It was a plain question, but Hannah heard what sat behind it.
How long are you staying?
What do you expect?
What am I responsible for now?
She set down her mug.
"I'll find work in town if there's work."
Nathan rubbed one thumb along the edge of the table.
"You can stay here until you do."
Hannah's back stiffened.
"I can pay."
"I didn't ask."
"I'm not taking charity."
His eyes came up.
"It wasn't charity."
"What was it?"
"A room that's empty and food."
"I've got food."
"Bad food."
His mouth tightened.
Hannah almost apologized.
Almost.
Instead, she looked toward the desk.
The papers were stacked in crooked piles, some unopened, some folded into old tobacco tins, some pinned beneath a coffee cup.
"What's all that?"
Nathan followed her gaze.
"Bills."
"All of it?"
"Some receipts."
"Which are which?"
He shrugged.
Hannah stared at him.
"You don't know."
"I know enough."
"No, you know cattle."
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"That's the same thing."
"It very much is not."
Ben, still by the stove, suddenly found urgent reason to leave.
"Night, Cole."
"Ma'am."
The door closed behind him.
Nathan leaned back.
"What are you saying?"
Hannah folded her hands.
"I'm saying I can earn my room."
"How?"
"I kept the Whitaker accounts. All of them. Cattle tallies, breeding records, feed purchases, notes due, sale prices, freight charges, taxes, correspondence."
Nathan glanced toward her heavy trunk.
Hannah stood.
"Now you can ask what's inside."
He didn't, so she went to the trunk herself.
The lock clicked.
She lifted the lid.
Nathan came closer despite himself.
Inside were ledger books tied with cotton tape, small notebooks, receipts bundled by year, letters, brand records, veterinary notes, feed estimates, copies of cattle sale agreements, everything neat, everything labeled.
Hannah lifted one thick ledger and put it on the table.
"My father hated paperwork," she said. "Samuel hated numbers. Peter could do them, but only if someone stood behind him, correcting mistakes."
She opened the ledger.
Rows of entries filled the page in careful handwriting.
Nathan leaned over.
"Your hand?"
"Yes."
"All of it?"
"Twelve years."
He turned a page, then another.
His rough fingers slowed.
Hannah watched something change in his face.
Not admiration, not yet.
Reconsideration.
That was enough.
"What are you proposing?" he asked.
"I manage your accounts while I'm here. I sort your receipts, write your letters, track what comes in and what goes out. You pay me enough to keep it respectable."
"You're serious."
"I'm homeless, Mr. Cole. That doesn't make me stupid."
He looked at her for a long moment.
Then he walked to the desk.
He gathered the nearest stack of papers with both hands and dropped it onto the table in front of her.
Dust rose.
Three envelopes slid to the floor.
"If you can make sense of that mess," he said, "you can stay through winter."
Hannah looked at the pile, then at him.
"Winter?"
"That's what I said."