of them out through the gate in

seconds.

The old Keeper raised his hands in blessing again, and the ceremony went on.

Elias turned to look at me, ears still burning.

I smiled at him. He blinked, caught off guard, then smiled back.

And his hand never let go.