Then she picked up the bucket again. Inside the barn, the horses shifted softly in their stalls. Their breath hung pale in the cold. Rachel preferred this hour.
Animals rarely expected her to be anything except consistent. She fed the mare first, then the gelding, then the two young horses in the rear stalls. One had a shallow cut along the pastern where ice had broken near the trough. Rachel cleaned it with warm water and tied on a fresh strip of cloth.
By the time the eastern sky began turning gray, her fingers were numb. She rubbed them against her skirt and heard the kitchen door open.
"Rachel," Lillian's voice called.
"I'm in the barn."
A moment later, her younger sister appeared with a shawl pulled around her shoulders and shoes entirely unsuited for the yard. "You'll ruin those."
Lillian looked down. "They're old."
"They were new in October."
"That's old enough."
Rachel gave her a look. Lillian smiled. That was the trouble with Lillian. She could make foolishness look harmless.
"Pa says breakfast."
"I'll be there."
"He also says Jacob Mason is coming by."
Rachel tied the cloth around the horse's leg. "For what?"
Lillian leaned against the stall. "Does there need to be a reason?"
"There generally is when a man drives six miles in January."
Lillian's smile grew. Rachel stopped tying. "Oh, don't sound so pleased."
"I didn't."
"You made the face."
"What face?"
"The one where you understand something and wish you didn't."
Rachel lowered the horse's hoof. "Jacob's been coming here for weeks to ask about the sorrel mare."
"So?"
"So maybe he wants the sorrel mare."
Lillian laughed. "Rachel."
"What?"
"He asked me to walk after church last Sunday."
Rachel's hands became very busy with the cloth. "I didn't know that."
"I thought you did."
"No."
There was a brief silence. Lillian shifted her weight. "I didn't mean—"
Rachel looked up. "Mean what?"
"Nothing."
"Then don't make it into something."
Lillian nodded. Rachel returned to the horse, but she thought about Jacob Mason while she worked. He had been coming to the farm for nearly a month. He had spent an hour one afternoon beside the paddock asking Rachel how she judged a young horse's feet.
Another day, he had asked which bloodline she preferred for mountain work. He had listened. At least she had thought he listened. Once he had even laughed when she told him George chose stallions by pedigree and she chose them by whether they had sense enough not to kill themselves.
Rachel had gone to bed that night thinking about the laugh. She had hated herself for it by morning. At breakfast, Jacob Mason arrived before the biscuits were gone. He knocked snow from his boots on the porch.
George welcomed him with unusual warmth. "Come in, boy. Cold enough to split fence posts."
Jacob removed his hat. "Morning, Mr. Hart."
His eyes moved across the table, past Rachel to Lillian. "Miss Hart."