“Thomas Calloway.”
“Yes?”
“I have been waiting approximately three years for you to get here.”
He looked offended.
“I was considering things.”
“I know.”
“Important things.”
“I know.”
“Carefully.”
“Painfully.”
Thomas smiled.
Margaret stepped aside.
“Come in.”
He did.
Their courtship became public.
Durango responded exactly as expected.
Opinions.
Questions.
Disapproval disguised as concern.
Some people thought Thomas selfish.
Others thought Margaret foolish.
Reverend Cole asked Thomas directly.
“She is twenty-five.”
Thomas nodded.
“Yes.”
“You are fifty-five.”
“Yes.”
“Thirty years.”
“I remain familiar with arithmetic.”
The reverend sighed.
“I’m not condemning you.”
“I’m asking whether you have considered what it means.”
Thomas became serious.
“Every day.”
“In twenty years?”
“I’ll be seventy-five.”
“And Margaret?”
“Forty-five.”
The reverend waited.
Thomas looked toward the mountains.
“In twenty years she will have had twenty years with a man who sees her clearly and means what he says.”
He paused.
“If she still wants those years knowing what they cost, I’m not going to call her foolish because other people are uncomfortable.”
The reverend studied him.
“You love her.”
Thomas looked surprised by how easy the answer came.
“Yes.”
“Have you told her?”
Thomas went silent.
The reverend smiled.
“Then perhaps your next theological challenge is obvious.”
That evening Thomas walked across the field.
Margaret sat on her porch shelling beans.
He stopped at the steps.
She looked up.
“You look troubled.”
“I spoke to Reverend Cole.”
“That would do it.”
Thomas smiled faintly.
Then became serious.
“I love you.”
Margaret’s hands stopped moving.
Beans rested in her lap.
Thomas continued before fear interrupted.
“I should have said it before.”
“I didn’t because saying it makes the next part frightening.”
Margaret stood.
“What next part?”
“Wanting a future.”
She walked toward him.
Thomas looked down.
“I had one once.”
“I lost it.”
“For years, I thought wanting another would somehow make the first one mean less.”
Margaret touched his hand.
“It doesn’t.”
“I know now.”
Her eyes filled.
Thomas looked at her.
“I love you, Margaret Hale.”
She smiled through tears.
“That took you long enough.”
Thomas laughed.
“Is that all?”
She placed both hands against his chest.
“I love you too.”
Thomas drew her close.
This kiss had none of the careful hesitation of the first.
Months of restraint were gone.
Margaret’s fingers slid into the hair at the back of his neck.
Thomas held her firmly against him.