"Your father told me about you in his letter," Clara said. He said you were 6 years old and that you were the one who named the ranch's three barn cats. Rose descended two steps. He told you that he did. Their names are Cornbread Button and General Sherman, Rose said with the gravity of someone conveying important intelligence.
General Sherman is the mean one. I'll remember that, Clara said. She heard the door open again behind Rose. Two older girls appeared. One teenager who crossed her arms the moment she saw Clara and stayed in the doorway and one girl of about 10 who stood just behind the first watching with an expression of careful neutrality.
Emma, Clara said looking at the teenager and Lily. Neither of them spoke. I'm not here to replace anyone, Clara said. She hadn't planned to say it immediately, but something in Emma's face made the detour necessary. I'm here because your father needed help and I needed work.
That's the whole of it. Emma's jaw tightened. Our father makes his own decisions. He does, Clara agreed. And I imagine he makes them carefully because what I can see already is that his daughters are paying close attention.
Something flickered in Emma's expression. Not warmth, not yet, but something that might have been the faint precursor to it. Then a voice came from inside the house, rough-edged and carrying the flat exhaustion of a man who had been tired for a long time. Emma, let her in. Emma stepped aside.
Clara picked up her suitcase and walked through the door. Daniel Hayes was standing at the far end of the main room near the fireplace. And Clara's first clear thought was that he looked like a man who had forgotten how to stand without something to lean against. He was tall, broad through their shoulders, with the weathered face of someone who had spent years outdoors. But the weariness in his posture went deeper than weather or work.
His eyes, dark brown and direct, moved over her with the same assessing quality as his youngest daughters, except where Rose had looked at her with open curiosity. Daniel Hayes looked at her with something closer to regret. "Miss Whitmore," he said. "Mr. Hayes, you're smaller than I expected," he said. "It was not unkind exactly.
It was simply honest in the blunt way of a man who had spent too long without anyone to soften his edges. Most people are smaller than expected, Clara said. Until you need them. He held her gaze for a long moment. Then he nodded once slowly and gestured toward the hallway.
Emma will show you your room. Supper is at 6:00. The girls are in school mornings home by midday. The house needs, he stopped, pressed his mouth into a line, seemed to be deciding how much to say. It needs a good deal of attention.
I noticed the fence line on the east property, Clara said. His eyes sharpened slightly. The fence line isn't your concern. I meant the yard is being kept up, Clara said. Someone is doing that carefully.