Hannah watched him from the kitchen window.
His dark coat moved along the fence line.
Hammer lifted.
Hammer fell.
Metal struck wood in a slow, steady rhythm.
She sat at the table with Mercer's note in front of her.
Beside it lay her father's letter, and beside that, a blank sheet of paper.
She tried figures first.
If Nathan sold part of the breeding herd, if cattle prices held, if he cut expenses, if Mercer accepted partial payment.
Every path ended badly.
She set the pencil down.
Then she looked toward the window again.
Nathan was still out there working at a fence that did not need fixing because work was where he put the things he could not say.
Hannah folded her father's letter.
The room had become familiar over the winter.
Nathan's coffee mug beside the stove.
His coat peg by the door.
The little burn mark on the table where he had once set down a hot pan.
Her ledgers stacked beside his account books.
Her scarf hanging beside his gloves.
She had arrived with two trunks and no place in the world.
Now her things had begun appearing in the spaces between his quietly, without permission being discussed.
That was when she understood what frightened her.
If Mercer took Black Pine, she would lose more than the ranch.
She would lose the first place that had ever made room for her without asking what she could earn by staying.
The back door opened after dark.
Nathan came in covered with snow.
His hat brim was white.
His gloves were wet.
A strand of hair had frozen against his forehead.
Hannah stood.
"You're an idiot."
Nathan shut the door.
"Fence is fixed."
"There was nothing wrong with the fence."
"There is now less wrong with it."
She stared at him.
He removed his gloves.
Hannah crossed the room, took them from his hands, and laid them near the stove.
Nathan watched her.
"You're cold."
"I've been colder."
"That doesn't make this intelligent."
"No."
She turned toward the coffee pot.
Nathan said, "Hannah."
She stopped.
"I meant what I said."
She looked at him over her shoulder.
"I know."
"If we lose part of the ranch—"
"I know."
"You stay."
The words were plain, almost blunt.
Hannah faced him fully.
Nathan continued.
"You understand?"
Her eyes burned.
She hated that they did.
"You don't know what I'll be like with nothing useful to do."
Nathan glanced toward the paper-covered table.
"I've never seen you with nothing useful to do."
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it.
Nathan's mouth moved.
Then the smile disappeared.
He looked at her in that careful way he had since the cabin.
"Hannah."
She crossed the distance between them.
Not all the way.
Just enough that their hands nearly touched.
"Thank you."
Nathan nodded once.
Neither reached farther.
That night, Hannah packed quietly.
She waited until the house had gone dark.
The documents went into a leather satchel.
Her father's letter, copies of Mercer's charges, the Black Pine receipts.
She wrapped them in oilcloth and tied the bundle tight.
Then she took out the brown riding skirt she had mended the week before and laid it over the chair.
She did not wake Nathan.
If she had, he might have argued.
Worse, he might have understood too much from her face.
Before dawn, Hannah carried her saddle from the tack room herself.