“Up the ridge,” Jeb snapped. “Keep house.”
“Keep house,” Eliza repeated, tasting the phrase like something rotten.
“That’s what I said.”
Eliza lifted her eyes and looked at Gideon fully. She studied him the way a cornered animal studies a door: not for comfort, but for the quickest path to escape.
“You buying me?” she asked.
The question fell into the yard like a stone into a well. Even the flies seemed to pause.
Jeb hissed, “Eliza—”
“I asked him,” she said, and the steadiness of her own voice startled her. “Not you.”
Gideon took off his hat and held it against his chest. His hair was dark, threaded with early gray at the temples. His face was sun-hardened, carved by wind, but not cruel.
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I don’t buy women.”
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