"If I ask because I need the ranch saved, I am."
"That isn't fair."
"Maybe not."
"To you?"
"I can live with that."
She stared at him.
Nathan looked toward the north pasture.
"Black Pine was here before you came."
"And it'll be here or it won't after this is over."
"You built it."
"Yes."
"You could lose half your winter range."
"Yes. Maybe more. Probably."
His calm made her angry.
Hannah stepped closer.
"You're acting like none of this matters."
Nathan's face hardened.
"It matters plenty."
"Then why are you standing there pretending you can just let Mercer take it?"
"I didn't say I'd let him."
"What are you going to do? Sell cattle?"
His anger stopped her.
Nathan looked past her toward the barn.
"The breeding herd first."
Hannah stared.
Those were his best animals.
Years of careful selection.
His strongest cows.
His best bull line.
The part of Black Pine that would matter long after one bad winter.
"You can't."
"I can."
"You'd ruin the ranch."
"I'd shrink it."
"That's not the same thing, and you know it."
Nathan's jaw tightened.
"Then I'll sell the south parcel."
Hannah shook her head.
"That land carries your summer grass."
"I know what it carries."
"You'd cut Black Pine in half if that's what it takes."
Hannah's voice rose.
"For what?"
Nathan finally looked straight at her.
"For not making you buy your place here."
The yard went still.
Hannah forgot the cold.
Nathan's voice roughened.
"I watched your brothers do that. Every time you were useful, you belonged. Every time you cost them something, you didn't."
He shook his head once.
"I won't build the same kind of house and call it different because the walls are mine."
Hannah could not answer.
Nathan picked up the axe.
She caught his sleeve.
He stopped.
His eyes dropped to her hand.
Hannah let go.
"Nathan."
He waited.
"If I choose to help, that doesn't mean you've used me."
"No."
"Then say it."
He frowned.
"Say what?"
"That you want me to."
Nathan looked away.
The silence stretched.
Then he said, "I want Black Pine saved."
Hannah waited.
"I want Mercer stopped."
Another pause.
"And I want you never to wonder if you'd still have a room in my house if you couldn't do either one."
Hannah's throat tightened.
Nathan picked up the axe.
"That all?"
"No."
It was not all, but she could not say what sat behind her teeth, so she stepped back.
Nathan split wood until noon.
Then he repaired the south fence.
The fence did not need repairing.
Hannah knew because she had ridden that line 3 days earlier.
Still, after dinner, Nathan took a hammer, staples, and a coil of wire and walked out into the falling snow.
He stayed there until the light was nearly gone.