Lena did not sleep.
She lay beneath the quilt listening to the sounds of the ranch house.
The wind moved along the roof.
Wood settled inside the walls.
Somewhere outside, a horse stamped inside the corral.
And every few minutes Lena imagined she heard hoofbeats.
By two in the morning, she gave up.
She slipped from bed and opened her door.
A thin line of lantern light stretched beneath the kitchen doorway.
Abel was awake.
He sat at the table with his rifle beside him and a cup of coffee cooling near his hand.
“You should sleep,” he said without looking up.
“So should you.”
“I am.”
Lena glanced at him.
“You’re sitting upright with a gun.”
“I’ve slept worse.”
Despite herself, she almost laughed.
The sound startled her.
It had been weeks since laughter had reached her throat.
Abel looked up.
For the briefest moment, amusement touched his eyes.
Then Lena remembered why he was awake.
“Will they really come?”
“Yes.”
“Tonight?”
“Maybe.”
She folded her arms.
“Does anything frighten you?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
His gaze settled on her.
“People who think cruelty is the same thing as strength.”
Lena looked away.
Silas had always believed that.
Matthew had been different.
Quiet.
Kind.
Sometimes too kind.
She had loved him deeply, but after his death she had begun to understand how much he had protected her from without telling her.
“Abel?”
“Yes.”
“You said Matthew might have left papers.”
“He mentioned keeping something away from Silas.”
“When?”
“Last spring.”
Lena sat across from him.
“What exactly did he say?”
Abel thought.
“We were repairing a bridge after the creek flooded. He asked whether I still used the attorney in Fairmont.”
Lena frowned.
“Why would he ask that?”
“I wondered the same thing.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I did.”
“And?”
“He said if anything happened to him, you might need somebody who knew land law.”
Cold moved through Lena.
“He never said that to me.”
“No.”
“Did he say where papers were?”
Abel shook his head.
“But he was worried.”
“About Silas?”
“Yes.”
Lena stared at the wood grain of the table.
Matthew’s death had happened too quickly.
One day he had been working near the barn.
The next he had fever.
Six days later Lena had been standing beside a grave while Silas told her not to worry because “family would take care of everything.”
She realized now how carefully those words had been chosen.
Family.
Not her.
Never her.
“What if Matthew owned something Silas wanted?”
“He did.”
Lena looked up sharply.
“What?”
“Land.”
“Our cabin sat on forty acres.”
“Not that land.”
She frowned.
Abel leaned back.
“Your husband once told me his father left property jointly to the four brothers.”
“I know. The old Grayson ranch.”
“Not only that.”
Lena’s heartbeat quickened.
“What else?”
“Water rights.”
In the West, land mattered.
But water could make land priceless.
Abel continued.
“There’s a spring north of the Grayson spread. Strong enough to run year-round.”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Silas controls the grazing around it. But control isn’t ownership.”
Lena began understanding.
“If Matthew had a share—”
“You may have inherited it.”
Silence filled the kitchen.
Suddenly Lena saw the last two weeks differently.
The rush to seize her cabin.
The missing trunk.
The coins.
Her mother’s Bible.
Everything.
“They weren’t trying to punish me.”
Abel’s expression hardened.
“They were trying to remove you.”
A chill ran through her.
“Why not just kill me?”
The question slipped out before she could stop it.
Abel’s jaw tightened.
“Maybe they thought humiliation would make you disappear.”
“And if it didn’t?”
He did not answer.
That was answer enough.
At sunrise, Abel saddled two horses.
Lena stepped onto the porch.
“Where are we going?”
“Your cabin.”
Her stomach dropped.
“No.”
“We need those papers.”
“They took everything.”
“Maybe.”
She looked toward the eastern ridge.
“What if they’re there?”
“I’m counting on it.”
“Why?”
“So I can see how nervous Silas gets when we start looking.”
Lena stared at him.
“Do you always solve problems by making dangerous men angry?”
“Not always.”
“How often?”
“Enough.”
She should have been terrified.
Instead, something inside her steadied.
“I’m coming.”
“I assumed you were.”
The ride took nearly two hours.
Lena wore one of Abel’s mother’s dresses, boots he had found in storage, and his old canvas coat.
When the Grayson cabin appeared beyond the cottonwoods, her chest tightened.
The place looked almost unchanged.
That somehow made it worse.
The porch where Matthew had kissed her every morning.
The shed he built.
The window she had patched with cloth after a hailstorm.
Everything remained.
But it no longer felt like home.
Two Grayson ranch hands stood near the barn.
They disappeared inside when Abel approached.
Silas came out moments later.
He wore the black hat Lena had seen on the ridge.
“Well.”
His gaze moved from Abel to Lena.
“You brought her back.”
Lena’s fingers tightened around the reins.
Abel dismounted.
“So did you.”
Silas frowned.
“What?”
“You came onto my ridge yesterday.”
“You accusing me?”
“Yes.”
Silas smiled thinly.
“You better have proof.”
“I saw you.”
“That enough?”
“For me.”
Silas glanced toward Lena.
“What do you want?”
Lena opened her mouth.
No sound came.
Abel did not answer for her.
He simply waited.
That gave Lena courage.
“My belongings.”
Silas laughed.
“You don’t have any belongings here.”
“My trunk.”
“Sold.”
“My mother’s Bible.”
“Burned.”
Pain struck Lena.
For a moment the yard blurred.
Abel’s face became still.
Silas noticed.
“What?” he said. “It was an old book.”
Lena slid from the horse.
Her legs shook.
She forced them steady.
“I want to search the cabin.”
Silas stepped into her path.
“It isn’t yours.”
“Matthew lived there.”
“Matthew’s dead.”
Something broke loose inside Lena.
Not weakness.
Anger.
“Yes,” she said. “And you couldn’t wait until the dirt settled on his grave before stealing from his wife.”
The ranch hands near the barn froze.
Silas’s face darkened.
“You watch your mouth.”
Abel moved one step forward.
Only one.
Silas noticed.
Lena did too.
It was enough.
“Let me inside,” she said.
Silas hesitated.
That hesitation told Abel what he needed to know.
“There’s something in there,” he said.
Silas turned on him.
“You don’t know anything.”
Abel looked toward the cabin.
“Then letting her look shouldn’t bother you.”
The brothers emerged from behind the building.
Orin carried a shotgun.
Caleb looked uneasy.
Silas lowered his voice.
“You’re trespassing.”
Abel reached into his coat.
Orin raised the gun.
Abel slowly removed a folded document.
“What’s that?”
Silas demanded.
“A court notice.”
Silas did not move.
“I spoke to Sheriff Danner on the way through Redemption.”
Lena looked at Abel, surprised.
“He says property belonging to a deceased man can’t legally be disposed of until inheritance is determined.”
Silas took the paper.
His eyes moved across it.
“Temporary order,” Abel said. “You touch anything else, the sheriff gets involved.”
Silas crushed the paper in his fist.
“You think a piece of paper scares me?”
“No.”
Abel’s eyes moved to Orin’s shotgun.
“But jail might.”
For the first time, Lena saw uncertainty cross Silas’s face.
He stepped aside.
“You got ten minutes.”
Inside the cabin, Lena nearly stopped breathing.
The table was gone.
The bed frame gone.
Cupboards emptied.
Even Matthew’s coat hooks had been pulled from the wall.
She moved slowly through the room.
Abel stayed near the doorway.
“He hid things,” Lena whispered.
“Where?”
“Sometimes under the loose floorboard.”
“They found that.”
“Yes.”
She turned.
“Sometimes inside the chimney bricks.”
Abel straightened.
They crossed to the fireplace.
One brick near the lower edge had a faint scratch.
Lena knelt.
Matthew had once told her it was where his father hid money during raids.
Her hands trembled as she pulled at it.
Nothing.
Then Abel crouched beside her.
“May I?”
She nodded.
He worked the brick free with a knife.
Inside the narrow cavity was a roll of oilcloth.
Lena stared.
Abel pulled it out.
Footsteps sounded on the porch.
“Time’s up,” Silas called.
Abel put the bundle inside his coat.
They walked outside.
Silas’s gaze went immediately to Abel’s jacket.
“You find anything?”
Abel looked at him.
“Yes.”
Silas went pale.
Only slightly.
But Lena saw it.
“What?”
Abel mounted his horse.
“Something you should’ve found first.”
Silas stepped forward.
“You take anything from my property and I’ll have you arrested.”
Abel looked down at him.
“You already told us the cabin had nothing belonging to Lena.”
Silas’s mouth tightened.
“Which is it?”
He had no answer.
Lena mounted.
As they rode away, she looked back.
Silas stood in the road, watching.
His expression was no longer mocking.
It was frightened.
They did not open the oilcloth until they reached Cross Ranch.
Inside were several folded pages.
A deed.
A handwritten letter.
A document with county seals.
Abel read the first page slowly.
Then he looked at Lena.
“What?”
she whispered.
“You own more than a share of the spring.”
“How much?”
“Half.”
Her heart jumped.
“And this.”
He handed her another document.
Lena read.
Her knees weakened.
Matthew had transferred his interest in nearly six hundred acres of Grayson grazing land to her three months before his death.
Not after.
Before.
“It’s mine?”
“Yes.”
“But why didn’t he tell me?”
Abel handed her the letter.
Her husband’s handwriting filled the page.
Lena—
If you are reading this, something has happened before I could make things right.
Silas has been borrowing against the ranch without telling the family. He needs control of the north spring to keep the loans from collapsing. I refused to sign my share to him.
If he cannot get it from me, he may try to get it through you.
I have placed my share in your name because I trust you more than I trust my brothers.
Do not surrender it.
Find Abel Cross.
He is quiet, but he is a good man.
He will not sell you for convenience.
Lena stopped reading.
Tears filled her eyes.
Abel stood motionless.
Matthew had named him.
He had known.
Lena pressed the letter against her chest.
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“He knew you would help me.”
Abel’s gaze dropped.
“He hoped.”
She looked at him.
“What did he know about you that I don’t?”
Abel turned toward the window.
Before he could answer, a gunshot cracked outside.
The front window shattered.
Abel moved instantly.
He shoved Lena to the floor.
Another bullet struck the wall.
“Stay down.”
He grabbed his rifle.
Lena’s heart hammered.
Horses thundered beyond the barn.
Abel reached the porch.
He fired once into the air.
The riders disappeared toward the ridge.
He did not chase them.
Instead, he came back inside.
Lena was kneeling among broken glass.
On the floor near the doorway lay a stone wrapped in paper.
Abel picked it up.
Three words were written in black ink.
SIGN IT OVER.
Lena stared.
Abel crushed the note in his fist.
The silence in his face frightened her more than shouting could have.
“They’ll come again,” she whispered.
“Yes.”
“What do we do?”
Abel looked toward the eastern ridge.
Then back at her.
“We make sure next time they understand whose fight they started.”