“I’ll let Martha read it,” he said.

Arthur stood up before Nathaniel reached the door.

“If that check leaves this office unsigned by five o’clock, the offer drops to zero.”

The drive back to the Strasburg site barn took twenty minutes through heavy gray mist.

Martha was stacking dry cedar shims by the storage rack while Daisy sat nearby on an empty nail keg, drawing small circles on a wood chip.

“He wrote a check for six hundred,” Nathaniel said, setting the folded white paper on a flat workbench.