He coughed out a quiet laugh. “And how many would that be?”
She set the plate in front of him on the counter. “There's nine of us all told.” The glow left those eyes along with her smile. “At least, I think there's still nine of us. My big brother had just gone off to fight in the war last time I was home.”
The war. Yes. Quite a few lads had gone. “I had friends who volunteered, but Father's death was so recent, I stayed back for Mother's sake.”
“Lots of boys chose to stay for different reasons, but Jeb, well, I think he had an itching to get out of the mountains like me, ’cept he made wiser choices.”
The silence blanketed her confession a little. Another nugget of information to apply to the growing picture he was making of Kizzie McAdams.
He released a sigh. “But nine! I can't even imagine.”
“Yeah, it was quite the clan.” She moved back to the counter and began working on another concoction. The poultice, he presumed. “They wouldn't know what to do with a place like this.”
His father's visible proof of wealth. Noah relaxed in the chair and took a bite of the bread. A house much too big for their family and much too pretentious for Noah's liking, but he'd gotten used to it—the elegant woodworking and arched entries. The nooks and crannies to escape unwanted guests or conversations. “It's certainly the grandest house we've ever lived in. Much nicer than the town house in Richmond we owned before moving here.”
“To build the mill?”
He nodded at her as she looked over her shoulder. “Land was cheaper here with less competition at the time.”
“At the time?” She'd begun boiling water, using the spigot with clear awareness, so she must have previously served in a relatively modern house. “Competition has come in?”
“With better pay and more modern conveniences. And both of those incentives have wooed workers who can afford the longer distance away from our mill.”
“Which creates a nasty circle, don't it? You lose workers, then you can't make as much product, so then you lose money, which means you can't give raises to the workers, so you lose more workers.”
He met her gaze. “Precisely.” Curious thing, speaking to this woman about business. And her even being interested in conversing about it at all. “It's a mercy tomorrow's Saturday so we don't have to close the mill for the snow and the workers won't risk their necks to get there.”
“Walking a good distance in snow definitely tires out the body.” She rolled her shoulders, as if sore. “Not to mention freezes the toes.”
His grin crooked at her quaint phrasing. “I imagine you must be tired as well. It's been quite the night.”
“Fact, but, like you, my mind's too busy for sleep just yet.” She chuckled—a soft, contented sound—and then she returned to the pot, now steaming. The scent of garlic traveled the distance to him. “What sort of mill do you run, Mr. Lewis?”
Mr. Lewis felt much too formal for their current situation. “Please call me Noah. Most folks around here do, except for some of the house staff.”
She took in the request with a nod. “Kizzie.”
Kizzie.He'd never heard that name before. Was it short for something else? He gave his head another shake at the unbidden curiosity. “We're in the process of turning it from cotton to a vertically integrated mill. My brother liked the idea of keeping everything in-house and providing every service possible for the community.”
“Vertically integrated?”
“It means we oversee multiple stages of the production process from knitting and spinning to the finishing productions. My brother, George, thought to build on what our father started by streamlining the process and growing the mill's production options, such as adding dyeing and seamstresses to create a finished product instead of only materials such as yarn, thread, and fabric.”
“You say that with a frown.” Her brow rose. “Don't seem like you're too keen on it.”
“With the costs what they are and the workers leaving, expansion didn't seem the wisest of choices, however …” He paused. “Well, my brother tends to aspire to grand ideas.”
“Grand ideas are all well and good when you've got the legs to hold them up.” Her dark brow curved upward, her gaze capturing his in a knowing look.
“Did you travel far to get to The Hollows?”
She returned to kneading some sort of dough. “Not too far. ’Bout twenty miles, from what I can tell.”
Twenty miles. On her own. Was she running away from something? His spine stiffened with a sudden defensiveness. From someone? The sizzling of the contents of the pot sounded in the quiet.
“I ain't in no trouble with the law or nothin’, if that's what you're thinking.”
That wasn't the direction of his thoughts at all.
