“After your first letter.”
“Why?”
“You told me what made travel difficult.”
“I complained.”
“You described.”
Emma turned.
“Did you think I would be offended?”
“Yes.”
“Why do it?”
“Because offended is better than injured.”
She stared.
Elias looked almost uncomfortable.
“I didn’t know what you’d need.”
“So I guessed.”
“You guessed well.”
“Levi built the bed.”
“I did the wagon.”
Emma’s eyes burned.
She looked away before tears came.
Elias misunderstood.
“If it’s too much—”
“No.”
She touched the chair again.
“It’s the first time a man changed a room for me without announcing what it cost him.”
Elias said nothing.
Good.
He was learning.
That first week Emma did not try to become mistress of the ranch.
She observed.
Elias rose before dawn.
Levi swore at gates.
Ben sang terribly while repairing tack.
The kitchen stove pulled smoke badly when the wind came from the south.
The pantry was organized according to a system Emma could only describe as archaeological.
Elias ate coffee, bacon, beans, and whatever Levi remembered to purchase.
Emma cooked because she wanted actual food.
The first night she prepared chicken with onions, potatoes, biscuits, and gravy.
Elias stared at the table.
“What?”
she asked.
“We normally use that plate for holidays.”
“It’s a serving platter.”
“Exactly.”
Emma sat.
Ben took one biscuit.
Then another.
Then noticed Emma watching.
“Sorry.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take three.”
He did.
Elias tasted the gravy.
His eyes closed.
Emma laughed.
“You’re being theatrical.”
“No.”
“Then your cooking truly is criminal.”
“I warned you.”
After supper, Emma asked for the ranch books.
Elias hesitated.
“Tonight?”
“You said Bell’s note comes due in six weeks.”
“Yes.”
“Then tonight.”
He brought three ledgers, a tin box of receipts, folded bank notices, freight invoices, and enough disorder to insult her personally.
Emma stared at the kitchen table.
“You keep financial papers in a coffee tin.”
“It’s dry.”
“There are cattle receipts from 1882 beneath a recipe for cough syrup.”
“Also dry.”
She looked at him.
“You may leave.”
“It’s my table.”
“Not for the next two hours.”
Elias went outside.
Levi joined him on the porch.
“She throw you out?”
“Yes.”
Levi smiled.
“Good.”
Elias looked at him.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“I been waiting twelve years for someone to tell you what to do.”
Inside, Emma worked.
Numbers calmed her.
They always had.
Nathaniel Vale had mocked that too.
Women, he said, were too emotional for serious accounts.
Then he secretly handed Emma every household ledger because he could not remember whether expenses belonged on the left or right side.
Emma had saved him thousands.
Nathaniel accepted compliments for being a brilliant manager.
When they divorced, he told everyone she had contributed nothing to the marriage.
Emma had believed that hurt because she wanted credit.
Later she understood it hurt because he had erased evidence of her competence.
Elias’s books would not erase her.
The first irregularity appeared at nine twenty.
Emma frowned.
She checked again.
Then a third time.
“Elias.”