Elias did not speak until the hoofbeats were gone.
Aiona waited.
Nielli had woken and now stood near the table with the rifle held awkwardly but firmly.
Finally Aiona closed the door.
“They know you.”
Elias stared at the floor.
“Yes.”
“That man knew about Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Aiona’s patience snapped.
“You keep saying that.”
Elias looked up.
“What would you prefer I say?”
“The truth.”
“I’ve told you the truth.”
“Not all of it.”
The room went still.
Elias’s face hardened, but Aiona did not back away.
“You arrive the same day we discover somebody cut our fence,” she said. “Then riders circle our house. Now a gang calls you by name and knows what happened seven years ago.”
Nielli looked between them.
“Aiona—”
“No. We need to know.”
Elias nodded slowly.
“You do.”
He sat at the table.
His confession took nearly an hour.
After Daniel Mercer’s death, Elias had left the patrol unit they both rode with.
Not because he had been forced out.
Because he could no longer stand being around men who trusted him.
For years he drifted.
Ranch work.
Freight escort.
Fence repair.
Anything temporary.
Three winters earlier, he had taken a job guarding a cattle drive in Wyoming.
That was where he first crossed paths with Silas Rourke.
Rourke was not yet infamous.
He presented himself as a livestock broker.
Clean coat.
Good horse.
Easy smile.
He bought cattle cheaply from ranchers facing debt and resold them across territory lines.
Nothing illegal on paper.
Then Elias discovered why those ranchers were desperate to sell.
Fences were cut.
Wells were poisoned.
Horses vanished.
Barns burned.
Rourke created disaster and then arrived offering rescue.
Elias confronted him.
Rourke laughed.
Two days later, someone tried to shoot Elias while he slept.
The bullet passed through his bedroll because he had been outside vomiting from bad whiskey.
“That might be the only time whiskey saved somebody’s life,” Nielli said.
Elias almost smiled.
He eventually testified to a territorial marshal.
But witnesses disappeared.
Documents burned.
Rourke walked free.
“He never forgot me,” Elias said.
Aiona understood now.
“You think he saw you here.”
“Yes.”
“And decided to use what he knew.”
“Probably.”
Nielli sat opposite him.
“How would he know about Daniel?”
Elias looked ashamed.
“I told Rourke.”
Aiona frowned.
“Why?”
“Before I knew what he was, we drank together.”
He rubbed his jaw.
“Men say things when they think another man is a friend.”
Aiona watched guilt settle over him again.
Rourke had learned exactly where Elias was wounded.
Now he was pressing that wound.
“You should leave,” Elias said.
Aiona blinked.
“What?”
“Both of you.”
“This is our home.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you telling us to abandon it?”
“Because Rourke doesn’t bluff.”
Aiona moved closer.
“Neither do I.”
“Aiona—”
“No.”
Elias stood.
“If he wants your land, he’ll burn the cabin. Poison the horses. Maybe take one of you to force the other to sign.”
Nielli swallowed.
Aiona did not move.
“And if we run?”
“He gets exactly what he wants.”
“Yes.”
“So why would we?”
“Because land can be replaced.”
Aiona’s voice went cold.
“Can it?”
Elias stopped.
“My father is buried on the hill behind this house. My mother planted the cottonwoods near the creek. Nielli and I spent five years paying debts people said two women couldn’t pay. Every board in that barn has been repaired by our hands.”
She stepped closer.
“So don’t stand in my home and tell me land can be replaced.”
Elias held her gaze.
Then he lowered his eyes.
“You’re right.”
Again, he did something Aiona was discovering was rare among men she had known.
He admitted when he was wrong.
“We fight smarter, then,” he said.
The next day changed the ranch.
Elias taught them how to defend it without turning them into soldiers.
Where to stand if riders approached.
Which window offered the safest view.
How to move from the cabin to the barn without crossing open ground.
Where to keep spare ammunition.
Nielli proved an excellent shot once she stopped flinching before pulling the trigger.
Aiona did not flinch at all.
“That poor tin can insult your mother?” Elias asked after she hit it four times.
“Something like that.”
They also prepared for fire.
Water barrels were stationed near every structure.
Dry grass was cleared.
Extra blankets were soaked and hung near the porch.
The horses were moved into the strongest enclosure.
By evening, the ranch looked peaceful again.
That was what frightened Elias most.
Danger liked quiet moments.
After supper, Nielli went outside to check a mare.
Aiona remained at the table repairing a torn sleeve.
Elias sat opposite her.
“You shouldn’t have stayed,” he said.
Aiona did not look up.
“Neither should you.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“I don’t own anything.”
She stopped sewing.
“That doesn’t mean you have nothing.”
“Feels like it sometimes.”
Aiona studied him.
“You had Daniel.”
The name hurt him.
She saw it.
But Elias did not retreat from it.
“Yes.”
“Tell me about him.”
No one had asked that in years.
They usually asked how Daniel died.
Never how he lived.
Elias leaned back.
“He talked too much.”
Aiona smiled faintly.
“He cheated at cards. Badly. He could track deer through stone, but he couldn’t cook beans without burning them.”
Elias’s expression softened.
“He wanted a ranch in Nebraska.”
“A wife?”
“Three children.”
“You remember all that?”
“Every word.”
For several minutes, Daniel Mercer existed again as something other than a dead man in a snowstorm.
Elias told stories.
Aiona listened.
When he finished, his eyes were wet.
He looked embarrassed.
Aiona said nothing about the tears.
She only handed him a clean cloth from the table.
He took it.
“Thank you.”
That night Elias finally slept.
Not between the sisters.
Near the center of the room.
No gun within reach.
Aiona awoke once and heard him whisper.
“Daniel.”
Then nothing.
No panic.
No sudden movement.
Morning brought another message.
This one was nailed to the barn.
FRIDAY. SUNSET.
Beneath those words:
WARD LEAVES OR THE WOMEN PAY.
Elias tore it down.
Aiona took it from his hand before he could destroy it.
“No.”
“What?”
“We keep it.”
“Why?”
“Evidence.”
Elias stared at her.
She folded it carefully.
“If we survive Friday, I want something a marshal can use.”
He nodded.
“You think ahead.”
“I’ve had to.”
Friday passed slowly.
Every hour felt stretched.
No riders appeared in daylight.
Elias inspected the ridge with field glasses.
Nothing.
At three in the afternoon, Nielli came running from the stable.
“One of the mares is missing.”
Aiona’s heart dropped.
They found the northern gate open.
Not broken.
Unlocked.
Elias crouched near the latch.
“Someone came inside.”
Aiona immediately thought of the previous night.
“But we heard nothing.”
“They didn’t come last night.”
Elias pointed to tracks.
“Midday.”
While all three were preparing near the cabin, someone had approached from the creek.
Nielli’s eyes filled with anger.
“They took Willow.”
Willow was one of the gentlest mares on the ranch.
Nielli had raised her from birth.
“I’m going after her,” she said.
Elias blocked her.
“That’s what they want.”
“I don’t care.”
“They want somebody leaving the ranch alone.”
Nielli looked ready to fight him.
Aiona put a hand on her shoulder.
“He’s right.”
Tears burned in Nielli’s eyes.
“I’m tired of being afraid.”
Aiona pulled her close.
“So am I.”
Elias watched them.
Something changed in his face.
A decision.
“Stay here.”
Aiona released Nielli.
“Where are you going?”
“To bring the mare back.”
“You just said leaving was a trap.”
“It is.”
“Then you’re not going.”
Elias reached for his saddle.
“I know Rourke.”
“That doesn’t make you bulletproof.”
“No.”
Aiona stepped between him and the horse.
“For seven years you’ve decided the best way to protect people is to leave them behind.”
Elias froze.
She pointed toward the cabin.
“We’re done with that.”
He stared at her.
“If we face this, we face it together.”
Nielli wiped her eyes.
“Together.”
Elias looked at both women.
For years he had believed isolation was responsibility.
Now two women he had known only days were telling him the opposite.
He slowly released the saddle.
“All right.”
They did not chase Willow.
Instead, Elias studied the tracks.
The mare had been led west.
Toward the ridge.
A trap.
Exactly as he expected.
Near sunset, the mare returned on her own.
She trotted through the open field, reins dragging.
A note was tied to her saddle.
Aiona removed it.
LAST CHANCE.
Then the sound of hoofbeats rolled from the west.
One rider appeared.
Then three.
Then six.
Exactly as the sun touched the horizon.
Elias walked toward the fence.
Aiona caught his wrist.
“You said together.”
He looked toward the riders.
“I need you inside.”
“Elias—”
“If bullets start flying, I need to know you’re behind timber.”
His voice softened.
“That is together.”
Aiona understood.
She released him.
But before he stepped away, she caught his hand once.
“Come back through that door.”
Elias looked at her fingers around his.
A simple touch.
Nothing more.
Yet he had spent seven years without anyone waiting for him to return.
“I will.”
The riders approached.
Their leader had a scar cutting from his left cheek toward his jaw.
Silas Rourke.
He smiled at the repaired fence.
“Well, Ward.”
Elias stepped outside the gate.
“Rourke.”
Inside the cabin, Aiona and Nielli watched from the narrow window.
Silas looked toward them.
Elias shifted deliberately into his line of sight.
Rourke laughed.
“Still playing hero?”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Standing on private land you weren’t invited onto.”
Silas’s smile vanished.
“I made the women an offer.”
“They said no.”
“Women change their minds.”
“Not these two.”
Silas leaned forward in his saddle.
“You really want to die over strangers?”
Elias looked back once toward the cabin.
When he answered, his voice was steady.
“They’re not strangers.”
Silas laughed.
“Two days and suddenly they’re your women?”
“No.”
Elias’s hand rested beside his holster.
“I’m protecting my family.”
Behind the window, Aiona stopped breathing.
Nielli looked at her.
Family.
The word landed harder than either expected.
Silas reached slowly toward his rifle.
Elias did not move.
Then a voice exploded from the darkness behind the riders.
“TAKE YOUR HAND OFF THAT RIFLE, ROURKE!”
Every horse jerked.
One reared.
Silas spun around.
And for the first time, the smile disappeared completely from his face.
A dozen armed men stepped from behind the ridge.
At their center was a broad-shouldered man wearing a territorial marshal’s badge.
Elias stared.
“Amos Bell.”
The marshal raised his rifle.
“Been following these thieves for four days.”
Silas whispered a curse.
Elias finally understood.
Rourke had not been circling the ranch alone.
Someone else had been tracking him.
And now the predator had discovered that he, too, had been hunted.
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