Perhaps that was why they became honest.
Thomas knew Clara hated being told she was “strong” whenever someone really meant they were grateful she required no help.
Clara knew Thomas feared becoming like his father, a man who believed silence was the same thing as dignity.
By summer, she began waiting for his letters.
By September, she began recognizing the sound of the post wagon.
Once, Thomas wrote:
There are evenings when I think I would give a month’s wages to sit across from you and hear whether your laugh sounds the way I imagine.
Clara had stared at that line until the words blurred.
She never answered it directly.
Instead she wrote:
My laugh is terrible. You would demand your wages back.
His reply came seven days later.
I doubt it.
Now she stood outside the new neighbor’s ranch carrying a pie and thinking about another man entirely.
Clara almost laughed at herself.
“You are delivering baked fruit,” she whispered. “That is all.”
Then she heard the hammer.
Around the side of the house.
She walked toward the sound.
And stopped.
A man knelt on one knee beside the porch, replacing a rotten support board.
He had apparently abandoned his shirt because of the work despite the cool air.
Clara forgot every prepared greeting.
The stranger was perhaps thirty-five or thirty-six, tall even while kneeling, with broad shoulders and a hard, powerful back bronzed by years beneath western sun. His arms flexed as he pulled a bent nail free. A deeply defined chest and abdomen showed the kind of strength that came from labor rather than vanity.
Dark brown hair had fallen messily across his forehead.
Light stubble shadowed a strong jaw.
A leather tool belt hung at his hips over dark work trousers.
Clara stood motionless.
The man struck the board once more.
Then perhaps sensed her.
He turned.
His eyes were gray.
For one strange second, neither spoke.
Then the stranger rose.
Clara became intensely conscious of the fact that she had walked alone across a creek carrying pastry toward a half-dressed man she had never met.
He seemed equally conscious of his lack of shirt.
“Ma’am.”
His voice.
Clara’s fingers tightened around the pie dish.
Something moved inside her chest.
She knew that voice.
No.
That was impossible.
Letters did not have voices.
But she had imagined one.
Low.
Quiet.
Perhaps exactly like this.
The man reached for a shirt draped over the porch rail.
“Sorry. Wasn't expecting company.”
Clara found her own voice.
“I heard someone moved in.”
He pulled the shirt over one shoulder but did not button it.
“Three days ago.”
“I live across Willow Creek.”
His expression shifted.
“Across…”
“Yes.”
Clara nodded toward the trees.
“The small white house beyond the cottonwoods.”
The man stared at her.
Clara felt suddenly awkward.
“I thought I would welcome you.”
She uncovered the pie.
His eyes moved toward it.
Then back to her.
“Apple?”
“With cinnamon.”
Something strange happened to his face.
Clara frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You look as if the pie offended you.”
“No.”
He almost smiled.
“It’s just…”
His gaze dropped toward the porch.
Clara followed it.
A wooden crate sat beside his tools.
On top rested several folded letters tied with a dark green ribbon.
Clara’s world stopped.
She knew that ribbon.
She had used it because the mercantile ran out of twine.
The top envelope was turned upward.
Her own handwriting covered it.
Mr. Thomas R.
Western Hearth Exchange
General Delivery
Clara forgot how to breathe.
The pie dish tilted.
The man reached instinctively.