Chapter 5 - The Midnight Vow
The wind shrieked through the eaves like a pack of starving wolves. In the corner of the great hall, little Penny sat wrapped in a knitted blanket, holding a small bouquet of dried lavender that she had found in the kitchen pantry. Her eyes were wide, watching her mother arrange her simple cotton dress in front of the cracked mantle mirror.
Garrett stood near the stone hearth, dressed in his dark wool formal coat—a relic from his days before the war, pristine and sharp, despite the limp in his stride. Across from them stood Preacher Adams, an elderly man whose teeth were still chattering from the harrowing sleigh ride Garrett’s trusted hand, old Caleb, had just made through the drifts to bring him from the valley edge.
"Garrett," Preacher Adams said, wiping his spectacles with a trembling hand, "Clara Vanderhoof and Silas Vance hold the purse strings of every merchant in this valley. If I sign this registry, they will come after my chapel."
"If you sign this registry, Preacher," Garrett countered, his voice steady as granite, "you will be standing between an honorable family and a pack of thieves. And you will have the Thorne family's protection for as long as I draw breath."
Sarah stepped forward, her hand slipping into Garrett’s warm, calloused palm. "We aren't doing this just to save the land, Preacher Adams. We are doing this because God brought us together in the middle of a dying winter to keep each other alive."
The old preacher looked at Sarah’s fierce, unwavering gaze, then at little Penny, who smiled shyly and held up her lavender flowers. A deep sigh escaped his chest, followed by a nod. "Then let us do this in the sight of the Almighty."
By the glow of the flickering fireplace, with the blizzard howling at the glass, they spoke their vows. When Garrett placed a simple, polished gold band—his mother’s heirloom—onto Sarah’s finger, his hands did not tremble.
"I take you, Sarah, to honor, cherish, and defend, until my heart beats its last," Garrett swore, his voice thick with raw emotion.
"I take you, Garrett," Sarah whispered back, tears spilling over her lashes, "and I give you my whole life, my daughter, and my soul."
"By the authority granted to me by God and the Wyoming Territory," Preacher Adams proclaimed, "I pronounce you husband and wife."
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Garrett pulled Sarah into his arms, kissing her with an intensity that burned away every fear, every cold winter night they had ever endured alone. As Penny giggled and clapped her little hands, the ink on the official marriage certificate dried beneath the golden firelight. But through the roar of the wind outside, the distant sound of approaching iron carriage wheels echoed up the frozen drive.
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