"Road's rough."
Emily gave him a long look.
Lucy giggled between them.
It was the first easy sound of the morning.
They stopped near a frozen creek to rest the horses.
Nathan broke ice from the edge with the heel of his boot and checked each animal carefully before opening a canvas sack of grain.
Emily watched him work. He never hurried the horses, never jerked a bridle. For a man whose hands could probably bend a horseshoe if sufficiently annoyed, he handled buckles and leather with surprising patience.
He returned to the wagon carrying a wrapped parcel.
"Bread and cheese."
Emily took it.
"You planned breakfast, too?"
"Helen did."
"That makes more sense."
Nathan glanced at her.
Emily bit into the bread.
Lucy laughed again.
By late morning, Black Ridge filled half the northern sky. Dark stone rising behind pine-covered foothills.
Double Pine Ranch appeared below it in a broad valley protected from the worst of the western wind.
Emily saw fences first, then cattle clustered around hay. A long barn stood beside two corrals. Beyond it sat a bunkhouse, smoke curling from a stovepipe.
The main house was two stories but plain, built from squared timber with a porch running across the front.
Nothing sagged.
Nothing looked abandoned.
It simply looked hard-used.
Nathan pulled the wagon through a timber gate. Four men near the barn stopped working.
Lucy stood in the wagon.
"Henry."
A gray-bearded cowboy lifted one hand.
"There's our runaway judge fighter."
Lucy grinned.
Then the men's attention shifted toward Emily.
She knew that pause. She had lived inside pauses like it most of her life.
Nathan climbed down.
"Henry Collins, Robert Mills, Samuel Price, Jack Turner."
The men removed their hats, though Jack did it half a second later than the others.
Nathan turned.
"This is Emily."
He hesitated.
"My wife."
The words sounded unfamiliar in his mouth.
Emily stepped down before he could offer assistance.
Henry, the oldest, nodded politely.
"Ma'am."
Robert and Samuel followed.
Jack simply stared.
He was perhaps 30, lean-faced and fair-haired with a red neckerchief tied loosely beneath his coat. His gaze traveled from Emily's face to her waist and back again.
Emily met his eyes.
Jack looked away first.
Lucy jumped down.
"Judge says I stay till spring."
Henry's expression tightened.
"Till spring."
"For now," Nathan said.
Nobody asked more.
Nathan unloaded Emily's trunk himself.
The house smelled of pine smoke and coffee.
Emily had expected disorder.
Instead, she found something stranger.
Everything worked.
Nothing was comfortable.
The front room held a heavy table, six mismatched chairs, a stone fireplace, and two shelves of books covered in dust. A pair of work gloves sat beside a stack of cattle receipts.
Three cracked coffee mugs occupied the mantel for no apparent reason.
The kitchen was clean enough. The bedrooms were plain. The house had been maintained the way a man maintained a barn roof.
Repair what failed.
Ignore everything else.
Nathan carried her trunk upstairs.
"Your room."
Emily stepped inside.
A narrow bed stood against one wall. There was a washstand, a small wardrobe, and a window facing Black Ridge.
Fresh firewood had been stacked beside the stove. On the bed lay two folded wool blankets.
Emily touched one.
"Did you prepare this?"
"Helen did in November. She stays sometimes when weather gets bad."
Nathan set down the trunk.
"I'll move my things from the room across the hall."
"You don't have to."
"It's mine."
"I gathered that."
"I can use the downstairs room."
Emily turned.
"Nathan."
He stopped.
"We agreed I'd have my own room."
"We didn't agree you had to exile yourself from half your house."
He studied her.
"Across the hall, then."
"Across the hall."
He nodded.
A small thing, but it was the first decision they had made inside the house together.
Emily unpacked only what she needed.
By afternoon, she began noticing other things. A saddle blanket torn nearly through at one corner. A canvas grain sack discarded because its seam had opened. A harness pad with stuffing showing.
A stack of store receipts tied with twine, including repeated purchases for items that could have been repaired.
She picked up the saddle blanket.
Nathan found her examining it.
"That one's finished."
"Is it?"
"Ordered another from Red Willow."
Emily pulled the torn edges together.
"How much?"
"$4.80."
"You kept the receipt."
Nathan pointed toward a nail near the desk.
Emily found it there.
"Jay Whitaker Mercantile. One heavy saddle blanket. $4.80."
She folded the paper.
"Cancel it."
Nathan looked at the blanket.
"Can you repair that?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Longer if you stand there asking questions."
Nathan stared at her.
Then he walked away.
Emily heard the front door close.
She smiled despite herself.
She moved her sewing basket beside the west window where the afternoon light was strongest and worked until her fingers stiffened.
The blanket had been poorly repaired twice before. She removed both patches, reinforced the damaged corner with a piece of sound canvas, then stitched through the layers with waxed thread and a heavy needle.
Lucy sat nearby watching.
"Can you teach me?"
"Not with this needle."
"Why?"
"Because your uncle would probably blame me when you put it through your thumb."
From the doorway, Nathan said, "Correct."
Emily hadn't heard him enter. He carried a box of kindling under one arm.
She held up the repaired blanket.
"Try it."
Nathan set down the wood.
He took the blanket and pulled hard at the repaired corner.
The stitches held.
He pulled again.
Emily crossed her arms.
"Planning to hitch cattle to it?"
Nathan stopped.
"No."
"Then I believe it'll survive."
He ran his thumb across the seam.
"You did this in an afternoon."
"I did."