* * *

• • •

Sophia was off on Friday as it was William’s birthday and, given they were up to date with the repairs (possibly due to Alice’s spending so much extra time at the library), Margery had urged her to stay with her brother. Alice rode up Split Creek as dusk fell, noting that the light was still on, and wondered, given Sophia’s absence, which of the librarians was still inside. Beth was always swift to finish, dumping her books and racing home to the farm (if she didn’t get there quick enough her brothers would have eaten whatever food had been put by for her). Kathleen was equally keen to get home, to catch her children’s last waking moments before bedtime. It was only she and Izzy who kept their horses at Fred’s barn, and Izzy, it appeared, was gone from the project for good.

Alice unsaddled Spirit and stood for a minute in the warmth of the stall, then kissed the mare’s sweet-smelling ears, pressing her face against her warm neck and finding treats for her when she nuzzled her pockets with her soft, inquisitive nose. She loved the animal now, knew her traits and strengths as well as she knew her own. The little horse was, she realized, the most constant relationship in her life. When she was sure the mare was comfortable, she headed for the back door of the library, from which she could still see a sliver of light through the unpapered gaps in the wood.

“Marge?” she called.

“Well, you sure do take your time.”

Alice blinked at the sight of Fred, seated at a little table in the middle of the room, dressed in a clean flannel shirt and blue jeans.

“Took your point about not being seen with me in public. But I thought maybe we could have a meal together anyway.”

Alice closed the door behind her, taking in the neatly laid table, with a little vase of coltsfoot, harbinger of spring, in the center, the two chairs, and the oil lamps flickering on the desks nearby, sending shadows over the spines of the books around them.

He seemed to take her shocked silence for reticence. “It’s just pork and black bean stew. Nothing too fancy—I wasn’t sure what time you’d make it back. The greens may have cooled a little. I didn’t realize you’d be so thorough with that horse of mine.” He lifted the lid off the heavy iron pot and the room was suddenly filled with the scent of slow-cooked meat. Beside her on the table sat a heavy pan of corn bread and a bowl of green beans.

Alice’s stomach gurgled unexpectedly and loudly, and she pressed a hand to it, trying not to blush.

“Well, someone approves,” Fred said evenly. He stood and walked over to pull out a chair for her.

She put her hat on the desk, and unwound her scarf. “Fred, I—”

“I know. But I enjoy your company, Alice. And being a man in these parts, I don’t get to entertain someone like you too often.” He leaned toward her to pour her a glass of wine. “So I’d be much obliged if you’d . . . indulge me?”

She opened her mouth to protest, then found she wasn’t sure what she was protesting. When she looked up, he was watching her, waiting for a sign. “This all looks wonderful,” she said.

He let out a little breath then, as if perhaps even up to that point he had not been sure whether she would cut and run. And then, as he began to serve the food, he smiled, a slow, broad smile that was so filled with satisfaction she couldn’t help but smile back at him.

The Packhorse Library had become, in the months of its existence, a symbol of many things, and a focus for others, some controversial and some that would provoke unease in certain people however long it stayed around. But for one freezing damp evening in March, it became a tiny, glowing refuge. Two people locked safely inside, briefly released from their complicated histories and the weighty expectations of the town around them, ate good food and laughed and discussed poetry and stories, horses, and mistakes they had made, and while there was barely a touch between them, apart from the accidental brushing of skin against skin while passing bread or refilling a glass, Alice rediscovered a little part of her that she hadn’t known she missed: the flirtatious young woman who liked to talk about things she had read, seen and thought about as much as she liked to ride a mountain track. In turn Fred enjoyed a woman’s full attention, a ready laugh at his jokes and the challenge of an idea that might differ from his own. Time flew, and each ended the night full and happy, with the rare glow that comes from knowing your very being has been understood by somebody else, and that there might just be someone out there who will only ever see the best in you.

* * *

• • •

Fred lifted the table easily down the last of the steps, ready to move it back into his house, then turned back to double-lock the door. Alice stood beside him, wrapping her scarf around her face, her belly full and a smile on her lips. Both were shielded from view by the library and somehow found themselves standing just inches apart.

“You sure you won’t let me drive you back up the mountain? It’s cold, and dark, and that’s a long walk.”

She shook her head. “It’ll feel like five minutes tonight.”

He studied her in the half-light. “You ain’t spooked by much these days, are you?”

“No.”

“That’ll be Margery’s influence.”

They smiled at each other and he looked briefly thoughtful. “Wait there.”

He jogged up to the house and returned, a minute later, with a shotgun, which he handed to her. “Just in case,” he said. “You might not be spooked, but it’ll allow me to rest easy. Bring it back tomorrow.”

She took it from him without protest, and there followed a strange, elongated couple of minutes, the kind in which two people know they have to part, and don’t want to, and while neither can acknowledge it, each believes the other feels it too.

“Well,” she said, at last, “it’s getting late.”

He rubbed his thumb speculatively across the table-top, his mouth closed over words he could not say.

“Thank you, Fred. It was honestly the nicest evening I’ve had. Probably since I came here. I—I really appreciate it.”

A look passed between them that was a complicated mixture of things. An acknowledgment, of the kind that might normally make a heart sing, but cut with the knowledge that some things were impossible and that your heart could break a little knowing it.

And suddenly a little of the magic of the evening dissipated.

“Goodnight, then, Alice.”

“Goodnight, Fred,” she said. Then, placing the gun over her shoulder, she turned and strode up the road before he could say anything that would make more of a mess of things than they already were.

SIXTEEN