Chapter 8
Jonas always felt as if wood made more sense than people. Wood didn’t judge him. It didn’t gossip or stare while he fought to get words out of his throat. Wood just waited, calm and ready, until he turned it into something useful.
Then Maeve showed up, and everything changed.
She stood next to him in the half-finished church hall, her sleeves rolled up, and auburn hair pinned back. Some of her tendrils were already slipping into soft curls around her face.
Sunlight poured in through the framed-in windows, lighting up the dust like tiny stars. Maeve watched him closely as he showed her how to sand the bench plank.
“Like this,” Jonas said, running the sandpaper in smooth strokes. “Ya want to follow the grain. If ya go against it, the wood splinters.”
“Follow the grain,” Maeve nodded, biting her lip as she concentrated.
She took the wood plane from him and tried to copy his motions. Her strokes came out a bit too fast, too heavy, leaving rough spots. She frowned, shifted her grip, and tried again.
“Slower,” he said, his voice quiet. “Let the wood tell ya what it needs.” Jonas stepped behind her, careful not to crowd her.
“You talk about it like it’s alive,” Maeve’s laugh came soft and easy.
“Sort of feels that way sometimes,” he shrugged.
She tried again, moving her hand with the curve of the plank. The sound was gentle, steady, almost a kind of music in the space.
“There,” he said. “That’s it.”
Maeve lit up, and something warm spread through Jonas’s chest. Seeing her pure excitement made Jonas happy. Her joy brought him a contentment he couldn’t remember ever having before.
They fell into a rhythm of passing tools, brushing sawdust off their clothes, swapping smiles when things worked and groaning together when they didn’t. Maeve messed up a lot. She dropped a hammer, mismeasured a board, and even sanded her own knuckle raw once.
But every mistake made her laugh, and Jonas found himself laughing right along with her.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d laughed so much.
Or the last time someone waited for him to finish his tangled words without any sign of impatience.
Maeve always did. She spoke to him in a soft and steady tone and never hurried him.
That made conversation feel less like a fight and more like something they did together.
Around noon, they went outside for a lunch of bread with fresh churned butter, apples and a piece of salted pork Maeve had brought. They sat under a tall pine with the breeze carrying the smell of the nearby fire and coals from the blacksmith and the warm earth.
“I think I’m getting the hang of things,” Maeve broke off some bread and handed it over.
“Ya are,” Jonas said, taking it. “Ya learn real quick.”
“Aye! That’s because you’re a good teacher,” she grinned.
“I’m just showing ya what I know,” Jonas felt his face grow warm from her compliment.
“That’s teaching,” she said, gentle as anything.
Jonas looked at his rough hands, thinking of all the years he spent working alone. He never saw himself as someone anyone would want to learn from. Maeve made him feel capable, as if he was worth listening to.
They sat together in easy silence, watching sparrows peck at the ground. Maeve leaned against the tree, eyes closed, letting the breeze stir her hair.
Jonas watched her, unable to look away. She appeared peaceful, as if a weight had lifted, if only for a little while. He wanted to keep that peace for her, to protect it.
No, to protect her.
But the town still whispered. Jonas heard rumors in the mercantile, saw sideways looks at the café, and caught how hushed words stopped when he passed.
Some folks warmed up to Maeve. People like Mrs. Hartley, the pastor, and a few ranch wives who appreciated her work.
But others…others never dropped their suspicion.
Jonas wasn’t sure he was strong enough to shield her.
“What?” Maeve’s eyes opened and met his.
“Nothing. Just…thinking,” Jonas almost choked when she caught him gazing at her.
“About what?”
He wanted to say it. He wanted to tell her he worried about her, about the town, that he wished he was the kind of man who could speak up for her. But the words wouldn’t come.
“About the hall,” he managed. “We’re moving along pretty well.”
Maeve held his gaze for a moment, as though she could hear all he didn’t say. She didn’t push. Just smiled.
“Aye,” she said. “We are.”
They went back inside. The afternoon slipped away in sawdust and sunlight. Maeve grew more confident with every task Jonas gave her. She measured boards exactly right. She hammered nails without bending them. She smoothed rough edges until they shone.
Maeve fumbled and dropped a handful of nails. They scattered everywhere. She groaned, dropping to her knees.
“I swear these things are alive,” she muttered. “They’re running from me.”
“They’re just testing ya,” Jonas laughed.
“Well, they’re winning.”
He knelt down with her, picking up the nails one by one. Their hands brushed, just for a moment, and Maeve’s breath caught. Jonas felt it too. It was a sharp, bright spark between them.
“Yer doing well,” he said, voice soft.
“Thank you, Jonas,” Maeve glanced up. Her green eyes warmed.
Hearing his name like that, he felt something inside him shift.
They stood, brushing the dust from their clothes, and Jonas tried to focus on his workbench again. He tried to calm his breathing but failed. He’d never felt like this. Not with anyone. He felt so much at once: admiration, a fierce wish to protect her, and something deeper he couldn’t quite name.
He was falling.
Slowly and quietly, like a man slipping into a river, only realizing too late how deep the water runs.
But Maeve was a force. She was brave, bright, and beautiful, and had a voice that could fill any room, and a spirit impossible to dull. She deserved someone who could stand beside her without stumbling over every word.
Jonas wasn’t sure he was that man. Maybe he never would be.
As the sunlight faded, stretching long and golden rays through the hall, Maeve dusted off her skirt and let out a soft, satisfied sigh. “I think that’s enough for today.”
“Ya did good work,” Jonas nodded.
She gave him a gentle smile that struck something deep in his chest.
“Thank you,” she said. “For teaching me. For…everything.”
“Yer welcome,” Jonas swallowed.
Outside, the air felt cool and clear against their skin. Maeve walked ahead, humming to herself with the last bit of daylight tracing her outline.
Jonas watched her go, his chest full and aching.
He wanted to reach for her hand. He wanted to tell her exactly how much she meant to him. He wanted to believe she might ever pick someone like him.
But the words stuck.
So they walked home together, and Jonas carried his longing the way he always did. Quiet, close, and heavy as a shadow.
Days later, with the late afternoon sunlight slanted through the open window where Jonas worked, splashing the new wood with a sunny shimmer, he steered the chisel along the edge with steady hands, watching a thin curl of pine drop away.
That clean, sharp scent of resin wrapped around him. He was always soothed by it.
He let out a slow breath.
Working with wood had always brought him quiet. It had since he was a kid.
For a moment, he let the chisel rest, letting old memories settle in. They were unasked for, but clear as the wood plank’s grain under his thumb.
He was eight again, huddled behind the schoolhouse while the other kids raced around the yard. Their laughter sliced through the air, as Jonas stayed put. His knees tight to his chest, and his fists around a rough little block of wood.
The jeers still echoed, even now.
“Say it again, J-Jonas!”
“Cat got your tongue?”
“He can’t talk right!”
He’d tried. Goodness, he’d tried.
The harder he forced the words, the worse they tangled, and the louder the ridicule became. Eventually, he just stopped. He found a fallen branch by the fence, snapped off a piece, and started carving with a pocketknife his father had slipped in his hand.
He was clumsy at first but kept at it, focus growing. The wood didn’t laugh when he slipped. It didn’t judge, and it didn’t talk back. It just gave way beneath the knife, waiting to become something.
He carved a rough little bird. It was crooked and uneven, but it was his.
Jonas smiled a little, remembering.
By twelve, he had a whole crowd of animals, including bears, rabbits, horses, even a lopsided cow his mother kept on the mantle until she died. Carving became his hiding place, and a world where silence meant comfort, not failure.
He ran his thumb along the smooth edge of the window frame.
When he turned seventeen, he spent every nickel from odd jobs on a tiny plot at the edge of Owl Flats. Folks said he was too young to build a cabin, as well as too quiet and unsure.
It didn’t matter. That summer, through heat and wind, then later in the autumn, he fought against the threat of snow, Jonas worked alone. He cut every beam, set every post, raised the roof with grit and a borrowed ladder.
Sure, the place stood a bit crooked at first. But it was his. No one laughed when he tripped over his words. Silence meant peace, not shame.
He’d lived there ever since.
Now he lifted his chisel again, guiding it along the frame, letting the wood peel away in slim, perfect curls. That easy satisfaction settled in his chest, It was the one that always came when things fit together just right.
But something was different today. Something was nagging at him.
Maeve.
He glanced to the other end of the hall where, earlier, she’d been sanding a shelf. She’d left a little while ago to make supper, still humming as she walked out. He could almost hear her voice drifting through the sawdust haze, soft and bright.
Jonas swallowed, throat tight.
He’d always been alone. Not really lonely, just…apart from others. It was simpler that way. Safer. People made things messy. His work was reliable.
But Maeve had a way of shaking up all that certainty.
She laughed at her own mistakes. Asked him things without making him feel slow. Listened to everything he said, even when he stumbled. Then when she smiled at him, something inside him broke open. It warmed and half-terrified him.
He set the chisel down, rubbing the back of his neck.
He was falling for her, he knew that. He felt it in the way his chest clenched when she brushed past, or in the way he scanned every room looking for her, and in how he daydreamed about her laughter filling his cabin, bright as morning.
But old doubts started creeping in.
Maeve was brilliant as well as brave, lively, and full of life from the inside. She deserved someone who didn’t trip over words, someone steady in a crowd, someone who could stand tall and meet the world head-on.
Jonas wasn’t that man. Could he ever be that man?
He picked up the chisel, trying again, but his hands shook.
Outside, the wind nudged the pines, whispered along the raw boards of the unfinished hall. Jonas closed his eyes, letting the sound settle his nerves.
He’d keep building this place, this life, and whatever future there might be.
But as he carved deeper into the wood, a cold worry lingered in his chest. No matter how strong he built these walls, they might never be enough to keep Maeve safe, or to hold off the old shadows waiting just outside.
Deep down, he didn’t know if he’d ever be enough for her either.