And I got tired of proving I could do the thing everybody already assumed I could do. Rebecca looked at his hands again. Those hands had carried an injured man 5 miles through rain. They had moved her flower barrel and stopped exactly where she told them. They could have frightened half the valley.
Instead, Everett had spent most of the past two days using them to hold rains, lift gates, and pass coffee mugs. Rebecca glanced toward the ranch house. Maybe Claudia was right about one thing. Which thing? People notice.
Everett straightened. Let them. Rebecca gave a short breath. Easy for you to say. No.
The word came quietly. He stepped closer but stopped with several feet still between them. No, Rebecca, it isn't. She looked up. Even with the wagon beside them, even beneath the wide Wyoming sky, Everett seemed impossibly large, but she did not feel crowded.” Don't make yourself smaller here, “he said.
Rebecca stared at him. He did not dress the words up, did not smile after them, did not reach for her. He simply stood there and let them belong to her. Rebecca looked away first. Her throat had tightened unexpectedly.
She reached for the trunk, then stopped. Everett waited.” You can carry it, “she said. He nodded.” Where? Spare room upstairs. “He lifted the trunk as though it contained blankets.
Rebecca pointed toward the house. Don't get proud. It's still my trunk. Yes, ma'am. And don't call me ma'am.
Yes, Rebecca. He walked ahead. Rebecca followed. At the porch steps, Everett slowed so she could come beside him instead of behind. It was such a small thing, she almost missed it.
The next morning, Rebecca left Hail Creek shortly after sunrise. Everett was already working the north pasture. Franklin loaded the last empty barrel into Harvey's wagon while Owen handed Rebecca a cloth sack. What's this? Biscuits.
Rebecca looked inside. Three of her own biscuits. You're giving me my food. Owen scratched his neck. Figured you might forget breakfast.
Rebecca looked at him for a moment, then took the sack. Thank you. The wagon rolled through the gate. As Hail Creek disappeared behind the cottonwoods, Rebecca found herself thinking about the night before. Not Claudia, not the words beside the wash barrel.
Four different words had replaced them. Don't make yourself smaller here. Rebecca repeated them once beneath the sound of the wagon wheels. Then she sat straighter on the wooden seat and kept her eyes on the road toward Copper Ridge. For the next several weeks, Hail Creek settled into the back of her mind without ever quite leaving it.
Her food shed stayed busy. Freight wagons rolled through Copper Ridge before noon. Miners came down from the foothills with silver dust ground into their cuffs. And ranch hands learned that if Rebecca's door was open, there would be something hot on the stove. Everett still appeared every few days.
Sometimes he bought lunch. Sometimes coffee. Once he claimed he needed horseshoe nails, and Rebecca pointed through the open door toward Harvey Sloan's forge. Those are sold next door. Everett looked toward the forge.
So they are. Rebecca waited. He ordered beef and potatoes anyway. Neither mentioned Claudia Mercer. Neither mentioned the wagon beneath the moonlight, but Everett stopped calling her ma'am.