Page 124 of Charlotte

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.