Chapter 21: Sunday

Seven months later, on the first Sunday of May, I carried the last box up the ridge road myself.

It held my mill ledgers, a chipped teapot and two empty honey jars.

I had said yes to Mirabel the night of the cattle guard.

I had said yes to Lachlan a lot faster.

Lachlan stood on the porch in his shirtsleeves, with his arms folded and a look on his face he was trying hard to hide.

"You're late," he said.

"I walked."

"I'd have driven down."

"You'd have carried me up like a sack of flour. I want to see how far I get."

He took the box out of my arms and kissed me over the top of it.

Inside, he'd cleared the whole left side of the closet.

He had also built a new headboard, a fat slab of oak with no cracks in it.

"You replaced the bed," I said.

"I replaced the part of the bed that broke."

"Twice."

"I'm an optimist."

I set the teapot on the dresser and looked at the room.

There was a vase of wild crocus by the window, and a thick grey blanket folded at the foot of the bed.

I felt the mark on my shoulder warm up, and I knew he felt it too.

"You could have done all this in a month," I said.

"I could have done it in a day." He put the box down. "I wanted you to choose a day."

I walked across the room and put both hands flat on his chest.

"Today," I said.

I undid his shirt one button at a time.

He stood perfectly still and let me.

The morning sun came in sideways across the quilt, and the pine smell of the house wrapped around us.

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