The preparation of the flower fields was one of Papa’s favorite duties. He often admitted it would be much easier to allow the bees to forage for pollen in the wild, but he knew that the honey would be unpredictable and unremarkable. I think he liked imagining himself as a French winemaker, toying with varieties of grapes to create the perfect blend to ferment. He kept journals of his experiments, drawing pictures and writing detailed notes on which flowers produced the best flavors. It was a homemade field guide any botanist would envy.
So when I went to pick flowers for Sadie’s crown in the early afternoon of her birthday, I left the farm behind, wandering west toward the trio of waterfalls feeding the Greenswold. There was a large patch of wood sorrel there that would be the perfect shade of gold for a flower crown.
It was another hot day, and once I’d situated myself among the flowers, I unbuttoned the top two clasps of my dress and fanned myself. The mornings were always cold, on the verge of a hard frost, but as the sun blazed over the valley, it grew sweltering and miserable, feeling more like July than September.
I wove together a small circlet of reeds and ivy for the wreath’s base and was just about to start adding flowers when a voice called out, startling me.
“Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?”
A figure moved through the trunks of the pine trees, almost as sleek and dark as the shadows themselves. As he stepped into the sunlight, I could see it was the mysterious trapper who called himself “Price.”
His pack jingled with an assortment of tools and a large machete, undoubtedly used to hack back the forest’s undergrowth. It also boasted an impressive collection of rabbit feet dangling on a string, a rather morbid bunch of fur and claws. I wondered why a man would ever feel compelled to carry so much supposed luck wherever he traveled.
“Hot, though,” he added, and plunked himself on the ground just feet from where I sat. A sheen of sweat dotted his brow, and his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing tattooed bands of dark green ink circling his wrists like bracelets. There was a pattern within the bands, but I couldn’t quite make it out.
After rummaging through his bag, Price pulled out a round canteen and shook it once before offering it to me. When I passed, he downed it himself. I tried not to notice the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he slugged back long swigs of the water.
This boy was too attractive by half.
He recapped the canteen and wiped his lips on the back of his hand. “Hungry?” he asked, pulling out a small pouch from the bag. It was full of jerky and smelled spicy and delicious.
I shook my head. Back home, Mama was preparing an absolute feast for supper, and I didn’t want to spoil it.
With a shrug, he dug in. “More for me, then. So tell me, Ellerie Downing, do you fancy yourself a fairy queen?”
“I—what?”
He pointed to the half-assembled wreath in my lap. “If you don’t mind me saying so, you really ought to use different flowers. Those yellow ones are all wrong for you. You need something that better matches the pink of your cheeks.” He snatched up a creamy, white clover blossom and held it close to my face to compare. “This suits you better.”
“It’s not for me,” I said, ducking away, lest he guess how much I hoped his fingers might accidentally brush against my skin. “It’s for my sister, for her birthday.”
“Today?”
I nodded.
“Be sure to wish her many happy returns for me.”
“And who shall I say is wishing?” I asked, feeling recklessly bold.
He hesitated for a moment, his eyes warm and amber today as they studied me. “Why, Price, of course.”
“That can’t truly be your name.”
He smiled, and I noticed two deep dimples situated perfectly in the centers of his cheeks. “Can’t it?”
“It doesn’t suit you,” I said, using his words against him.
The dimples flashed again, and I grabbed a fistful of yellow flowers so that I’d have something else to occupy my thoughts.
“All right, fine. I lied to your father. You’re terribly perceptive, you know.” He picked a second clover blossom and tied its stem to the other. “I rather like that.”
“Why would you lie?”
He added another flower to his chain and another after that. “I’m new here. I don’t know anyone. No one knows me. Why should I freely offer my name?”
“So people can get to know you.”
He shrugged. “You’re welcome to learn all you like about me. My name hardly changes who I am.”
“What about your family name?”
He scoffed, his voice turning dark. “My family name has absolutely nothing to do with who I am.”
He’d told Papa he was traveling without parents, and I wondered why. Had he left voluntarily, or had they been taken away, captured, or killed? Amity Falls didn’t receive much news of the outside world, but I did know that bandits roamed the West, robbing wagon trains, stealing supplies and life savings before riding off in clouds of dust. Some of their names were even more famous than the men who stopped them. Was this boy’s father one of those bandits? Was his surname tainted by crimes he’d not committed?
“Tell me all about the birthday girl,” he said, skillfully leading the conversation away. “Younger or older?”
“Younger. She turns eight today.” There were several Old-Man-of-the-Mountain sunflowers poking up from the rocks near him, and I stretched out to pluck one free. It would be the perfect center jewel for Sadie’s crown.
“And her name?”
My eyebrow arched skeptically at him. “Really?”
“Hand me that one, will you?” he asked, pointing to a perfectly white clover blossom near my thigh.
“I wouldn’t have guessed you knew how to make flower crowns.”
“I’ve many, many hidden talents, Ellerie Downing.” He tied off another loop. “My sister taught me how.”
“Younger or older?” I asked, mimicking him.
“Much younger. I was already thirteen when Ma had her. Amelia loved picking flowers. Could spend a whole afternoon out in a field, making crowns and necklaces and bracelets for everyone she knew.”
“And you wore every one of them, didn’t you?” I noticed he’d slipped into the past tense, speaking of her, but I didn’t comment. This was the most information he’d ever volunteered about himself.
He laughed. “I did….She got sick,” he added, sensing my curiosity.
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
With a shrug, he finished off his chain, tying it into a circle. “Perfect for a fair-haired fairy queen,” he said, settling the wreath atop my head. He nodded approvingly. “I was right, those are the perfect flowers for you.”
My cheeks flushed red beneath the weight of his twinkling stare, and I grabbed at the first flower I spotted, just to have the chance to look away.
“I’m sure your beau will appreciate them tonight.”
“Tonight?” I echoed, not bothering to correct him.
“Pretty girl like you, I’m sure you’ve got at least one suitor serious enough to join your family celebration. What do you think he’ll bring little…” He trailed off, obviously hoping I’d slip up and fill his silence with my sister’s name.
“There won’t be any gift, I’m sure,” I said, and he wrinkled his nose, amused I hadn’t fallen for his trick.
“What a cad! If I was lucky enough to court someone as bright and lovely as you, you can be certain I’d bring your sister a grand present.”
“Would you?” I tried picturing him sitting on the porch as we shared our gifts, sipping a cup of punch and listening to one of Sadie’s jokes. The image filled me with an acute sense of longing, hitting me hard along my sternum.
He nodded seriously before swooping down like a bird of prey and pluc
king up a bit of green. He spun it between his fingers with an admiring twirl as I leaned toward him, straining to make it out.
“For luck in the coming year.”
His thumb brushed over the length of my forefinger as I took the tiny treasure from him.
“A four-leaf clover!” I exclaimed. Though I’d spent many afternoons in my childhood searching for them, they’d always eluded me. It was a beautiful specimen—each leaf a deep shade of emerald and perfectly identical to the others. “However did you see it?”
He shrugged, mustering more modesty than I would have given him credit for. “I’ve always been good at finding them.”
“This is the first time I’ve seen one….Sadie will love it,” I admitted, before realizing what I’d done. I clapped my hand to my mouth.
“Tell Sadie Downing I wish her every happiness today,” he said around a wide grin.
I carefully tucked the precious sprig deep into my dress’s pocket, then ran my fingers over the clovers in front of me, searching for one of my own. A sea of three-leafed plants stared back.
“Can I give you a tip?” he asked, taking the opportunity to kneel next to me, so close our thighs bumped against one another. He bent over the clover, resting on his forearms as he searched. “You can usually find them on the outskirts of the patch.”
“The outskirts,” I repeated, and leaned down, looking again with fresh eyes.
“Luck can’t be covered away or contained within a crowd,” he murmured, raking his fingers through the edge of the clover. “It won’t blend in. It wants to be found. You just need to know where to look.”
As quick as a wink, he snatched up another clover and displayed it in the center of his palm. He raised one eyebrow, daring me to take it.
When I reached out, he snapped his hand shut, closing it around mine, rough and warm. His touch, so strangely intimate, brought a mess of flutters shimmering beneath my skin, like light dancing across the waves of Greenswold.
“Does your beau hold your hand like this?”
Our eyes met, and a hot flush crept up my neck. I found myself unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to do anything but stare back into his amber depths. My heartbeat couldn’t decide where it belonged, first soaring high in my throat, only to plunge to the depths of my belly. I knew my cheeks must have been glowing, but the rest of me felt delicious, nauseating shivers of delight and worry. I was wholly divided, savoring his presence and wishing he’d leave before I could do something to embarrass us both.
“I…I don’t have one,” I finally admitted, slipping my fingers free and leaving the clover behind.
A lazy smile grew across his face, crinkling his eyes with merriment. “Is that a fact?” He contemplated the little clover for a moment. “Go on and take it. Luck already seems to be working in my favor today.”
I jabbed one final flower into Sadie’s crown and stood, brushing off my skirts. “I ought to be heading home.”
He leaned back on his elbows, peering up at me. “So soon?”
Deep within my boots, I curled my toes in and out as I thought through my next move. “Would you like to come with me? Papa did say you’re welcome to have dinner with us…and Mama will have made plenty to share. You could even give this to Sadie yourself.”
He tilted his head, pondering my offer. “Dinner at the Downings’….Dinner with Ellerie….” He was up on his feet in one sharp moment. He moved like a cat, all languid sprawl one moment and graceful action the next. “I’ll need to make myself a bit more presentable. What time should I join you?”
This was the first time I’d stood next to him and realized just how much he towered over me. Though I’d been the tallest girl in my class, the top of my head barely skimmed his shoulders. For a moment, I imagined him pulling me into an embrace. I’d fit perfectly beneath his chin, tucked in the secure circle of his arms and…
I shoved the wild thoughts aside. “I’m sorry….We usually eat around six.”
He nodded. “That sounds just fine. My camp is up that way,” he mentioned, pointing to a break in the pines about a half mile away.
“Is it safe up there?” I asked, setting off. I noticed how he slowed his pace, shortening the length of his stride to better suit mine.
He scratched at his ear with a rakish grin. “Are you offering to join me?”
The heat in my chest, which had fallen to a low simmer, flared again, staining embarrassment all over my face. “Of course not! You know, you ought to be careful talking that way around here. There are many fathers who’d shoot a man for speaking to their daughters like that.”
He looked delighted. “Would Gideon?”
“Probably.”
He bobbed his head approvingly. “And I respect him all the more for it.”
“How have your traps been?” I asked, eager to change the subject. Imagining the stranger—my stranger, as I was coming to think of him—filling other girls’ ears with outrageous flirtations made my stomach pulse with a jealousy I wasn’t familiar with.
“I’ve caught a few little victories,” he said, jumping over a fallen branch. “I’m still waiting on something grand, though.”
“A buck?” I guessed, unsure of what trappers would consider the biggest prize.
His teeth winked in the sunlight. “Much grander than that, Ellerie Downing.”
I paused, weighing out my next words. “I still don’t know your name.”
“Of course not,” he replied, the corner of his mouth twisting with wit. “I’ve not said it.”
I waited, assuming he would offer it now, but he ambled through the tall grass, seemingly content to walk along in silence. When he glanced up, he caught me staring at him, and his eyebrows rose in a dare.
The joke was wearing thin, becoming more awkward the longer he carried it out. “It doesn’t matter to me what your family name is….I think a person ought to be free to make their own way in the world…no matter who their parents are…or what they might have done.”
“How magnanimous of you.”
I swiped my braid back over my shoulder. “I only meant—”
“I know what you meant, Ellerie. And…as someone whose family has done an awful lot of awful things…I do appreciate it.”
I’d been right! I instantly conjured up a sweeping and romantic backstory for him—a little boy raised in the dangerous world of stagecoach robberies and highwaymen. I wondered if Papa might have heard of the stranger’s bandit father.
“But it would be nice to be able to call you something—anything, really,” I persisted. The seconds ticked by unfilled. “You’re truly not going to tell me?”
“No,” he laughed. “I’m really not. There’s a power in names, don’t you think? Once your name is given away, you can’t help but be pulled along by those who have it.”
My footfall landed on an uneven rock, and I stumbled forward. He grabbed my arm to keep me upright. “I don’t—I don’t think I underst—”
“Ellerie Downing!” he exclaimed, his voice raised, bursting from his chest like cannon fire. My eyes snapped up from his hands encircling my wrist, and his nose wrinkled. “You see. Power.”
He had a point, but I wasn’t ready to admit it. “You’re impossible.”
“I suppose I am. And, for now, this is where I must leave you.”
We paused at the opening of the pines, and I suddenly couldn’t seem to remember what I ought to be doing with my hands. They felt too large and ungainly and, no matter how I held them, unnatural. “I’ll see you later on this evening, then…” I trailed off, allowing him ample time to fill in the gap. “This is absurd. I have to be able to call you something.”
“Why?”
“Because things…important things…have names. They just do. I can tell you the name of every flower in the Falls, all of those trees,” I said, gesturing behind
him. “And it’s infuriating that I don’t know what to call you.”
He held up his hands, utterly guileless. “I tried giving you a name, and you didn’t like it. Call me whatever you want, then. It doesn’t matter what you choose.”
“But it does! It should! There’s a reason why I knew that ‘Price’ wasn’t your name. It didn’t fit you. Names are meant to have meaning.”
“You can bestow on them all the meaning you want, but in the end, does it ever really matter?” He pointed down to a bright orange marigold near his boot. “I don’t know the name of that flower, but I know it smells sweet, and if I burn myself, I know it will take the sting away.”
“It’s Calendula arvensis. A field marigold,” I added softly.
“Now you’re naming things in Latin?” He rolled his eyes away to the woods, and I feared I’d pressed too hard. “What’s ‘Ellerie’ mean?”
I paused. “Cheerful.”
He rubbed at his chin. “And I can see I’ve made you anything but.” When his eyes met mine, they were darker, tinged nearly as green as the—
“Whitaker,” I decided suddenly. “I’m going to call you ‘Whitaker.’ ”
His eyes crinkled with amusement. “You look at me and see a Whitaker?”
“I looked at them.” I pointed to the hundreds of trees behind him. “You probably don’t care, but those are white firs. They can grow over a hundred feet tall, and their branches are thickest at the base, covering the forest floor. Without a path, it would be almost impossible to walk through even an acre of them all clustered together. Completely impenetrable. Just like you.”
He stared down at me, his gaze fixed with an intensity so strong, I wanted to look away, but felt too pinned in place to move. “ ‘Whitaker’ it is.” He reached his hand out as if we were meeting for the first time. “Hello there. I’m new to Amity Falls. Name’s Whitaker Price.”
“Ellerie Downing,” I said, placing mine around his to shake.
“Pleasure meeting you, Ellerie Downing.”
As he pulled away, I caught a glimpse of the four-leaf clover he’d pressed to the center of my palm. He strode down the trail without a goodbye, but just before he disappeared into the trees, he turned back to wink at me.
Small Favors Page 10