"Fine."
"Eli says we're low on coffee."
"We aren't."
"Need anything from town?"
"Not today."
By the fourth morning, he came in carrying no question at all. Rachel was kneading sourdough. He took the blue-rimmed mug from its hook without asking, poured coffee, and sat at the corner of the worktable.
Rachel glanced at him. "No ranch emergency?"
"Not yet."
"Then you're improving."
He looked over the rim of the mug. "I wasn't aware I was being treated."
"You weren't."
The smallest movement touched his mouth. Rachel pressed her palms into the dough. He stayed until the first hands came through the door.
The next morning, he stayed again. It became a habit neither of them discussed. Sometimes they spoke. Sometimes 20 minutes passed with only the scrape of Rachel's knife against the board and the sound of Matthew turning a page in the ranch ledger.
His silence had weight, but it did not press on her. It gave her room. She had forgotten what that felt like. One cold morning near the end of December, Rachel climbed onto the flour barrel to reach a crock of dried sage stored on the highest pantry shelf.
Matthew walked in as she stretched upward. He stopped. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to reach sage."
"I can see that."
"Then why ask?"
The barrel shifted slightly beneath her boot. Matthew crossed the room in two steps and put one hand against the side of it. Rachel looked down.
"I have it."
"I know."
"Then you don't need to hold it."
"I know that too."
She reached the sage. The next morning, the shelf was lower. Rachel stood in the pantry doorway looking at it. Matthew was outside near the woodpile splitting kindling.
She walked out holding the sage crock. "You moved my shelf."
He drove the axe into the chopping block. "It was too high."
"It had been there for years."
"You haven't."
Rachel looked at him. He bent for another piece of wood. No smile.
No teasing. Just that answer. She returned to the cookhouse without telling him how long the sentence stayed with her. The ranch hands noticed things too.
Men always did. They simply noticed differently. Charlie Dunn made the mistake first. Matthew had come in before breakfast, and Rachel had already set the blue-rimmed mug beside his usual seat.
Charlie saw it. "Oh, look at that."
Rachel kept cutting biscuit dough. "What?"
"Boss has his own cup now."
"He's always had a cup."
"Not that cup."
Matthew entered behind Charlie. Charlie did not hear him. Eli did. Eli cleared his throat loudly.
Charlie continued. "Pretty soon, Mrs. Foster will be embroidering his initials on—"