Page 5 of Charlotte

“Thank you.” Lottie took the book with both hands. Their fingers did not touch, because he made certain they would not. “Are you Mr. Peterson?”

His face changed slightly, but he didn’t speak. Anyone else might have missed it. Lottie had spent half her life reading aloud to a widow whose eyes saw little and whose silence said much, and she had learned people often spoke first with their faces.

“I am,” he said.

That was all.

Not, ‘You must be Miss Bellamy.’

No, ‘I am glad you came safely.’

Not even a, ‘That is a great number of books for one woman.’

Mr. Peterson’s response was simply two words: I am. Then he stepped back.

Lottie held Tennyson against her chest, not caring mud was transferring to her light travel frock. “I’m Charlotte Bellamy,” she blurted. “Though everyone calls me Lottie.”

A man bumped between them, carrying one of her smaller trunks. By the time the path cleared again, Mr. Peterson had moved toward the far side of the dock, where the noise could swallow him more easily.

He did not look back.

Lottie stood there with her book pressed to her heart and her hope dented in a place she had not known was exposed.

“Well,” Delly said, appearing at her side with blood still staining the cuff of one sleeve. “He is certainly tall.”

Lottie blinked at her. “You are bleeding.”

“It is not mine.”

“That does not make it less alarming.”

“It makes it less urgent.” Delly looked past her toward the retreating logger. “Was that Mr. Peterson?”

“Yes.”

“Did he speak?”

“He rescued Tennyson from the dock.”

“That is not speaking.”

“He also told me the boards would ruin it.”

Delly considered this. “Imagine that. It was very nearly a conversation.”

Lottie looked down at the book. A faint line of damp marked one corner, and a bit of mud appeared on the cover, but the pages were safe. “He read the page.”

“Did he?”

“His lips moved.”

“Perhaps he was sounding out the title.”

“It was open to the middle.”

“Then perhaps he was criticizing your habit of transporting loose poetry across dangerous surfaces.”

Lottie’s mouth twitched. Delly had blood on her sleeve, a torn hem, and the steady expression of a woman who had just helped save a stranger’s arm and considered the matter part of an inconvenient morning. Lottie loved her fiercely for that.