“So . . . can I give you a ride home?” They had reached the library and turned the horses into Fred’s barn for the night. “It’s awful wet to be walking all the way up to Marge’s. I could drive you as far as the big oak.”

Oh, but it was tempting. The long walk in the dark was the worst part of the day, a point at which she was hungry and aching and her mind had nowhere good to settle. There was a time when she might have ridden Spirit and kept her there overnight, but they had an unspoken agreement not to keep any other animals at the cabin just now.

Fred had closed up the barn and was looking at her expectantly. She thought of the quiet pleasure of sitting alongside him, of watching his strong hands on the wheel, his smile as he told her things in small bursts, confidences offered up like shells in the palm of his hand. “I don’t know, Fred. I can’t really be seen—”

“Well, I was thinking . . .” He shifted on his feet a little. “I know you like to allow Margery and Sven a little space together . . . and right now more than most . . .”

Something odd was going on with Margery and Sven. It had taken her a week or two to notice, but the little cabin was no longer filled with the muffled cries of lovemaking. Sven was often gone before Alice rose in the morning, and when he was there, there were no whispered jokes or casual intimacies but stiff silences and loaded glances. Margery seemed preoccupied. Her face was set stern, and her manner short. The previous evening, though, when Alice had asked her if she would rather she left, the woman’s face had softened. Then she had responded quite unexpectedly—not by telling her dismissively that she was fine, and not to fuss, but by saying quietly, No. Please don’t leave. A lover’s tiff? She would not betray her friend by talking about her private business but she felt utterly at a loss.

“. . . so I was wondering if you would like to have some food with me? I’d be happy to cook. And I could—”

She dragged her attention back to the man in front of her.

“—have you back at the cabin by half past eight or thereabouts.”

“Fred, I can’t.”

He closed his mouth abruptly over his words.

“I—It’s not that I wouldn’t like to. It’s just . . . if I were seen—well, things are tricky just now. You know how this town talks.”

He looked like he had half expected it.

“I can’t risk making things worse for the library. Or . . . for myself. Perhaps when things have calmed down a little.”

Even as she said the words she realized she wasn’t sure how that would work. This town could polish a piece of gossip and preserve it like an insect in amber. It would still be rolling around whole centuries later.

“Sure,” he said. “Well, just wanted you to know the offer’s there. In case you get tired of Margery’s cooking.”

He tried to laugh and they stood facing each other, each a little awkward. He broke it, raised his hat in greeting, and trudged back up the wet path to his house. Alice stood watching, thinking of the warmth inside, the blue rag rug, the sweet smell of the polished wood. And then she sighed, pulled her scarf over her nose and began the long walk up the cold mountain to Margery’s.

* * *

• • •

Sven knew that Margery was not a woman who would be pushed. But when she told him it would be best if he stayed at his own house for the third time that week, he could no longer ignore the feeling in his gut. Watching her unsaddle Charley, he found himself crossing his arms and observing her with cooler, assessing eyes until finally he uttered the words he’d been mulling over for weeks.

“Have I done something, Marge?”

“What?”

And there it was again. The way she would barely look at him when she spoke.

“Seems like the last few weeks you barely want me around.”

“You’re talking crazy.”

“I can’t seem to say nothing to please you. When we go to bed you’re bundled up like a silkworm. Don’t want me to touch you . . .” he stuttered, faltering uncharacteristically. “We’ve never been cold with each other, even when we were apart. Not in ten years. I just . . . want to know if I’ve done something to offend you.”

Her shoulders slumped a little. She reached under the horse for his girth and flipped it over the saddle, the buckle jangling as it landed. There was something weary in the way she did it that reminded him of a mother dealing with ill-behaved children. She allowed a short silence before she spoke. “You’ve done nothing to offend me, Sven. I’m . . . just tired.”

“So why don’t you want me even to hold you?”

“Well, I don’t always want to be held.”

“You never used to mind.”

Disliking the sound of his voice, he took the saddle from her and walked it over to the house. She turned Charley loose into his stall, rugged him, bolted the barn door, and followed in silence. They locked everything, these days, their eyes sharp for change, ears tuned to any strange sound around the holler. The track up from the road was strewn with a series of strings set with bells and tin cans to give her fair warning, and two loaded shotguns flanked the bed.

He placed the saddle on its stand and stood, thinking. Then he took a step toward her, lifted a hand, and touched the side of her face softly, an olive branch. She didn’t look up. Before, she would have pressed his palm to her skin and kissed it. The fact of this made something plummet inside him.

“We’ve always been straight with each other, haven’t we?”

“Sven—”

“I respect how you want to live. I accepted that you don’t want to be tied. I haven’t so much as mentioned it since—”

She rubbed at her forehead. “Can we not do this now?”

“What I mean is—we agreed. We agreed that . . . if you did decide you didn’t want me any more, you would say.”

“Are we on this again?” Margery sounded sad and exasperated. She turned away from him. “It’s not you. I don’t want you to go anywhere. I just—I just got a lot to think about.”

“We’ve all got a lot to think about.”

She shook her head.

“Margery.”

And there she stood, mulish as Charley. Giving him nothing.

Sven Gustavsson was not a man possessed of a difficult temperament, but he was proud and he had his limits. “I can’t keep doing this. I’m not going to keep bothering you.” She raised her head as he turned. “You know where to find me when you’re ready to see me again.” He held up one hand as he walked off down the mountain. He didn’t look back.