Chapter Eleven
By Sunday afternoon, Wild Rose Ridge had taken leave of ordinary sense and surrendered itself to bunting.
Red, white, and blue cloth hung from porch rails, window frames, wagon sides, fence posts, and one unfortunate hitching post Mrs. Beck declared “lonely.” Children ran through the street with paper flags.
Mr. Prentiss stood outside the mercantile guarding his doorframe from nail holes.
Mrs. Hanford carried a basket of ribbon as though entrusted with military supplies.
Lottie loved every bit of it.
The meeting hall had been swept, aired, and invaded by patriotic intention. Two long swags of bunting waited to be hung over the front doors. A crate of books sat beneath the lending table, safely away from dust, hammers, and enthusiastic children.
Peterson had been assigned to help with the ladders, nails, and heavy lifting around town.
Lottie strongly suspected the Bees had not given up on the match, whatever the town whispered, and meant to throw the two of them together as often as decency allowed.
She blessed them for it.
She would have blessed almost anyone who gave her an hour in Peterson’s company.
She wanted the library to be beautiful. Not merely decorated, but welcoming in a way a man could see from clear down the street.
She wanted even the most book-shy logger passing by to feel there was a glad place, a kind place, a place that wanted him in particular and would not laugh if he came inside.
She had ideas above both her station and her reach.
Peterson had already observed this fact aloud four times.
“You’ll come down off that,” he said from the foot of the ladder.
“I will when it is finished.”
“It’s not safe.”
“It is perfectly safe.”
“The boards are uneven, that ladder is older than I am, and you are standing too high.”
“I am not too high. I am precisely high enough.”
“You are precisely one foolish breath from falling on your head.”
Lottie stretched toward the lintel with the bunting gathered in one hand. “If I let you hang it, the swag will be square.”
“A square swag won’t kill you.”
“It may kill the spirit of the thing.”
His jaw set.
She could feel him watching from below, his left hand hovering near the ladder rail, his shoulders stiff with the effort not to touch what he had not been invited to steady.
He was plainly caught between his fear of frightening her and his greater fear of watching her break her neck on the boardwalk.
“Tell me where you want it,” he said, “and I’ll set it. I’m taller than you.”
“You are also less romantic than I am.”
“About cloth, yes.”
“Exactly my concern.”
“Lottie.”
The way he said her name should not have made her smile when she was balanced on an elderly ladder with one hand full of bunting and the other reaching for a nail.
Yet it did.
She turned her head just enough to look down at him and blinked her eyes several times. “Peterson, you are a wonderful carpenter, a marvel with a saw, and a man of many sturdy qualities. You have not got one ounce of romance in your whole great body when it comes to a length of bunting.”
The ladder shifted. Lottie’s stomach dropped before the rest of her did.
The bright street tilted. The bunting flew out of her hand. She made one small, undignified sound and grabbed for the air.
Peterson caught her.
He moved before she had finished falling. One moment she was above him, the next she was against his chest, his arms locked around her with a strength that left no room for doubt. Her hands clutched the front of his coat. Her feet were off the ground. His heart hammered hard beneath her cheek.
“I’ve got you,” he said. His voice had gone rough. “I’ve got you, lass. You’re all right.”
For a moment, Lottie did not move.
Neither did he.
The whole street continued around them. Somewhere behind her, Mrs. Beck gasped. A child laughed and was hushed. Mr. Prentiss objected to a nail hole with deep personal feeling.
Peterson held Lottie as if the rest of the town had disappeared.
Then she felt his right hand.
The hidden one.
It was spread firm against her back, stiff fingers bracing her every bit as surely as his left arm did. He had forgotten to guard it. There had been no time for shame when she was falling, no spare breath for hiding. He had caught her with both hands because she needed to be caught.
Lottie did the only thing she could do—she let him.
She did not stiffen or glance down. She did not make his hand into a subject between them when all it had done was hold her safe.
Instead, she lifted her face to his, breathless and near laughter, and said, “Well caught, Mr. Peterson.”
His eyes searched hers.
She smiled, though her heart was still misbehaving. “I knew you would never let me fall.”
That was when he realized.
She felt the change in him through his arms. His right hand began to draw back, the old instinct rising before he had time to command it. He expected her to notice. Worse, he expected her to mind.
Lottie kept her hands resting against his coat and looked only at him.
The retreat stopped.
Not fully. Not easily.
It stopped.
Peterson stood in the middle of Main Street with Lottie in his arms and his damaged hand still pressed to her back. She could feel the effort it cost him not to snatch it away.
“You ought to be more careful,” he said.
The words were gruff. His voice was not.
“I am occasionally careful.”
“No.”
“It happens.”
“No, it does not.”
“My sister may have influenced your opinion.”
“Your sister has evidence.”
Lottie laughed then, softly, because he sounded so shaken and so himself she could not help it.
He set her down gently.
Her boots met the boardwalk. His left hand dropped away first. His right hand lingered a moment longer against her back, as if he had not quite remembered to be ashamed of it again.
Then he drew it away. Lottie caught his hand before he could hide it.
Peterson stilled.
She did not grip him tightly. She folded her fingers carefully around his, letting them rest between the whole fingers and the shortened ones as if his hand had every right to fit with hers. Then she looked down at their joined hands.
His scars were pale in the morning light. The two damaged fingers bent stiffly where winter had taken what it wanted. His palm was broad and rough, warm from holding her, stronger than he believed.
Lottie looked at his hand long enough for him to know she saw it, then she lifted her eyes to his.
“I know there is a story here,” she said softly. “You do not have to tell it to me today.”
His throat worked once.
“You do not have to hide your hand from me either.” She kept her fingers wrapped gently through his. “When you are ready to speak of it, I will listen.”
For one suspended moment, the bustle of Main Street seemed to move around them instead of between them.
Peterson looked at her mouth. Lottie’s breath caught. He leaned closer, slowly enough she could have stepped back if she wished. She did not. His shadow fell across her bonnet brim, and his hand tightened once around hers, not in fear this time.
Then his gaze shifted past her shoulder. He reached behind her with his left hand and lifted the fallen bunting from the boardwalk.
Lottie blinked.
The corner of his mouth moved. “You dropped this.”
She stared at him for one heartbeat, then laughed, breathless and unsteady. “So, I did.”
He released his hand and grabbed the bunting from the other side and offered it to her with his right hand. Lottie thought she might swoon—it mattered almost as much as the almost-kiss.
She took the bunting from him, letting her fingers brush his scarred palm without apology. “Will you hang it for me after all?”
He looked from the cloth to her face and nodded.
“As high as you can reach,” she added. “Which is considerably higher than I can. I shall call it my idea of beautiful, even if the swag is square.”
His mouth twitched. “Now a square is allowed?”
“I have reconsidered.”
“Because you nearly fell.”
“Because I was caught by the right hands.”
Peterson went quiet. The words had reached him. She saw that much and left them there. A man like Peterson did not need every tenderness explained until it lost its shape.
He took the bunting from her.
This time, Lottie remained on the boardwalk while he climbed only one rung and stretched easily to the lintel. He set the nail with his left hand and braced the cloth with his right. The motion was awkward, but sure. He glanced at the hand once, then fixed the bunting in place.
The swag was not quite graceful.
It was not exactly square either.
It was strong, high, and true.
Lottie loved it.
Mrs. Beck clasped her hands from the street. “Oh, that is lovely.”
Mrs. Hanford studied the display. “Respectable.”
Mrs. Schulte made a mark on her list. “The meeting hall is a contender.”
Peterson stepped down from the ladder and looked up at his work. “It’ll hold.”
“I know.” He glanced at her. Lottie smiled. “You hung it.”
His gaze held hers for a moment longer than it would have a week ago.
Then a voice came from the street. “Peterson! You courting bunting now?”
A few men laughed from near the mercantile. Peterson’s shoulders tightened.
Lottie turned and recognized the young man yelling across the road. “If he is, Mr. Hardy, the bunting is fortunate. It has been treated with more care than most women receive from men who stand in the street making remarks.”
Luke’s grin faltered. One of the other loggers laughed at him instead. Peterson looked down, but Lottie caught the corner of his mouth before he hid it.
Luke lifted both hands. “No offense, Miss Bellamy.”
“Then take care not to practice it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Mrs. Beck made a small approving noise.
Mrs. Hanford said, “That was neatly handled.”
“I have sisters,” Lottie said.
“You have one sister.”
“She is sufficient.”
Peterson picked up the nail tin, but his right hand remained visible at his side. Visible.
For the rest of the morning, he used it more than he had meant to.
Lottie could tell by the way he noticed after each task.
He steadied the ladder with it. Braced another strip of bunting.
Held the rail while he reached for the hammer.
Once, when a child nearly knocked over the nail tin, he caught it with his right hand before it struck the boards.
Each time he looked down afterward as if surprised by what it had done. Lottie did not comment. Peterson didn’t need a speech about his hand. All he needed was one foolish girl who had fallen just far enough to prove it could still catch what mattered.
By late morning, the library front looked bright enough to be seen from the far end of Main Street.
Red, white, and blue cloth framed the doors.
A small sign reading WILD ROSE RIDGE LENDING LIbrARY sat beneath the bunting in Delly’s neat lettering.
The first shelf could be glimpsed through the open doorway, the books standing straight in the summer light.
Peterson stood beside Lottie on the boardwalk and studied the display.
“Well?” she asked.
“It’s high.”
“That is not praise.”
“It’ll hold.”
“That is also not praise.”
“It looks welcoming,” he said at last. Lottie turned to him. He kept his eyes on the meeting hall. “Like you meant it to.”
The compliment was plain, low, and better than any pretty thing he might have said.
Her throat tightened. “Thank you.”
His right hand flexed once at his side. This time, he did not hide it afterward. Lottie looked up at the bunting again. A square swag, hung by the right hands, was about the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.