Chapter Seven #3
The words surprised her. He seemed surprised too, as if they had come out before he could test them.
Lottie looked at him across the fading light. “I do not want to hurt you.”
“That isn’t always in your keeping.”
“No. Some of it is.”
He considered her for a long moment, then lifted the Tennyson slightly. “There is a line in here.”
Her breath caught. “Is there?”
“Aye.”
He opened the book with his left hand. The motion was awkward with the cloth marker and his hidden right hand, but he managed it. Lottie did not offer help, though every part of her wanted to make it easier. He found the page and held it where he could read.
He did not recite loudly. The words were for the two of them and the trees.
“‘I hold it true, whate’er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; ’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’”
The lines settled between them.
Lottie knew them, of course. She had read them many times. She had never heard them in Peterson’s voice, low and careful, as if each word had to be carried over rough ground before it could reach her.
Her throat tightened.
“You read beautifully,” she said. He closed the book at once. It must have been too much. She saw it and softened her voice. “That is not flattery. Only truth.”
“Truth can be poorly timed.”
“I am discovering that.”
Another quiet huff of amusement. Then he tucked the book beneath his arm.
“The man hurt today,” she said. “Mr. Holt. Will he live?”
“Likely. Simms is good with shattered things.”
Lottie heard what he did not say.
“And you?” she asked. “Are you good with shattered things?”
His eyes found hers. “No.”
She did not believe him, but she understood this was not the night to say so. Instead, she picked up the cookie tin and held it out.
“For the men. Mrs. Beck believes cookies improve civilization.”
He accepted the tin with his left hand. “She believes many things.”
“Some of them loudly.”
That earned another small smile.
Progress, Lottie thought, was not always a grand march. Sometimes it was one smile which allowed a heartbeat longer than the last.
They walked back toward the camp together, not close enough to touch. At the edge of the clearing, Peterson stopped.
“Miss Bellamy.”
“Yes?”
“The book is due next Tuesday.”
“I know.”
“I may keep it until then.”
Her smile came before she could prevent it. “That is the purpose of borrowing.”
“I thought I should say.”
“I am glad you did.”
He gave one brief nod and carried the cookies toward the cookhouse.
Luke looked up from the bench. The red-bearded logger beside him did too. Their attention moved from Peterson to Lottie and back again.
Peterson set the tin on the table between them.
“Miss Bellamy brought these.”
Luke stood so quickly his coffee nearly tipped. “Thank you, miss.”
“You are welcome.”
The red-bearded logger opened his mouth, then seemed to reconsider and took off his hat instead. “Beg pardon for earlier.”
Lottie looked at him. “Do better next time.”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Peterson’s gaze shifted to her, and there was something in it that warmed her more than praise would have.
Respect, perhaps. Or gratitude.
“Let me walk you back to town.”
She nodded and they began the journey back to the meeting house.
Lottie felt the day settle around her. She had wounded him, and when she apologized, he had not sent her away.
He had given her a piece of his name and kept the rest, and for once, she understood this was not rejection.
He was learning to trust. At the meeting hall, he left her with a nod to Delly, who was standing near the open door. The lamp lit up behind her.
“Well?” her sister asked, once Peterson was away from the door.
Lottie stepped inside and hung her bonnet on the peg. “I apologized.”
“And?”
“He accepted. Mostly.”
“Mostly is often what we get.”
Lottie looked toward the shelf where Tennyson’s space remained open.
“He read to me.”
Delly’s brows rose.
“Only four lines.”
“That is not only.”
“No,” Lottie whispered. “I know.”
Delly studied her face, then glanced toward the empty place on the shelf. “What did you learn?”
Lottie thought of Peterson’s voice in the pines, his mother’s name for him, the way he had said work was safer.
“That names can be shelters,” she said. “Some men have lived so long under one roof, they do not know how to step into another.”
Delly was quiet for a moment. Then she reached for the ledger, turned it toward herself, and looked at Peterson’s entry.
PETERSON.
She did not add a thing. For that, Lottie loved her.
Outside, the town settled into lamplight and sawdust and the distant sounds of a logging camp still holding its breath after blood. Inside, the first shelf of the Wild Rose Ridge library stood steady against the wall.
One specific book was missing from it.
One careful man had not returned it yet.
Lottie, who had once thought romance would move in grand speeches and certain answers, suspected it might be built instead of apologies, restraint, and the courage to leave a blank space untouched until it was offered.