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She was touched by how some of them reached out and gently touched her, as though she were a fragile doll.
She could tell by their smiles and gentle expressions that she had been accepted as she had wanted to be accepted. She was one with them in her heart, soul, and being. She was so touched by this, she could hardly keep from crying.
And her knees were so weak from emotion, she could hardly step onto the flower-strewn platform.
Once there, with Fire Thunder beside her, she turned and faced the crowd.
Anna was standing with Little Sparrow among them, Midnight lying at Little Sparrow’s feet, his green eyes on Kaylene.
Suddenly a young brave, the one that Little Sparrow had pointed out to her one day, as being the one whom she had special feelings for, came to Kaylene.
Dressed in a buckskin outfit, and smiling broadly up at Kaylene, he handed her a small bird’s nest filled with wild daisies.
Touched deeply by the sweetness of it, Kaylene reached her hands out and took the nest of flowers. “Thank you,” she murmured, seeing how the young brave’s eyes shifted quickly to Little Sparrow as she moved to his side, smiling.
Then the young brave lifted his eyes back to Kaylene. He smiled at her again, then stepped back with Little Sparrow into the crowd.
One by one the people came to the platform, each taking Kaylene’s hand, then telling her which gift that lay beside the platform was theirs. Before it was all over, Kaylene’s jaws ached from smiling so much.
Then it came to her that something seemed amiss here. No one had yet even mentioned the marriage today. It was as though she and Fire Thunder were already married. It was as though the announcement had already been made. Surely it had not been done in her absence. He had always talked about it as though it was something they would do together.
Kaylene sent a quick questioning look Fire Thunder’s way. “When will you make the announcement?” she whispered as she leaned next to him. “When are we going to be married? It is as though your people think we are already. Why is that, Fire Thunder? Where is the surprise that you mentioned? I don’t understand.”
“That is the surprise. We are married,” he said, smiling mischievously at her when he saw her stunned reaction. “My woman, all there is to a Kickapoo ‘marriage ceremony’ is ‘to bind,’ for the formal announcement comes after the marriage has been consummated, which it was, the first time we made love.”
“What . . . ?” Kaylene softly gasped. “Why didn’t you explain this to me earlier? Why would you not tell me?”
“Did it truly matter?” Fire Thunder said, taking her hand, squeezing it affectionately. “Do you not recall all of the traumas we have been faced with since we first met? It did not seem important to sit you down and explain to you what does or does not compose a marriage ceremony. What was important was getting to a point where we could celebrate our union with nothing else on our minds that would take away from the joy of it. Today is the right day, the right time for such a celebration for us. So much bad and ugly is behind us, a part of our past. Our future is what we should be concentrating on. And now, when we are among my people, showing them our devotion to one another.”
“I love you so,” Kaylene murmured, beaming.
He placed an arm around her waist and drew her close to his side. “Today I make the formal announcement that this woman is my wife!” he shouted, his voice reverberating skyward, reaching the far sides of the mountain, the trees, the streams, and the land that belonged to the Kickapoo.
The people showed their feelings about his choice by raising their voices in loud cheers.
Fire Thunder led Kaylene from the platform and once again his people floated past them, each of them taking turns embracing Kaylene and Fire Thunder.
When Anna came to Kaylene, Kaylene looked deeply into her eyes and saw the intense love this lady felt for her. She drew Anna into her embrace. “I shall always love you,” she whispered. “Mother, thank you for giving me your love as I was growing up, which gave me the ability to love.”
“I’m glad that you are happy,” Anna murmured. “Your happiness is all I ever wanted out of life. My own never meant all that much to me.”
“And that is what makes you so special,” Kaylene said, stepping back from Anna. Her eyes blinked. “I was wrong to allow hate for you to enter my heart those few days when I was so confused about so many things. Do you forgive me?”
?
?You have done nothing to be forgiven for,” Anna said, again slowly drawing Kaylene into her arms. “Child, child, I just wish I could have spared you so many things. It is I who should be asking forgiveness of you.”
Kaylene clung to Anna, yet her thoughts strayed to someone else—her true mother. She had gone earlier in the day and had sat and talked with Eloisa from the short distance they now allowed themselves, where Fire Thunder himself had built Eloisa a cabin not all that far from his village. Kaylene had shared her happiness with Eloisa then, and her adoptive mother now.
“Wife?” Fire Thunder said, taking Kaylene by the hand. “Are you through talking with Anna?”
“Yes, I believe we’ve said all that needs be said for now,” Kaylene said, smiling from Fire Thunder to Anna.
“I have one more thing that I would like to say,” Anna said. “My darling Kaylene, you don’t know how it thrills me, clean into my soul that you still call me mother. I thought I lost all rights to that when you discovered that your true mother was alive.”
“Mother, do you not know that that makes me doubly blessed?” Kaylene said softly. “Just how many can boast of having two mothers?”
Fire Thunder swept Kaylene up into his arms. He started walking away from the crowd, toward his cabin.
