“You are going to ruin me.”
He looked alarmed.
“What?”
She laughed against him.
“For every other man.”
His arms tightened.
“There shouldn’t be other men.”
She pulled back.
There.
His face changed immediately.
“I didn’t mean—”
She raised one eyebrow.
“You sounded jealous.”
“I am learning.”
“You don’t own me.”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“But I hope you keep choosing me.”
Her teasing softened.
“That was better.”
He exhaled.
“Good.”
“Still jealous?”
“Yes.”
She laughed.
“Good.”
That became the beginning.
Not the wedding ceremony.
Not the debt agreement.
Not even the first kiss.
The beginning was breakfast burned black in an iron skillet while two people learned that honesty could be awkward without becoming dangerous.
The first winter tested everything.
Mountain romance sounded beautiful to people who had never carried water through snow.
It was work.
Endless work.
Snow buried the cabin door twice.
Wind took part of the shed roof.
A fox killed two hens.
One chimney blockage filled the cabin with smoke at midnight.
The woman discovered she hated venison after the fourth week.
The mountain man discovered she could not sew nearly as well as she had claimed.
“You told me you could.”
“I can.”
He held up a shirt sleeve sewn partly closed.
She stared.
“That is artistic.”
He looked at her.
“You sewed the arm shut.”
“You have another arm.”
He laughed so hard he had to sit down.
She discovered his weaknesses too.
He could repair traps, rifles, harnesses, roofs, wagons, and nearly anything made from wood or iron.
He could not make gravy.
He hated reading aloud because childhood schooling had been inconsistent.
He counted money three times because poverty had trained mistakes out of him through punishment.
He slept lightly.
Any sound near the door woke him.
And despite living alone for years, he hated silence at night.
He would invent chores just to hear movement.
The woman noticed.
So she began reading aloud.
At first newspapers.
Then a novel she had carried west.
He sat sharpening tools while she read.
Occasionally he asked what a word meant.
Never pretended otherwise.
One evening she discovered him mouthing sentences after she spoke.
“You’re practicing.”
He looked embarrassed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I read slowly.”
“So?”
“Town men notice.”
She closed the book.
“Do you care what they think?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
He looked at her.
She smiled.
“Come here.”
She taught him.
Not like a child.
Not with pity.
He knew more than enough to read practical documents.
The problem was confidence.