His face remained calm. His voice did too. "She's the reason 36 men are still drawing wages from my ranch."
The small circle around them went quiet. Emily blinked. Matthew continued.
"She's also the reason my winter food costs are lower than they've been in three years."
Rachel looked at him. He did not look at her. He looked at Emily.
No anger. No threat. Just fact.
Emily gave a thin little smile. "I only meant it as humor."
"I know."
Matthew shifted the basket to his other hand. "Didn't improve it."
George Baines coughed and suddenly became interested in the coffee urn. Emily's cheeks colored. Rachel expected Matthew to walk away.
Instead, he stayed beside her. Not in front of her. Beside her. That mattered more than she wanted it to.
An older woman approached with a plate of biscuits and asked Rachel whether the apple cake contained dried fruit. The room began moving again. Someone poured coffee. A chair scraped.
The moment passed. But Emily did not make another joke. Later, Rachel stood near the back wall with a cup in her hands while Matthew spoke to two cattlemen near the door.
He was impossible to miss. His head rose above everyone else's. Broad shoulders. Dark coat.
Quiet face. A woman beside Rachel leaned toward her friend and whispered, not quite quietly enough, "He could have any woman in the county if he'd only make an effort."
Rachel stared into her coffee. The words should not have mattered. They did. She had no claim on Matthew Holloway.
No reason to want one. He was her employer. Nothing more. Yet her eyes moved toward him despite herself.
As if he felt it, Matthew looked across the room. Their gazes met. He stopped listening to whatever the cattleman beside him was saying for half a second. Then Rachel looked away.
The ride back to Holloway Basin was colder. Moonlight silvered the road and the wagon runners hissed over packed snow. Rachel held the buffalo robe across her knees. Matthew drove with both hands on the reins for nearly three miles.
Neither spoke. Then Rachel said, "You didn't have to do that."
"What?"
"At supper."
"Yes, I did."
"No."
She looked toward him. "You could have ignored her."
Matthew kept his eyes on the road. "So could you."
"I've had practice."
His jaw tightened. "That doesn't make it right."
Rachel turned toward the dark line of pines. "You defended my work."
"Yes."
"Not me."
The words came out before she had decided to say them. Matthew looked over. Rachel regretted it immediately.
"That wasn't what I meant."
"What did you mean?"
"Nothing."
He slowed the team slightly as the wagon approached a bend. "Rachel."
She stared ahead. "You said what mattered. That's all."
Matthew was quiet. Then the right wheel struck a frozen rut. The wagon lurched hard.