Dates.
Quantities.
Nathan frowned.
“Could deliveries be used elsewhere?”
“No.”
“Church?”
“Separate account.”
“Teacher lodging?”
“Boardinghouse provides.”
He pointed.
“This coal entry.”
“Yes.”
“Two tons, August twelfth.”
“Correct.”
“It was ninety degrees.”
“Exactly.”
Nathan’s face changed.
“How long?”
“I checked eighteen months.”
“And?”
“At least four hundred dollars unexplained.”
That was a significant amount.
Enough to pay a teacher nearly a year.
Nathan sat.
“Who signs invoices?”
“Grayson.”
“Who approves payment?”
“Board treasurer.”
“Who is?”
“Mr. Harlan.”
Nathan looked toward her.
“Would Harlan steal?”
Eliza thought.
“No.”
“You sound sure.”
“He might ignore things.”
“He dislikes conflict.”
“But he is not clever enough to design this.”
Nathan almost laughed.
“Eliza.”
“What?”
“That was brutal.”
“It was accounting.”
Same thing, sometimes.
They continued.
Eliza found more.
Copybooks invoiced twice.
Roof repairs never performed.
Replacement desks supposedly purchased in March.
No new desks existed.
Nathan sat across from her until midnight.
At some point their knees touched beneath the table.
Neither moved.
Then Eliza became aware.
She looked up.
Nathan was watching her.
Not the invoices.
Her.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You say that badly.”
He smiled slightly.
“You bite your lower lip when you calculate.”
Her face warmed.
“You have been observing me.”
“Yes.”
“Is that appropriate under our agreement?”
“Observing is not prohibited.”
“Perhaps I should amend it.”
Nathan leaned closer.
“Would you?”
The air changed.
Eliza’s pulse accelerated.
She glanced toward the papers.
Cowardice through accounting.
Nathan noticed.
Of course.
He stood.
“I’ll make coffee.”
“Nathan.”
He stopped.
Eliza did not know what she intended to say.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe too much.
“Thank you.”
“For?”
“For not making this arrangement harder than it already is.”
Something vulnerable crossed his face.
“I am trying.”
“I know.”
He went to the kitchen.
Eliza watched him leave.
Then quietly whispered:
“That is becoming the problem.”
By the end of their third week married, the arrangement had become almost comfortable.
Dangerously comfortable.
Nathan woke before dawn.
Eliza followed thirty minutes later.
They ate breakfast together.
He rode to the ranch.
She walked to school.