Better.
“I love how you fight.”
“How you think.”
“How you feed thirty idiots and somehow remember which one hates carrots.”
Hattie laughed.
“I love that you made this ranch honest before you made it rich.”
Her eyes softened.
“I love waking up knowing you’re here.”
He stepped closer.
“I’m asking because I want a life with you.”
“Not an employee.”
“Not a cook.”
“Not a savior.”
“You.”
Hattie looked at him.
Then wiped flour across his cheek.
Jeb blinked.
“Yes.”
He smiled.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
He grabbed her around the waist.
Lifted half an inch.
Hattie laughed.
“Put me down before you hurt yourself.”
“I am a rancher.”
“You are forty-four.”
“Insulting.”
She kissed him.
The wedding happened outside the cookhouse.
Of course.
Thirty ranch hands insisted.
Wyatt cried and denied it.
Amos slept through part of the ceremony.
Hattie wore deep green.
She refused white.
“Flour is white.”
“I spend enough time wearing it.”
Jeb wore a new black coat that made him uncomfortable.
Hattie liked it.
The coal investors attended.
So did the banker.
Hattie made both sit beside ranch hands.
No special table.
After the vows, Wyatt raised a cup.
“To the finest cook in Wyoming.”
Hattie gave him a look.
He corrected:
“To the finest business manager in Wyoming.”
Another look.
Wyatt panicked.
“To Mrs. Callahan?”
Hattie smiled.
“Acceptable.”
Everyone laughed.
Marriage changed less than outsiders expected.
Hattie still ran the cookhouse because she liked it.
But she hired two helpers.
Thirty men required too much labor for a woman also managing accounts.
She trained one ranch hand’s young wife as head cook.
Iron Ridge’s bookkeeping moved into a proper office.
Two ledgers.
Every invoice checked.
No single employee ordered, received, and approved the same shipment.
Jeb complained the system was cumbersome.
Hattie said:
“Good.”
“Fraud likes convenience.”
He stopped complaining.
Within three years, coal royalties transformed Iron Ridge.
New barns.
Improved irrigation.
Better breeding stock.
A schoolhouse contributed to jointly by nearby families.
A clinic fund in Oak Haven.
Hattie insisted wealth should improve the place around them.
Jeb agreed.
Mostly.
He wanted a larger house.
Hattie refused.
“This one leaks.”
“So fix the roof.”
“We can build twelve rooms.”
“Why?”
“We have money.”
“That is not a reason to clean twelve rooms.”
They added two rooms.
Compromise.
The old cookhouse remained.
Hattie never allowed it to be replaced completely.
Repairs.
New roof.
Better stove.
Larger pantry.
But same porch post with a skillet dent from her first day.
Wyatt pointed it out to new ranch hands.
“That mark saved this ranch.”
Hattie overheard once.
“No.”
She walked past carrying bread.
“The ledger did.”
Wyatt grinned.
“And the woman holding the skillet.”
She pretended not to smile.