"You can stay here."
"I know."
Another silence. Then he reached for his hat. "When do you want to leave?"
The church stood on the western edge of Cold Water, a white-painted building with a narrow steeple and hitching rails buried halfway under snow. The supper was held in the meeting hall behind it. By the time Matthew and Rachel arrived, lanterns glowed in every window, and wagons lined both sides of the road.
The air smelled of wood smoke, horse sweat, baked ham, and coffee strong enough to carry through a closed door. Rachel climbed down carefully. Matthew had already come around the wagon. He held out one hand.
She looked at it. Then at him. "I can manage."
"I know."
There were those words again. But he left his hand there. Rachel put hers into it.
His palm was warm through the leather glove. He steadied her until both boots were firm on the packed snow, then released her immediately. No lingering. No assumption.
Rachel took the apple cake from the wagon bed. Before she could lift it properly, Matthew took it from her.
"I can carry that too."
"I know."
She looked at him. "Do you only know things?"
"Mostly."
That pulled a smile from her before she could stop it. Inside, conversation shifted. Not stopped.
Shifted. People noticed Matthew Holloway wherever he went. He had that effect simply by entering a room. But people noticed Rachel beside him too.
A few offered polite greetings. Others stared longer than they meant to. Rachel had lived long enough with that kind of attention that she could usually feel it without looking. She took off her coat and folded it over one arm.
Her Sunday dress was dark green wool, plain but well made, with a narrow cream collar she had sewn herself. It fit her properly. She had learned years ago that trying to hide a large body under shapeless cloth only gave cruel people something else to discuss. Matthew carried the cake toward the food table.
Rachel followed. That was when Emily Baines saw them. Emily stood beside her father, George Baines, near a silver coffee urn. She was 26, perhaps, with light brown hair arranged neatly beneath a blue ribbon and a winter dress that had clearly come from a better dressmaker than anyone in Cold Water.
George Baines supplied half the ranches in the county and brokered cattle contracts. Rachel knew him by reputation. Emily she knew only by sight. Emily looked at Matthew first.
Then Rachel. Then the cake in Matthew's hands.
"Mr. Holloway," she said brightly. "We were beginning to think you had forgotten the road into town."
Matthew set the cake on the table. "I know the road."
Emily laughed. Rachel moved toward an open place beside a casserole dish. Emily's gaze followed her.
"So this is the woman everyone has been talking about."
Matthew's shoulders changed. Not much. Rachel noticed.
"This is Rachel Foster," he said.
Rachel turned. "Miss Baines."
"Mrs. Foster." Emily smiled. It was a pleasant smile.
Too pleasant. "I've heard Holloway Basin is eating very well these days."
"The men seem satisfied."
"Oh, I'm sure."
Emily's eyes traveled once over Rachel's figure. Quick. Deliberate. Then she looked at Matthew.
"My father said you had hired a cook. I suppose I didn't realize you required one big enough for the whole county."
Someone nearby choked into a coffee cup. Another person laughed before thinking better of it. Rachel felt the old reaction arrive with familiar precision.
Heat beneath her collar. A tightening in her chest. The instinct to pretend she hadn't heard. She had used that instinct for years.
It was easier than giving people the satisfaction of seeing a wound. Rachel reached toward the cake cloth. Matthew moved first. He picked up the basket she had brought with the serving knife and napkins inside.