He stood on the sidewalk looking at the window the way Colleen had looked at the logs at Brier Creek.
Not at the table itself. At what the table was made of.
He went inside before she reached the door.
By the time she walked in, he was crouched beside the table with his fingers tracing the grain, studying the surface the way a geologist studies a formation, reading layers, reading time, reading the record of something that happened long before anyone was there to see it.
He looked up when the bell rang.
"Who built this?"
Garland pointed at Colleen standing in the doorway.
The man stood and extended his hand the way people extend their hands when they've found something they've been looking for without knowing they were searching.
His name was Thornton Graves.
He restored furniture for private collectors along the eastern seaboard, people who cared less about size or brand and more about story, about wood that carried a history a person could feel under their palms.
He'd driven down from Charlottesville following a tip from a sawyer friend who'd heard a rumor about figured walnut coming out of western North Carolina timber.
So unusual, the man hadn't believed it until Thornton told him he was going to drive down himself to see if it was true.
He'd nearly driven past Denton's entirely, only stopping because he wanted coffee. The shop next door had a sign in the window.
He'd glanced sideways at Denton's display on his way past.
Then he'd stopped walking the way a person stops walking when the ground shifts under them.
"This grain. What species?"
"Black walnut. American.
Grew on a hillside about forty miles from where you're standing. Spent sixty years fighting wind long before the storm came through that knocked it down."
Thornton Graves looked at her.
Then he looked at the table again.
Then he ran his hand across the surface one more time slowly, the way a person touches something they've decided to own before the words catch up with the decision.
"I'll take it. What else do you have?"
"More where that came from. Not ready yet.
Won't be for a while."
"How long is a while?"