Page 93 of Charlotte

“The drawing?” he asked.

“Mr. Stafford’s paper. It was on the lending table this morning before he took it back. I saw the measurements.” She gazed at him. “I saw your name.”

His shoulders stiffened.

Lottie kept her hands folded before her, though every part of her wanted to reach for him.

“I did not say it,” she said. “I will not. Knowing a name is not the same as being given it.”

The stiffness eased out of him slowly, painfully. He looked down at the dirt between them. One boot stood inside the marked foundation. One stood outside it.

For a man like Peterson, that seemed about right.

“Cecil,” he said at last.

Lottie’s breath caught.

He kept his gaze lowered. “My name is Cecil.”

“I know.”

“No.” He looked up then. “I mean, you may call me Cecil.”

The wind moved through the pines behind the schoolhouse. Lottie had imagined hearing his name given. She had not imagined it would feel like this, quiet, grave, and more intimate than the kiss behind the meeting hall.

“Only when we are alone?” she asked.

A faint, strained smile touched his mouth. “For now.”

“For now, is a beginning I can honor.”

He swallowed. “Say it, then.”

Her heart beat hard.

“Cecil.”

His eyes closed. Not as if the name hurt this time. As if it had finally come home by a road he had stopped watching.

When he opened them, Lottie’s own eyes had filled, but she refused to look away.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For trusting me with it.”

His gaze dropped to her mouth. The air between them warmed at once, remembering last night. Remembering his hand in hers, his arm around her waist, the kiss that had taken them both by surprise and yet somehow felt inevitable.

He stepped closer.

Only one step.

It was enough.

“Lottie,” he said, and her name in his voice made every sensible thought scatter.

She lifted her face.