Chapter Five #2
Warmth spread through her so quickly she nearly forgot the brown paper in her hands. He had almost teased her. On purpose, perhaps. Or at least not entirely by accident.
“That is a very Delly answer,” she said.
His mouth stilled at once. “Is it?”
“Yes. She specializes in answers to leave the question standing exactly where it began.”
The ease returned, but faintly. “Then perhaps she and I have something in common.”
“Besides a fondness for avoiding direct inquiry?”
His eyes met hers.
Again, the breath went out of her. Not because he looked through her. That was not quite right. Mr. Peterson looked at a person as though most of the world had become noise, and for one alarming moment, she was the only thing he had chosen to hear.
He looked away first.
“They’re just brackets,” he said.
“They are not.”
His left hand tightened at his side.
Lottie looked down at the parcel. “They are the first pieces of the library someone brought without being asked.”
A faint flush rose beneath his beard. “Cornelia asked most of the town twice last winter.”
“I did not ask you.”
“No.”
“You brought them anyway.”
He shifted his weight. “A shelf without brackets is only a plank hoping for the best.”
“That sounds like something my sister would say.”
“Then your sister is likely right.”
“She usually is. It is one of her harder qualities.”
“One day… maybe…” He shifted from foot to foot. “Your library will have its own building.”
“I hope so.”
This time, he smiled. Only a little, and only for a moment, but enough.
Lottie wanted to put the whole morning inside a book and press it flat between clean pages so she could keep it forever.
From inside the hotel, Mrs. Beck’s delighted voice carried through the open window. “Oh, look! He brought her something.”
Mr. Peterson’s smile vanished.
Mrs. Hanford answered, “Beatrice, lower your voice. The whole street does not need to know.”
“The whole street has eyes,” Mrs. Beck said.
Peterson stepped back from the porch post. His right hand drew closer against him.
Lottie hated that. Not Mrs. Beck precisely, who meant well, but the way every bit of public attention seemed to put a wall back into Mr. Peterson’s shoulders.
“They mean no harm,” she said softly.
“I know.”
“Yet harm finds its way.”
His gaze came back to her. She had surprised him. She could see that.
Lottie was not Delly. She did not catalog people.
She did not keep columns of defects and risks.
She had sat beside Mrs. Whitmore in Chicago for two years, reading aloud when the old woman’s eyes grew tired, and she had learned to hear the difference between complaint and ache.
Mr. Peterson carried an ache in him. Not loudly.
Never loudly. It showed in the care he took not to be seen.
The bundle of brackets pressed against her palms.
“Thank you,” she said. “Truly. I will show Cornelia at once, and if Delly were here, she would probably make a note you are useful.”
His face closed.
Wrong word.
Lottie felt it the instant it landed.
Useful.
She had meant it kindly. Of course, she had. The word struck something in him and stayed there.
“I mean thoughtful,” she said quickly. “Not only useful. Though useful is not a small thing. I only meant—”
“You needn’t explain.”
“Yes, I do.” She stepped closer, stopping before she crowded him. “Words matter. I chose a poor one.”
His jaw shifted.
“You are a practical man,” she said. “I value practical things. I did not mean you are only useful, Mr. Peterson. No person ought to be only useful.”
He looked at her for a long moment. The noise from inside the hotel dimmed behind her. Or perhaps she only stopped hearing it. Peterson’s left hand opened and closed once near his thigh.
“That’s easy to say,” he murmured.
“It is harder to believe?”
His gaze dropped.
There. Another tender place.
Lottie could almost see Delly’s warning standing between them: You are young, hopeful, and far too ready to mistake your own kindness for understanding.
Perhaps she was.
Kindness was not nothing. Seeing pain did not mean she believed herself capable of fixing it. Sometimes seeing only meant refusing to look away.
“I am sorry,” she said again.
“You apologize often.”
“I step wrongly often.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“It is often true.”
His expression eased despite himself.
The hotel door opened behind her. Cornelia stepped onto the porch with her coffee cup in hand and more tact than the Busy Bees possessed collectively.
“Mr. Peterson,” she said warmly. “Are those brackets I see?”
“A few.”
“You are a blessing. Mrs. Schulte had already begun discussing ribbons as temporary shelf support, and I was afraid civilization itself might not survive the experiment.”
“Ribbons won’t hold books.”
“No. Try telling Mrs. Beck that when the ribbon matches the bunting.”
Peterson glanced toward the dining room window as if he would rather face a falling tree than Mrs. Beck with ribbon.
Cornelia extended a hand for the parcel, then stopped. Her gaze flicked, only briefly, to his hidden right hand before returning to his face. “May I?”
Lottie handed her the package and felt its loss immediately. Why? They were just brackets! She bit her lower lip and looked at the ground.
Cornelia seemed to notice, but she did not comment. “Lottie and I are going to the meeting hall after breakfast to see what can be done before the proper shelves are built. You would be welcome to look over the wall if you have a moment.”
“I have work.”
“Of course.”
Lottie gathered the edge of her courage. “Perhaps this evening?”
He did not answer. Cornelia gave no sign of having heard the invitation, though she stood beside them with the brackets in her hands and ears plainly functioning.
Peterson looked toward the road which led up to camp. “Evenings are not always mine.”
“Then perhaps when one is.”
He looked back at her. The reply had been too soft. Too honest. Lottie knew it by the way his face changed, as if he had not expected her to leave room for the life he had.
“I’ll see,” he said.
Another almost-yes.
She would take it.
After he left, walking toward the camp road with his right hand still tucked away, Lottie stood on the porch a moment longer.
Cornelia waited beside her.
“He brought brackets,” Lottie said.
“He did.”
“For the library.”
“Yes.”
“Not for me.”
Cornelia retreated back in the room and placed the package on a chair. “No?”
Lottie glanced at her. Cornelia’s face was innocent. Far too innocent. Lottie tucked her hands into the folds of her skirt.
“He said they were just brackets.”
“Men say many things when they are frightened.”
“Is he frightened?”
Cornelia looked down the road. “I think Mr. Peterson has spent a long while arranging his life so he would not have to find out.”
“What happened to his hand?” Lottie asked.
Cornelia’s gaze softened. “That is his story.”
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
“Because it is true.”
“I know.” Lottie looked toward the road until Peterson disappeared beyond the mercantile. “I only wish knowing less did not make me imagine more.”
“Then imagine kindly.”
The words settled into her.
Imagine kindly.
Not foolishly or blindly. Kindly.
Lottie could do that. The rest of the morning was given to library matters, which meant Mrs. Schulte’s lists, Mrs. Beck’s enthusiasm, Mrs. Hanford’s objections, and Val’s steady ability to turn all three into progress.
After breakfast, they carried the brackets and two smaller crates to the meeting hall.
The larger trunks would need men and a wagon, and after yesterday’s dock accident, everyone had strong opinions about how book trunks ought to be moved.
Lottie had stronger feelings than opinions.
The sight of that injured boy had not left her.
The meeting hall looked plainer by daylight. Benches lined one wall. A long table stood near the front. Dust had gathered in the corners, and the windows needed washing. One pane rattled when the wind came off the lake.
Lottie loved it.
It was not a library yet. It was hardly even a room ready for books.
The possibility was there.
She set the botany volume on the table and placed Mr. Peterson’s list beside it.
Cornelia opened the brown-paper bundle and counted the brackets. “Enough for a starter shelf.”
“Only one?”
“One shelf is a beginning.”