Direct.
Occasionally irritating.
Kind when kindness was inconvenient.
He had not invented a personality.
He had hidden a name.
And then moved next door without warning.
That last part still mattered.
Clara did not visit.
Everett did not either.
Three days passed.
Then five.
On the sixth morning Clara found something leaning against her gate.
Her pie tin.
Clean.
Beside it sat a folded note.
She knew the handwriting instantly.
Clara,
The pie was excellent.
That is not why I am writing.
I frightened you by making a decision involving your life without giving you any part in that decision. I told myself I was buying land, not making a claim on you. That distinction feels considerably less convincing now.
I am sorry.
I will not come onto your property unless invited.
If you want me to leave Willow Creek, I will sell Harmon as soon as winter permits and go.
Everett William Callahan
W
Clara read it three times.
Then became angry again.
Not because it was wrong.
Because it gave her exactly what she had asked for.
Choice.
Now she had to make one.
The next afternoon she walked north.
No pie.
Everett was repairing fence near the barn.
He saw her and immediately set down the hammer.
Then waited.
That mattered.
Clara stopped on the other side of the fence.
“You would leave?”
“Yes.”
“After buying this place?”
“Yes.”
“How much did you pay?”
“Fourteen hundred dollars.”
Her eyes widened.
“You would throw away fourteen hundred dollars?”
“I’d sell it.”
“In winter?”
“Eventually.”
“Because I said so?”
“Yes.”
Clara frowned.
“That seems foolish.”
“I have experience.”
She nearly smiled.
“Why did you really come?”
Everett removed his gloves.
“I wrote you forty-seven letters.”
“I am aware.”
“At some point, everywhere else started feeling temporary.”
“Because of me?”
“Yes.”
“That is too much responsibility.”
“I’m not asking you to be responsible for it.”
Clara studied him.
“Then explain.”
Everett leaned against the fence.
“I spent twelve years moving cattle.”
“Texas to Kansas.”
“Kansas to Colorado.”
“Wyoming.”
“Wherever someone paid.”
Clara knew most of this.
“In the beginning I liked it.”
“No fences that belonged to me.”
“No roof to repair.”
“No reason to care what town I was leaving.”
He looked toward the mountains.
“Then I turned thirty-four and realized I had slept in seven states that year and couldn’t remember the last room I had missed after leaving.”
Clara remained silent.
“Then your first note came.”
She smiled faintly.
“That note was three sentences.”
“Yes.”
“You barely thanked me.”
“I was charming.”
“You were not.”
Everett smiled.
“Then you answered.”
“And after that, somehow, wherever I went, there was one place I expected mail from.”
His eyes met hers.
“Willow Creek.”
Clara's chest tightened.
Everett continued.
“You wrote about a stubborn mule.”
“Amos is not stubborn.”
“Clara.”
“He has principles.”
Everett laughed.
“You wrote about the first snow.”
“About Daniel.”
“About being lonely.”
“About pretending you weren’t lonely.”
She looked down.
“You wrote about a place often enough that I could picture it.”
“The south road.”
“The creek.”
“Mrs. Hatch’s dreadful preserves.”
“They are dreadful.”
“The hill where Daniel is buried.”
Clara’s expression changed.
Everett's voice softened.
“I didn’t come expecting you to marry me.”
She looked sharply at him.
“I didn’t come expecting anything.”
“What did you expect?”
“Honestly?”
“Yes.”
“That I’d buy the Harmon place, write you a letter, tell you who I was, and perhaps you’d let me meet you.”
Clara folded her arms.
“You skipped one step.”
“I noticed.”
“Why?”
Everett stared at the ground.
“Cowardice.”
She blinked.
“I've written to you for two years without having to watch your face while you read anything.”
His jaw tightened.
“I thought I was brave because I could tell you the truth on paper.”
“Turns out paper doesn’t look disappointed.”
Clara’s anger softened another degree.
She hated how good he was at saying the exact thing she understood.
“Did you ever think I might not like you?”
“Constantly.”
“You came anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because eventually not knowing became worse.”
The wind moved through the grass.
Clara looked at the man she had already known without knowing.
“Coffee.”
Everett frowned.
“What?”
“You offered me coffee before everything went badly.”
“Yes.”
“I’m willing to try again.”
His expression changed.
Hope was dangerous on a handsome man.
Clara immediately added:
“Coffee is not forgiveness.”
“I understand.”
“It is definitely not courtship.”
“I understand.”
“And if you tell anyone in Willow Creek about the letters, I will personally burn your new barn.”
Everett nodded solemnly.
“Understood.”
She pointed.
“You're smiling.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m relieved.”
“That is not permission.”
Everett opened the gate.
Clara entered.
Coffee became supper.
Not because either planned it.
They talked too long.
Clara discovered Everett cooked steak well and potatoes terribly.
Everett learned that Clara rearranged objects when nervous.
She moved his salt cellar four times.
He finally moved it back.
She glared.
“Leave it.”
“It belongs here.”
“According to whom?”
“The table.”
“The table spoke?”
“Earlier.”
She laughed.
Everett stared.
There it was.
The laugh he had imagined.
Not delicate.
Clara laughed from her stomach, head tilting slightly back, shoulders moving, all the careful restraint leaving her face.
Everett forgot not to look.
Clara stopped.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Everett.”
“That.”
“What?”
“Your laugh.”
Her cheeks warmed.
“You waited two years for that?”
“Apparently.”
She shook her head.
“You are a strange man.”
“You kept answering my letters.”
“That reflects poorly on both of us.”
When Clara returned home after dark, she realized something alarming.
She had enjoyed herself.
The following weeks developed a strange rhythm.
They did not begin courting.
Clara was adamant about that.