Very slightly.
“Manageable if winter is reasonable.”
“And if it isn't?”
“We adjust.”
Sarah leaned back.
“Next question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Your previous wife.”
The smile disappeared.
Sarah immediately regretted the bluntness.
Thomas picked up his coffee.
“Catherine.”
“I don't require details.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because I am sleeping twenty feet from a closed room nobody has mentioned and because Margaret looked at me like a woman comparing a new horse to one she still misses.”
Thomas's eyes widened.
Sarah continued.
“I prefer information to imagination.”
Thomas looked into his coffee.
“Catherine left three years ago.”
“Divorce?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Silence.
Sarah almost told him to forget it.
Then he said:
“I thought providing was the same as being a husband.”
Sarah waited.
Thomas continued.
“I worked.”
“I built.”
“I made decisions.”
“I assumed if the ranch succeeded, the marriage would succeed with it.”
“And?”
“She disagreed.”
“Was she right?”
Thomas lifted his eyes.
“Yes.”
That answer mattered.
Sarah looked at him differently afterward.
Not because he failed.
People failed constantly.
Because he admitted it without blaming the person who left.
“What happened to her?”
“Chicago.”
“You speak?”
“No.”
“Do you hate her?”
Thomas's expression hardened with thought.
“No.”
That seemed true.
Sarah nodded.
“One more.”
Thomas looked almost amused.
“You said several.”
“I underestimated myself.”
“Apparently.”
Sarah folded her hands.
“Why me?”
His expression changed.
She continued.
“You could have hired someone younger.”
“Prettier.”
“Wealthier.”
“Someone with family.”
“Someone who didn't have forty-seven cents.”
Thomas's gaze sharpened.
“How do you know I know about the forty-seven cents?”
“Caldwell knows.”
“You hired Caldwell.”
“Therefore you know.”
Thomas set down his cup.
“Yes.”
“Why me?”
He looked at her for a long time.
“You answered the advertisement with questions.”
Sarah frowned.
“Questions?”
“You asked how many hands worked here.”
“How far the ranch was from town.”
“Whether household expenses were documented separately from ranch expenses.”
“You asked if the wife would be expected to entertain clients.”
“You asked who controlled her personal allowance.”
“Every other letter I received asked about the house.”
“My income.”
“Whether there was a piano.”
“One asked how many servants.”
Sarah almost laughed.
Thomas continued.
“You asked how things worked.”
“So you married an accountant.”
“I married the woman who asked the questions.”
Something tightened inside her.
She picked up her coffee.
“Good answer.”
“I wasn't trying to impress you.”
“That is why it was good.”
During the first week Sarah learned three things.
Margaret Aldridge disliked wasted flour.
The ranch hands distrusted elegant women.
Thomas Blackwood's accounts were an atrocity.
Not incorrect.
That would have been easier.
They were mathematically sound and structurally incomprehensible.
On the fourth morning, Sarah stood in the study surrounded by ledgers.
Thomas came behind her.
She pointed.
“You built all of this inside your head.”
“It works.”
“For you.”
“Yes.”
“If you are thrown from a horse tomorrow, this ranch becomes financially illiterate.”
Thomas frowned.