But they closed around hers with familiar tenderness.
"Do you remember your answer?" she asked.
Gideon smiled.
"I remember being too frightened to give it properly."
Lydia leaned closer.
"Then you may try again."
He looked into her face.
His gray eyes were wet.
"More than anything."
Tears filled Lydia's eyes.
She smiled.
"And you still mean it?"
Gideon lifted her hand carefully.
He kissed her knuckles.
"Every morning."
She leaned toward him.
He kissed her forehead.
Outside, the winter wind moved through the pines.
Inside, the stove burned steadily.
Years later, when Maggie's eldest daughter asked how her grandparents met, Lydia told her the story.
Not the whole story at once.
Not the most frightening parts.
She began with a wagon abandoned in the snow.
A tall mountain man opening his cabin door.
Two wolfish dogs watching from the hearth.
A cast-iron stove glowing orange.
And a woman who had traveled halfway across the country because she needed a safe place to begin again.
The girl listened wide-eyed.
"Was Grandpa frightening?"
Lydia smiled.
"Terribly."
The child gasped.
"Really?"
"Oh, yes. He was enormous."
Gideon, sitting nearby, looked offended.
"Still am."
Lydia laughed.
"Of course you are."
The child leaned forward.
"What happened next?"
Lydia looked toward Gideon.
He smiled.
She continued.
"There was only one bed."
The girl's eyes widened.
"Only one?"
"Only one."
"What did Grandpa do?"
Lydia smiled.
"He offered to sleep on the floor."
The girl frowned.
"That sounds uncomfortable."
Gideon nodded.
"It was."
Lydia laughed.
Then the child asked, "Why didn't he just tell you he loved you?"
Lydia looked toward her husband.
For a moment, they shared a quiet smile.
"Because he didn't know yet."
The girl considered that.
"Then when did he know?"
Lydia thought about the question.
She remembered the first hand held beside the fire.
The bread and potatoes.
The wide wooden chair.
The Christmas writing desk.
The snowy ride to North Fork.
The courthouse.
The spring flood.
The second wedding.
Maggie's laughter.
The years.
Then she looked toward Gideon.
"I think we learned a little more every day."
The child nodded as though that answer made perfect sense.
Then she asked whether there had been a wedding cake.
Gideon laughed.
"Now that's a story."
Lydia smiled.
And the family spent the evening laughing about the wedding supper, the terrible coffee, and the time Gideon nearly knocked over the flower table because he was too nervous to watch where he placed his enormous boots.