Wyatt groaned.
The door closed.
Jeb laughed into Hattie’s shoulder.
Their romance did not become easy simply because attraction became official.
Hattie had spent years independent.
Jeb had spent years commanding men.
Those habits collided.
He once ordered a new stove without asking her.
Hattie refused to use it for two days.
“Better stove.”
“Wrong height.”
“I paid forty dollars.”
“That doesn’t make my back longer.”
Jeb learned.
Hattie sometimes made financial decisions about the cookhouse without telling him.
He objected.
She said:
“You told me to run it.”
“I did.”
“Then stop hovering.”
They argued.
Then learned the difference between partnership and permission.
Coal negotiations helped.
Every contract required two signatures.
Jeb’s.
And, eventually, Hattie’s as appointed business manager.
Some investors objected.
“A woman?”
Jeb answered:
“The woman who found the theft you gentlemen somehow failed to notice.”
The objections ended.
One banker tried speaking only to Jeb.
Jeb looked at Hattie.
She answered every question anyway.
By spring 1879, Iron Ridge signed a limited exploratory mineral lease.
Royalty structure favorable.
No transfer of land title.
No control over ranch water without written permission.
Hattie insisted on that provision.
Barrows’s entire scheme had depended on control.
Iron Ridge would not repeat the mistake voluntarily.
Exploratory work confirmed more coal.
Enough that newspapers began mentioning Iron Ridge.
Not richest ranch in Wyoming yet.
Potentially one of the most valuable private holdings in Sweetwater Valley.
Men who once mocked Hattie now bragged they ate her cooking.
She corrected them.
“They eat because I allow it.”
Wyatt told every newcomer about the skillet.
The story grew each time.
Eventually he claimed Hattie knocked a man unconscious with it.
She never had.
“Yet,” she would say.
Clem’s case ended without spectacle.
He received imprisonment for fraud-related offenses and cooperation reduced consequences.
Barrows fought longer.
Money bought time.
Not innocence.
His business reputation collapsed as merchants learned how he manipulated suppliers and ranch debts.
Some partners abandoned him.
Others sued.
Valley Transit survived under new ownership.
Iron Ridge did not celebrate his ruin.
Jeb tried once.
Hattie stopped him.
“Why?”
“He tried to steal everything.”
“He failed.”
“So?”
“So spend your attention building what remains.”
Jeb looked toward the northern ridge.
She was right.
Again.
He hated how often.
In summer, Jeb asked Hattie to marry him.
Badly.
She was rolling biscuit dough.
He walked into the kitchen.
“Hattie.”
“Hmm?”
“Marry me.”
She did not look up.
“No.”
Jeb froze.
“What?”
She continued rolling.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because that was terrible.”
Jeb stared.
“You want flowers?”
“No.”
“Ring?”
“Eventually.”
“What?”
She finally looked at him.
“You just walked in like you were ordering fence wire.”
“I’m nervous.”
“Good.”
He took off his hat.
Started again.
“Henrietta Coulter.”
She smiled slightly.
“I love you.”