“We reduce white flour tomorrow.”
“Add boiled potato to bread.”
“Oat porridge three mornings.”
“Cornmeal twice.”
“More stew.”
“Less biscuit.”
Nathaniel smiled.
“What?”
“You're exactly what I thought.”
Lena looked up.
“What did you think?”
“That anyone who could make that loaf could solve problems.”
Her face warmed.
Nathaniel did not seem to notice.
Or perhaps he did and was polite enough to ignore it.
The pass remained closed thirteen days.
Nobody went hungry.
Lena’s potato bread became more popular than the original.
On the fourteenth day, the supply wagon finally arrived.
The driver brought mail.
One letter was for Lena.
Martha.
Lena opened it after supper.
Three pages.
Town gossip.
School repairs.
Caroline complaining that the bake sale had become “vulgar.”
Then one paragraph stopped Lena.
A man from Denver came asking about you. Says he represents a restaurant investor. Apparently someone traveling through Black Ridge tasted your bread and told him about it. He asked whether you intend to return after winter.
Lena read it twice.
Restaurant investor.
Denver.
Something opened inside her.
A possibility bigger than Cedar Hollow.
Bigger than the bakery she had imagined.
Nathaniel found her at the kitchen table.
“You all right?”
She folded the letter.
“Yes.”
“Bad news?”
“No.”
She hesitated.
“Good, maybe.”
He waited.
Lena told him.
His expression barely changed.
“That’s good.”
She stared.
“That is all?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don't know.”
“Congratulations?”
“That would be normal.”
“Congratulations.”
She laughed.
But something felt wrong.
Nathaniel looked at the folded letter.
“Denver.”
“Yes.”
“You want that?”
“I might.”
He nodded.
“Then you should talk to him.”
Lena became unexpectedly irritated.
“You really don't care.”
Nathaniel frowned.
“About what?”
“If I leave.”
His eyes sharpened.
“That isn't what I said.”
“You certainly aren't protesting.”
“What right would I have?”
The answer struck her.
She looked away.
Nathaniel continued.
“You came here for a contract.”
“Not a promise.”
“If something better comes, I won't trap you.”
Lena’s chest tightened.
She hated that he was behaving correctly.
It would be easier if he were selfish.
“Fine.”
Nathaniel stared.
“Fine?”
“Fine.”
She stood.
“Good night.”
He watched her leave.
Neither slept particularly well.
January brought deeper cold.
The temperature dropped so low that water froze inside buckets near the kitchen wall.
A ranch hand named Eli developed pneumonia.
Lena helped Doctor Cole sit with him through two nights.
Nathaniel came and went between cattle emergencies and the sickroom.
On the second night, Lena fell asleep in a chair.
She woke beneath a wolfskin coat.
Nathaniel’s.
He sat across the room in shirtsleeves despite the cold.
She looked at the coat.
Then him.
“You'll freeze.”
“No.”
“This thing weighs forty pounds.”