Chapter 14 - The Wedding Dry Creek Never Expected
They planned something small.
Dry Creek refused.
Sarah organized food.
Briggs provided tables.
Burke somehow appointed himself responsible for whiskey.
The pastor decorated the church.
Naelli’s surviving family traveled from the west.
Ranchers arrived.
Railroad workers arrived.
Children filled the creek bank with flowers.
Elias looked around the morning of the ceremony.
“This is not small.”
Burke shrugged.
“You're unpopular, but she isn't.”
Elias glared.
Naelli wore a simple cream-colored dress combined with turquoise jewelry from her family.
When Elias saw her, every joke vanished.
Thirty years.
That was what stood between the little girl offering him berries and the woman walking toward him.
Thirty years they could not recover.
But perhaps love was not measured by what had been lost.
Perhaps it was measured by what people chose after finding each other again.
They married beneath the cottonwood.
No grand speeches.
No promises of perfection.
Only commitment.
When the pastor asked Elias whether he accepted Naelli as his wife, he answered before the question finished.
“Yes.”
Everyone laughed.
Naelli whispered, “Still impatient.”
“Only waited thirty years.”
Afterward, Sarah’s son approached them.
“Are you married forever?”
Naelli crouched.
“That is the plan.”
The boy considered this.
“What if he annoys you?”
“He already does.”
Elias frowned.
The boy nodded seriously.
“Then I guess it works.”
That evening music filled the ranch.
Elias stood on the porch.
Two chairs sat beside him.
Naelli joined him.
“You happy?”
He considered pretending otherwise.
Then abandoned the habit.
“Yeah.”
Naelli took his hand.
May you like
“So am I.”
---
