Chapter Sixteen
The next morning, Val Sutton came to the meeting hall while Lottie was trying to decide whether patriotic books required their own shelf or whether Mrs. Schulte had finally done lasting harm to her judgment.
Val did not come smiling.
That told Lottie enough to make her set down the ledger.
“Has something happened?”
Val stood just inside the door; her hands were folded in front of her. She looked like a minister’s wife, a matchmaker’s escort, and a woman who wished very much that someone else had been sent to do this errand.
“Preacher Sutton would like to speak with you at the parsonage.”
Lottie’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
The little library continued to exist around her as if nothing had changed. Books stood on the shelf. Ink dried in the ledger. A child outside called for another child to stop throwing stones at a stump. Somewhere near the schoolhouse lot, a hammer struck wood.
Cecil’s library.
Her library.
The town’s library, if one wished to be annoyingly precise.
“Is Delly there?” Lottie asked.
“No.”
“Is Cecil?”
Val’s face answered before her mouth did.
“Yes.”
For one foolish moment, Lottie thought of marriage.
A preacher. Val. Cecil.
Then she saw Val’s eyes.
Not marriage.
Not joy.
Something colder moved through her.
“He went to the preacher before he came to me,” Lottie said.
Val stepped closer. “I told him no woman is freed by being removed from the conversation.”
Lottie felt panic course through her veins.
Freed.
A small, harmless word with teeth.
“How thoughtful of him to include me after being reminded I exist.”
Val winced. “My dear—”
“No.” Lottie reached for her bonnet. Her hands were steady, which surprised her. “I will hear it from him.”
They walked to the parsonage in silence.
The sun rose higher in the sky, causing her shoulders to warm underneath her summer shawl. Main Street bustled with Jubilee preparations.
Mrs. Beck had two boys hanging ribbons along the dock railings.
Mr. Prentiss stood in front of the mercantile, arguing with Mrs. Hanford about whether a barrel could be draped patriotically without becoming a hazard.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw the bunting above the meeting hall lifted in the breeze, square and sturdy and beautiful.
Cecil had hung it with his right hand.
Lottie looked away before the sight could undo her.
The parsonage sat beside the church, small and white, with a neat path lined with flowers. Inside, the front room smelled of lemon oil, old paper, and coffee. Preacher Sutton stood near the mantel with his Bible in one hand and his spectacles in the other.
Cecil stood by the window instead of sitting in one of the comfortable chairs.
Of course, he didn’t sit. A man preparing to wound himself in the name of honor would not make himself comfortable first.
His hat was in his left hand. His right hand was wrapped and visible at his side. That detail hurt more than if he had hidden it. He had kept some part of what she gave him, even while preparing to take himself away.
“Lottie,” he said.
“Cecil.”
Val looked down.
Preacher Sutton cleared his throat gently. “Miss Bellamy, Mr. Peterson came this morning to discuss the match arranged through the Sisters’ company.”
“I assumed he had not come to discuss hymn selection.”
Cecil’s eyes closed briefly.
Lottie was glad. Let him feel at least one small sting of it.
Preacher Sutton did not rebuke her. “He asked what would be required to release you from the agreement.”
The words landed cleanly. There was no gossip, or Mrs. Beck weeping into a handkerchief.
Just the truth, spoken in a parsonage on a bright July morning while the man who had kissed her stood ten feet away and looked as though he might endure anything except her silence.
Oh, just wait until Delly finds out. Heaven help them all.
Lottie turned to Cecil. “You went to the preacher before you came to me.”
“I meant to do it properly.”
“No. You meant to do it safely.”
His jaw tightened. “That is not fair.”
“It is precise.”
Val’s mouth moved once. It might have been approval. It might have been prayer.
Cecil looked toward the window. Outside, somewhere near the schoolhouse, another hammer struck wood.
“You deserve a choice unburdened by obligation,” he said.
“I had one.”
“No. You had a match arranged before you knew me.”
“Now I know you.” His fingers tightened around the brim of his hat. Lottie stepped closer to him. “Just spit it out.”
His gaze came back to her. The ache in his eyes nearly made her soften.
Nearly.
If he meant to break her heart, he could look at her while he did it.
“I wish to release you from the match,” he said.
Her throat burned.
“Why?”
“You know why.”
“No. I know the case you have argued against yourself. I am asking for the truth.”
Cecil looked to Preacher Sutton, then Val, then back to Lottie.
“They should not have to hear this.”
“You brought them into it.”
The realization left him speechless.
Preacher Sutton folded his hands. “Truth rarely suffers from honest witnesses, Mr. Peterson. Mrs. Sutton and I can step outside if Miss Bellamy wishes.”
Lottie shook her head. “No. He wanted this done properly. Let it be proper.”
Cecil drew a deep breath.
“You deserve a man who can stand beside you without wondering when he will shame you,” he said.
“A man who can dance with you in a room full of people instead of hiding behind the meeting hall. A man with a house ready, a trade steadier than camp work, and two hands fit for holding children without wondering whether one of them will fail.”
Val made a small sound.
Lottie did not look away from Cecil.
“There it is,” she said softly. His brows drew together. “The list.”
“Lottie—”
“No. I have heard versions of it all week. You don’t have a proper house and are no longer a logger. Instead, you keep busy with tasks around the camp. You don’t have your full hand. We can’t dance in public. You keep presenting your fear as evidence and expecting me to call it wisdom.”
His face tightened. “I am trying to spare you.”
“I did not ask to be spared.”
“You are eighteen.”
“Yes. Shall I fetch Delly so she may give testimony that I am not seven?”
A flicker of pain crossed his eyes. Lottie saw it and regretted the edge, but not the truth.
“I am young,” she said. “I am not breakable.”
“I know you are strong.”
“No, you don’t.” Her voice shook now. She hated that too. “If you had known it, you would not have gone to the preacher first. You would not have asked how to undo my future as if I were a parcel addressed to the wrong house.”
“That is not what you are to me.”
“Then do not treat me like something to be handled correctly and returned.”
Cecil flinched.
Good.
Let that one strike where it needed to.
Lottie drew a breath and lowered her voice. “Do you love me?”
The room went utterly quiet.
Val looked down at her folded hands. Preacher Sutton turned his gaze to the window, giving them what privacy he could inside the room.
Cecil did not answer.
The silence told her enough. Still, she waited.
At last, he said, “That is why I am doing this.”
The words should have comforted her. They did not.
“No,” she said. “That is why it hurts worse.”
His eyes lifted.
“You love me and still decided I should not be allowed to answer. You love me and went to a preacher before you came to the woman you claim to be sparing. You love me and use that love to stand in my doorway exactly as Delly did, only taller and with more sorrow.”
“Do not compare me to your sister.”
“You heard us.” He went still. Lottie had not known for certain until that moment. Her breath caught, but she did not let the realization turn her aside. “You were at the meeting hall last night.”
Cecil looked away.
“What did you hear?”
“Enough.”
“No. Say it.”
His jaw worked once. “I heard you quarrel with the person who loves you most because of me.”
“We quarreled about my right to choose.”
“Because of me.”
“You do not get to make yourself the center of a fight about my adulthood.” His eyes came back to hers, sharp with hurt.
She stepped closer. “I told Delly to stand behind me, not in front of me. This morning you walked straight into the place she left open.”
He looked as if she had struck him.
Lottie’s own tears rose, hot and unwanted. “You call it love. You call it honor. It is still you deciding I cannot be trusted with the weight of choosing you.”
“I am not worth the fight it will cost you.”
“That is not yours to decide.”
“It is if I refuse.”
For the first time that morning, Lottie had no answer ready, because he was right in the one way that mattered most.
She could choose him.
She could love him.
She could argue, plead, kiss his ruined hand, speak his name gently, defend him to Delly, and stand before all of Wild Rose Ridge declaring him worth the trouble.
No matter what she did, she could not make him stay. Preacher Sutton looked as if he wanted to speak and thought better of it.
Val’s eyes shone.
Lottie lifted her chin. “Then tell me, Cecil Peterson. Say the words out loud.” Cecil swallowed. “No lists,” she said. “No noble speeches. No telling me what I deserve. If you are refusing me, refuse me.”
His face had gone pale beneath the beard.
“Lottie.”
“No. Say it.” She slapped her hand against her leg, feeling the sting beneath the cotton.
His hand curled around the hat brim until the felt bent.
“I cannot marry you.”
A choked sob broke from Lottie’s throat.
She had thought the worst would be his leaving. It was not. The worst was that he said it as if each word cut him too, and she still could not stop them from landing.
“Thank you,” she said. “For saying it to my face.”
His mouth parted, but no words came.
Lottie turned to Val. “Is there a paper I must sign?”
Val looked at Preacher Sutton. The preacher shook his head.
“No formal paper today. The Sisters’ records can note the match is unresolved until both parties speak with a clear mind.”
Cecil’s head lifted. “I spoke clearly.”
“So, you did,” Preacher Sutton said. “Grief often mistakes itself for clarity.”