“That’s not enough.”
He looked toward the cabin window.
Emma’s small face disappeared quickly when she realized they had noticed her watching.
Reid smiled.
“My daughter eats.”
Lena’s throat tightened.
“That is enough.”
The smokehouse became a bakery.
Not quickly.
For three weeks it looked like destruction.
Reid removed old hooks.
Scraped walls.
Replaced damaged floorboards.
Lena insisted on paying for the oven herself.
She could not afford a new one.
So she purchased a used iron range from a hotel closing in Bozeman.
Transport cost almost as much as the stove.
Reid lent his wagon.
She paid him freight.
He complained the amount was too high.
She complained his amount was too low.
They settled in the middle.
Emma painted a wooden sign:
LENA’S BREAD
The letters leaned downhill.
Lena loved it.
Business doubled by summer.
Ranch hands bought biscuits before dawn.
Neighbors stopped for pies.
A stage driver began taking six loaves into town twice a week.
The Cedar Hollow hotel placed the order Lena had once refused.
Reid never asked for a share.
He charged rent after six months exactly as promised.
The amount was fair.
Lena checked three times.
By then she spent four days a week at the ranch bakery and three in town.
Emma became her shadow.
The girl still had difficult days.
Some mornings she ate normally.
Others she stared at food until it went cold.
Lena never forced.
Never praised her for finishing.
Never commented on what remained.
She simply kept bread available.
One morning Emma sat on the bakery step.
“Do you think Mama is hungry?”
Lena stopped kneading.
“What?”
“In heaven.”
Lena wiped her hands.
“I don’t know.”
Emma frowned.
“Papa says heaven doesn’t need food.”
“Your papa knows everything?”
“No.”
“Then maybe he could be wrong.”
Emma considered.
“If Mama gets hungry, who makes bread?”
Lena sat beside her.
“Maybe she learned.”
“Mama couldn’t cook.”
Lena smiled.
“Then heaven has a problem.”
Emma laughed.
A real laugh.
Reid heard it from the barn.
He stopped working.
Lena saw him through the doorway.
He stood perfectly still.
Then turned away before Emma noticed.
That evening he brought Lena a sack of flour.
She looked at it.
“I didn’t order this.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
He shrugged.
“Today.”
She understood.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Yes.”
“Reid.”
He left before she could argue.
Lena kept the flour.
That bothered her less than it once would have.
Summer brought gossip.
A widow baking daily on a widower’s ranch.
People did not need additional ingredients.
At first Lena ignored it.
Then customers began asking.