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“To whom?”

“To whoever needs to hear it.”

He searched her face. “Lottie.”

“No.” She stepped back before his nearness could turn her into pleading. “I am not asking you to answer today. You already have. I heard you.”

“That is not what I want.”

“I know.”

Lottie picked up her bonnet from the grass and tied the ribbons with fingers that only shook a little.

“Finish the library if you wish,” she said. “Or don’t. Attend the Jubilee if you can bear it. Stay away if you cannot. I will not be hidden inside your fear anymore, Cecil Peterson. I love you, and I’m sorry that isn’t enough.”

He stood on the lakeshore, tall and wounded and loving her badly. She loved him anyway. Lottie turned toward town.

This time, he did not follow.

At the edge of the path, she looked back once.

He remained by the water, his hat in one hand and the other pressed against his chest as if holding something together beneath the ribs.

Good, she thought, though tears burned again.

Let him feel what leaving costs before he calls it mercy.

Then she walked back to the meeting hall, where books waited, bunting needed straightening, and a blank space in the lending ledger still had no ending written in it.

Chapter Seventeen

July 2, 1886 — The Beach

The day after Cecil Peterson refused to marry her, Wild Rose Ridge continued preparing for a celebration.

Lottie found that rude.

Main Street had no consideration at all for broken hearts. It went right on filling itself with bunting, pies, barrels of lemonade, hammering, wagon wheels, and children waving paper flags before the Fourth had even properly arrived. Mrs. Beck stopped three times outside the bakery to adjust the ribbon that had offended no one except herself. Mrs. Schulte carried a list so long it fluttered behind her like a patriotic banner. Mr. Prentiss stood in front of the mercantile, arguing that penny candy arranged by color counted as a civic contribution.

The whole town seemed determined to be glad.

Lottie did not object to gladness on principle.

She wished it would only lower its voice.

She spent the morning at the meeting hall, entering returns in the lending ledger and refusing to look toward the schoolhouse lot any more than necessary. It proved difficult because the schoolhouse lot had become the most interesting place in Wild Rose Ridge.

The library walls had not risen yet, but more lumber had arrived. Men came and went with planks on their shoulders. Mr. Stafford’s measuring string appeared and disappeared. Luke nearly dropped a stack of boards when Mrs. Hanford asked whether the future library would have a proper rule against tobacco stains.

During all the chaos, Cecil was there.

Not always where she could see him. Never close enough for speech. Every so often, she caught sight of him through the meeting hall window: tall and broad-shouldered in the sun, hat low, sleeves rolled, his wrapped hand visible as he pointed toward the marked foundation.

He had said he could not marry her.

He had also placed three windows in her library.

Lottie sharpened a pencil so hard the tip broke.