Lydia discovered the project one afternoon when she returned from town.
He was working beneath the shelter behind the cabin.
Several long pieces of polished timber lay across a pair of sawhorses.
Tools covered a workbench.
Wood shavings curled across the ground.
Lydia stopped.
"What are you making?"
Gideon looked up.
He seemed caught doing something he had intended to keep secret.
"Furniture."
She raised an eyebrow.
"What kind?"
He glanced toward the timber.
"A bed."
Lydia stared.
"Another bed?"
He nodded.
She approached.
The pieces were broad and sturdy.
The joints had been carefully measured.
The headboard carried a simple carved pattern of pine branches.
Lydia touched the wood.
"It's beautiful."
Gideon smiled faintly.
"Not finished."
She looked toward him.
"Why are you making it?"
He rubbed his beard.
"The old one's narrow."
Lydia laughed.
"It is."
He looked embarrassed.
"I thought we might be more comfortable."
She smiled slowly.
"We?"
He stared at her.
Then smiled.
"Yes."
Lydia stepped closer.
She placed her arms around his waist.
Gideon looked down.
She tilted her face toward him.
"You know, Mr. Hayes, you no longer have to sleep on the floor."
He laughed.
"I had begun to suspect."
She kissed him.
Then rested her cheek against his chest.
For a while, they stood together among the fresh wood shavings.
When the bed was finished, Gideon placed it against the back wall of the cabin.
Lydia made new quilts.
She embroidered tiny blue stars along one edge in memory of Elias's painted stone.
They moved the old narrow bed into a spare corner where visiting relatives and friends could sleep.
And on the first night they shared the new bed, Lydia lay awake for a while listening to the mountain wind.
Gideon noticed.
"Everything all right?"
She turned toward him.
"Yes."
"Comfortable?"
She smiled.
"Very."
He touched her hand beneath the quilt.
"Then why aren't you sleeping?"
She looked toward the window.
For a moment, she remembered the first night in the cabin.
The hairbrush.
The knife.
The floor blanket.
The terrible letter.
And the question she had been almost too frightened to ask.
Do you want me?
She turned toward Gideon.
He looked at her with sleepy concern.
Lydia smiled.
"I was thinking about the first night."
His expression softened.
"So was I."
She touched his beard.
"You were terribly frightened."
He laughed quietly.
"I was."
"Of me?"