The Whole Valley Called Her the Plain Fiancee, So She Let the Banquet Read the Deed novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: The Schoolhouse

The first snow of the year came down on the Aldahl farm on the second Thursday in November.

My father lit the stove in the schoolhouse for the first time since spring.

The schoolhouse stands at the bottom of our home field, a one-room white building with a bell on the roof.

A coal stove sits in the middle of the floor.

My great-grandfather taught in it before the district closed.

Now it is the farm office, with a long table, a row of filing cabinets and a wall of county maps.

I had driven Rhys there myself in the Ford, because his own car would not have made the farm road.

I had told him nothing but the time.

My father was waiting at the table with a pot of coffee, a plate of lefse and a stack of papers squared at his elbow.

He stood when Rhys came in.

The two men looked at each other.

"Mr. Wheelwright," my father said.

"Mr. Aldahl," Rhys said, and held out his hand.

My father took it and held it a moment longer than a handshake needs.

His pale eyes moved over Rhys's face.

"Sit," he said.

"You've come a long way in the snow."

We sat, and nobody spoke.

The stove ticked, and the snow whispered against the windows.

"I will say it first," Rhys said.

I looked at him.

He had laid his wool coat over the back of the chair.

He wore a gray sweater, and his hands were spread flat on the table, and he was looking straight at my father.

"My mother is selling the Wheelwright Group," he said.

"All of it, to a private buyer in Denver.

"She has been negotiating for eight months, and I found out eleven weeks ago by reading a folder in her desk."

My father said nothing.

"The sale cannot close without the Touchet water," Rhys said.

"Her lawyers told her it needed the signature of the holder, and they believed the holder was you, sir.

"They said the cleanest way was a marriage into the family, so a wife's signature on a family transfer would carry it.

"That is why she came to your kitchen, and that is why there is a ring."

His voice did not shake.

It was low and slow, each word set down with care.

I thought: he has been saying this to himself in the dark for eleven weeks.

"I let her," he said.

"I could not stop her.

"She holds my father's proxy and she holds the board, and she has had thirty years of knowing how to close my throat.

"So I let her announce it, and I let the whole valley see it.

"I posted the notice myself at two minutes past six, from my own phone.

"No sale can close now without my signature as the husband."

He turned his head and looked at me.

"I have not said the word engaged to you, Signe, because it was not true.

"It was a shield."

"Say it now," I said.

"Say what?" he asked.

"The word."

He drew a long breath.

"We are engaged," Rhys said.

It came out as clean as a bell.

I looked at the man across the table, in his gray sweater, with the stove light on his face.

Something in my chest gave way that had been clenched since the banquet.

I did not cry.

I put my hand flat on the table, and then I laughed.

It was a short, cracked, disbelieving laugh, and both men stared at me.

"What is it?" Rhys asked.

"I took the ring to read the papers," I said.

He did not move.

"My father told me to take it if I wanted to see them," I said.

"I never intended to marry you, Rhys.

"I intended to sit in your mother's boardroom and read every page she put in front of me.

"I said yes to be in the room, and I stood up at the banquet so she would know I couldn't be signed.

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