Page 85 of Charlotte

He looked away toward the dark line of trees behind the hall.

Lottie lowered her voice. “You told me I might ask about it sometime. I am not asking yet. I am only asking you to let me help.”

“That hand is not something you want to look at.”

The words came out rougher than before.

There it was. The fear beneath all the hiding.

Lottie’s heart squeezed, but she kept pity out of her face. Pity would insult him worse than mockery.

“You do not get to decide for me.” His gaze cut back, as she lifted her chin. “You are forever deciding what I can carry, what I can bear, where I may stand, and how close I ought to come. I crossed half a continent with my sister and several trunks full of books. I’ve survived Mrs. Hanford’s opinion of poetry and spent this morning on a ladder old enough to have known Moses. I can decide whether I wish to look at your hand.”

Despite himself, his mouth twitched. It was enough to give her courage.

“Sit down,” she said. “Please.”

For several seconds he did not move.

Then, slowly, Peterson sat back on the crate.

He brought his right hand forward as if it weighed more than the rest of him. His face turned partly away, jaw set hard, shoulders braced for the reaction he had spent months expecting from her.

Lottie gently took his hand in both of hers.

The injured fingers were stiff against her palm. The scars were not smooth, and the swelling made the joints tight beneath the skin. He did not look at her while she looked at him, but she knew he felt every second of it.

She did not rush. She looked at the hand fully, because pretending not to see it would be another kind of hiding. Then she looked up at him.

“It is sore and tired,” she said. His throat moved, and he gave a slight nod. “It has been asked to do too much today.”

He gave a low, humorless sound. “That all?”

“No.” She found the fallen strip of cloth near his boot and shook the dust from it. “It is also the hand that caught me this morning and held me.”

She had seen his hand earlier, but it wasn’t angry then. Peterson did not answer.

“It held me safely. It helped hang the library bunting. It pressed a wild rose without crushing it.” She began to wrap the cloth around his palm, careful to support the strained places without pulling too tight. “I know winter took from it. I know there is a story there. I am not afraid of your hand, Mr. Peterson.”

His fingers flexed once in her hold.

She kept working.

“You do not have to hide it from me.”

The music inside swelled, then softened as the fiddle changed tunes.

Lottie smoothed the cloth across the back of his hand and wound it around once more. “When you are ready to tell me, I will listen. Until then, I can sit beside you in the dark and help you wrap what hurts.”

Peterson’s breath caught.

She tied the cloth off neatly, not too tight, then rested his wrapped hand between both of hers.

“There,” she murmured. “That should ease it a little.”

He looked down at their hands.

For once, he did not pull away.