Page 109 of Charlotte

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.