Page 19 of Charlotte

“I am eighteen.” His brow drew together. “Girls are nine,” she clarified. “Or twelve on hard days. I am a woman, though Delly is still adjusting to the fact and may require time.”

He looked startled, then looked as if he might admire her against his better judgment. “A kind woman, then.”

“Thank you.”

“And hopeful.”

“I will accept that, too.”

“You ought to take care where you set hope.”

The words were gentle. That made them hurt more. Lottie glanced past him to the churchyard wall. Delly was now sitting beside Mr. Simms. Not too close, but close enough every instinct in Lottie sat up straight. Her sister had a notebook in her lap, unopened. Mr. Simms turned his hat slowly in both hands.

Whatever they were saying, it was not small talk.

Lottie looked back at Mr. Peterson. “I do try to be careful.”

His expression plainly said he did not believe her.

She lifted her chin. “I did not cross half a continent because I thought love was easy. I crossed because I thought it might be worth courage.”

Something on his face changed.

There. A crack in the wall. Not large enough to step through, perhaps, but large enough to let light show at the seam.

He looked down at the Bible in her hands. “Courage can be costly.”

“Yes,” she said, “but so is fear.”

The words surprised her after she had said them. They sounded like something Delly might have written in a notebook and then crossed out because it was too true to be useful.

Mr. Peterson stared at her. For one suspended moment, the whole morning held still.

Then Mrs. Beck called brightly from the church steps, “Mr. Peterson! Miss Bellamy! You two must not hide where no one can admire you.”

Mr. Peterson shut down so fast Lottie felt it like a door closing in her own chest.

He took one step back. “You should go.”

“I am not the only one being summoned for admiration.”

“That makes one of us.”

The dryness of it almost made her smile, but his face was too guarded now. Whatever had nearly opened between them had slipped away beneath the sound of Mrs. Beck’s voice.

Still, before he could retreat fully, Lottie said, “The books will be at the meeting hall soon. I would like you to come see them.”

His gaze flickered to hers.

“Not to lift trunks,” she added quickly. “Or shelves, or boxes, or anything else that might make you wish you had taken a different road out of church. Only to see them. Since you have already saved one and kept another from falling, you are practically acquainted with the collection.”

For a second, she feared she had said the wrong thing. Then he looked toward the road, toward the town below, anywhere but at her.

“I’ll see,” he said.

It was not yes. It was also not no.

Lottie accepted it with the dignity of a woman who knew how to make a feast out of crumbs and a library out of three trunks.