Chapter Eighteen #2
Lottie sang the first verse badly, the second a little better, and by the third, her voice had found its place again.
When the service ended, the church released its people into the Fourth of July morning, and the town seemed to remember all at once there were cakes still to be eaten and a donation table to be supervised.
Children rushed ahead until mothers called them back. Men paused outside the doors to discuss lumber, lemonade, and whether the leftover platform on the beach ought to be taken down before or after dinner.
Lottie stepped into the sunlight with Delly beside her. Jeb joined them at once.
“Mrs. Simms,” he said.
Delly looked at him with a softness which made Lottie’s heart ache in a cleaner way than before. “Mr. Simms.”
“Are you ready for Mrs. Schulte’s donation table?”
“No.”
“Good. I mistrust overconfidence.”
Lottie smiled despite herself.
Jeb’s gaze shifted to her, kind but not prying. “Miss Charlotte.”
“Mr. Simms.”
He tilted his head toward the meeting hall. “Cornelia is looking for you. Something about books and ribbons.”
Delly touched Lottie’s arm. “I can come with you.”
“No.” Lottie glanced once toward the churchyard. “I will come along in a moment and meet you there.”
Delly followed her gaze. At the edge of the church steps, Cecil stood apart from the other loggers.
Waiting. Delly’s hand tightened briefly on Lottie’s sleeve, then let go.
Behind me, not in front.
Her sister gave a small nod. “We will be at the meeting hall waiting for you.”
Jeb looked from Lottie to Cecil, and then, wisely, said nothing at all. Lottie remained near the maple tree while the stream of townspeople passed around her. She watched Cecil cross the churchyard.
He ambled towards her, hat in left hand. His right hung at his side, cleanly wrapped and visible to anyone who cared to look.
People did look.
Not cruelly, for once. Or perhaps Lottie had stopped caring for what they saw. Cecil stopped a few feet away.
“Miss Bellamy,” he said.
Public. Proper. Distant enough to bruise.
“Mr. Peterson.”
His mouth tightened.
Good, she thought. Let him dislike the wall he had built.
“I listened this morning,” he said.
“So did most of the town.”
A faint roughness touched his voice. “I heard it differently.”
Lottie’s anger stirred, then quieted under something softer. “So did I.”
He looked down at the hat in his hand. “I owe you an apology.”
“You owe me several. Will this be a general payment or attached to a specific debt?”
His eyes lifted. For the first time in days, she saw the smallest warmth there.
“Specific,” he said. “For making my fear sound like a gift.”
She had wanted him to apologize, but she had not expected him to spell it out that way under the maple tree, with the church behind them and half the town drifting toward leftover cakes.
“Thank you,” she said.
“That does not undo it.”
“No.”
“I know.”
The simple admission shook her more than a polished speech would have. Cecil shifted his hat from one hand to the other, then seemed to remember his right hand was wrapped and stilled.
Lottie noticed.
So did he.
For one moment, they both looked at his hand.
Then he let the hat remain there, held awkwardly between damaged fingers and stiff cloth.
A small, brave thing.
Lottie’s throat tightened.
“Was that your first step?” she asked.
He glanced at her.
“Perhaps.”
“It was a good one.”
“Small.”
“Most first steps are.”
The corner of his mouth moved, but the smile did not fully come.
“I wanted to take your hand when the hymn ended,” he said.
The words were so quiet she nearly missed them. Her heart lurched. “Why didn’t you?”
His gaze moved past her to the church doors, the road, the town beyond. “Because I had given up the right, and I was in the back of the church.”
“Rights are not always taken, Cecil.” She lowered her voice around his name. “Some are given.”
Lottie held her hand out.
Not far, just enough so he could decide if he wanted to take it. Cecil stared at it as though she had offered him something far more dangerous than fingers in a glove.
Shuffling the hat to his left hand, he reached with his right. The wrapped fingers closed around hers with painful care.
Lottie’s breath caught.
His grip was awkward. Warm. Unsteady.
He looked down at their joined hands, and something passed over his face that made every hurtful word in the parsonage ache again, not with fresh pain but with the knowledge of how nearly he had thrown this away.
“I do not deserve this,” he said.
“No,” she said softly, “but you may receive it.”
His eyes shut. For a moment, Lottie thought he would lift her hand to his mouth, but he didn’t.
She inwardly sighed. Too many romance novels.
He only stood there holding it, which somehow felt more intimate in the churchyard than any kiss could have.
Almost any kiss.
His thumb moved once against her glove. Lottie’s heart forgot its manners.
“Cecil,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes. There was longing in them now, and grief, and the first edge of hope. He took one half-step closer. Close enough she had to tilt her face to keep looking at him.
Not hidden behind the meeting hall.
Not in the shadows by the lake.
Here.
In the churchyard.
In the open.
His gaze dropped to her mouth.
Lottie did not move.
If he kissed her now, she would let him. The knowledge went through her like flame. Cecil drew a breath, and his hand tightened around hers.
Then Mrs. Schulte’s voice rang from the road. “Miss Bellamy! The donation table has been compromised by decorative excess!”
Lottie closed her eyes.
Cecil made a sound that might have been pain or laughter.
“Decorative excess,” he repeated.
“It is a recurring danger.”
“I see.”
Lottie opened her eyes. “You were about to kiss me.”
“Yes.”
The plainness of it nearly knocked the breath out of her.
She swallowed. “Now?”
His gaze held hers. “Now I remember I have not yet earned the right to do it in daylight.”
She could have argued. Wanted to argue. Instead, she squeezed his hand once and then let go.
“Then earn it.”
His face changed at that. Not dramatically. Not all at once. Something in him straightened, as if the words had given him both burden and direction.
Mrs. Schulte called again, more urgently.
Lottie stepped back. “I have to rescue the donation table.”
“I know.”
“Are you coming to the meeting hall?”
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
Hope rose so quickly she had to look away.
“Good.”
“Lottie.”
She looked back.
He held her gaze in the bright Sabbath morning. “I do not know the way forward yet.”
“No one asked you for the whole road today.”
“What did you ask for?”
“One step.”
His right hand flexed at his side.
Then he put his hat back on, turned toward the meeting hall instead of the camp road, and took it.
Lottie watched him go.
Not away from her this time.
Toward the town. Toward the people. Toward the books, the donation table, and the small Sunday gathering waiting beneath yesterday’s bunting.
She stood beneath the maple tree a moment longer, her hand still warm from his.
Then Mrs. Schulte shouted something about Mrs. Hanford placing the hymnal too close to the cake, and Lottie gathered her skirts and hurried after them.
Even though the Jubilee was over, Cecil Peterson had come into daylight at last.