“I told you I didn’t.”
“You know what I mean.”
Hattie looked toward the ridge.
“You don’t need me now.”
There it was.
The truth beneath his question.
Jeb turned.
“That isn’t what I said.”
“No.”
“It’s what you’re afraid of.”
Hattie smiled sadly.
“I understand.”
He looked at her.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m afraid too.”
Jeb frowned.
“Of what?”
“That now the ranch has money, you’ll decide a cook was useful when you were desperate but not suitable when people start calling you rich.”
Jeb stared.
Hattie continued.
“You think I don’t know how men behave when circumstances improve?”
“My husband’s business succeeded for a while.”
“People who ignored us suddenly invited us.”
“Then cholera took him and the business failed.”
“Those invitations disappeared.”
She looked at Jeb.
“I know what usefulness feels like.”
Jeb stepped closer.
“Hattie.”
She shook her head.
“Don’t promise because you’re relieved.”
“I’m not.”
“Then wait.”
He stopped.
That was the right answer.
Wait.
Not chase.
Not convince.
Jeb nodded.
“All right.”
For two weeks, nothing changed publicly.
Hattie cooked.
Jeb worked.
Surveyors returned.
Bankers visited.
Coal investors sent letters.
Iron Ridge suddenly had options.
Jeb refused the first three offers.
Hattie read every one.
The fourth proposed a mineral lease rather than outright sale.
Hattie liked that better.
Iron Ridge retained land ownership.
Mining company paid royalties.
Strict water protections.
Specified grazing access.
Reclamation obligations.
Jeb looked at her.
“Where did you learn contracts?”
“From being cheated once.”
He frowned.
“Your husband?”
“No.”
“After.”
A freight buyer acquired equipment from Hattie at half value after her husband died.
She did not understand the market until too late.
Never forgot.
Jeb listened.
Then:
“If we sign anything, you read it.”
Hattie smiled.
“We?”
Jeb realized what he said.
Did not correct it.
“Yes.”
“We.”
That word became more intimate than kissing.
Winter arrived.
Hard.
The people who said Hattie would never survive Wyoming cold were partially correct.
She hated it.
Deeply.
The first snow thrilled her for seven minutes.
Then wind entered through three gaps in the cookhouse wall.
She declared war.
Jeb found her stuffing cloth into cracks.
“You all right?”
“No.”
“You said your size meant Wyoming wind wouldn’t blow you away.”
“It cannot blow me away.”
“That doesn’t mean I enjoy being stabbed by it.”
He laughed.
She threw cloth at him.
Jeb ordered repairs.
Two days later, the cookhouse was tighter than his own bedroom.
Hattie noticed.
Said nothing.
By December, the crew had recovered its rhythm.
Healthy horses.
Better feed.
Regular pay.
Men stayed.
Iron Ridge became profitable enough to breathe again before any coal dollar arrived.
That pleased Hattie more than speculative wealth.