The scream came just after supper.
“Fire!”
Sarah dropped a tray.
China shattered across the floor.
Men rushed from the dining room.
Garrett reached the front door first.
Orange light already filled the night.
The hay barn stood fifty yards from the main house, flames climbing one exterior wall and racing toward the roof.
“Buckets!” Garrett shouted.
Men scattered.
Sarah ran outside.
Then stopped.
“Penny?”
She looked around.
No little yellow dress.
No braids.
No Penny.
Sarah’s blood turned to ice.
“Penny!”
Nothing.
She ran toward the kitchen.
Empty.
“Penny!”
Mr. Finch came behind her.
“She was feeding Amos.”
Sarah spun.
“Where?”
“The barn.”
The world disappeared.
Sarah ran.
Someone grabbed her around the waist.
Garrett.
“Let me go!”
“You can’t go in!”
“She’s inside!”
His hands dropped instantly.
Garrett turned toward the barn.
“Cole!”
A ranch hand shouted from near the doors.
“Side entrance is blocked!”
Garrett ran.
Sarah followed.
The heat struck her face thirty feet away.
Smoke poured from gaps between boards.
“Penny!”
A faint sound answered.
“Mama!”
Sarah screamed.
Garrett tore his coat off.
“Where?”
“Hay room!” Cole shouted.
Garrett wrapped cloth around his mouth.
Sarah grabbed him.
“No.”
His eyes met hers.
“I can reach her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I will.”
Then he disappeared into the smoke.
Sarah stood outside helpless.
Every nightmare she had survived returned at once.
Thomas’s fever.
Thomas’s last breath.
Penny asking when Papa would return.
Garrett riding into the blizzard.
Now fire swallowed the barn and the man she—
Sarah stopped the thought.
Not now.
Please God, not now.
Seconds became years.
A section of roof collapsed.
Men shouted.
Sarah tried running forward again.
Cole caught her.
Then someone appeared through the smoke.
Garrett.
He staggered from the doorway carrying Penny against his chest.
Sarah broke free.
Garrett fell to his knees outside the barn.
Sarah grabbed Penny.
The child coughed violently.
“Mama.”
“I’m here.”
Sarah touched her face, hair, arms.
No burns.
Thank God.
Garrett coughed beside them.
His sleeve was scorched.
A burn reddened one hand.
Sarah threw one arm around his neck.
For a second the three of them remained tangled together in dirt and smoke.
Garrett held them both.
No one cared who saw.
By midnight, the barn had burned to its frame.
Most livestock survived.
Half the winter hay supply did not.
Penny slept in Sarah’s bed after the doctor examined her.
Smoke inhalation, but no serious injury.
Garrett refused treatment until the doctor threatened to have Sarah sit on him.
“I would,” she said.
Garrett believed her.
His hand was bandaged.
Later, Sarah found him in the study staring at something on his desk.
A lantern wick.
“What is that?”
“Evidence.”
Her stomach tightened.
Garrett turned it toward her.
“Kerosene soaked.”
“Someone started it?”
“Yes.”
Sarah sat.
Garrett continued.
“Cole found tracks behind the barn. One horse.”
“Boone?”
“We don’t know.”
“You think it was.”
“I think someone intentionally set fire to a barn knowing my employees and your daughter were on the property.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“She could have died.”
Garrett crossed the room.
He knelt in front of her.
Sarah opened her eyes.
His face was gray with exhaustion.
“So could you,” she whispered.
“I didn’t.”
“You ran into a burning barn.”
“She was inside.”
“You didn’t even hesitate.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Garrett stared at her as if the answer should be obvious.
“Because it was Penny.”
Sarah’s eyes filled.
Garrett’s voice cracked.
“I heard her scream.”
His composure collapsed.
“For one second I was back at that creek.”
Sarah reached for him.
Garrett continued.
“I couldn’t reach Daniel. I couldn’t reach Elizabeth. I spent five years imagining their last minutes.”
Sarah touched his face.
“But you reached Penny.”
“Yes.”
“You reached her.”
Garrett leaned into her hand.
Then he kissed her.
There was no elegance to it.
No practiced romance.
It was grief and fear and relief colliding at once.
Sarah kissed him back.
When they separated, both were breathing hard.
Garrett rested his forehead against hers.
“I shouldn’t have done that.”
Sarah’s heart sank.
“Oh.”
“No.”
He pulled back.
“That came out wrong.”
“You seem gifted at that.”
Despite everything, he laughed softly.
“I shouldn’t have kissed you while we are both frightened and exhausted.”
“That sounds considerably better.”
Garrett looked at her.
“I have wanted to kiss you for weeks.”
Sarah blinked.
“That sounds better still.”
He smiled.
Then the smile faded.
“But I employ you.”
Sarah understood.
“And you’re worried I might feel I cannot say no.”
“Yes.”
“I can.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Sarah leaned closer.
“For future reference, if I don’t want you to kiss me, Garrett Thorne, you will know.”
His eyes darkened slightly.
“That sounded almost threatening.”
“It was.”
This time when he kissed her, it was slow.
Deliberate.
Chosen.
Then footsteps sounded outside.
They separated.
Cole entered holding something wrapped in cloth.
“Found this near the back fence.”
He placed a metal object on the desk.
A silver match case.
Garrett opened it.
Initials were engraved on the lid.
W.B.
Sarah exhaled.
“Wesley Boone.”
Cole nodded.
“We can take this to Sheriff Callahan.”
Garrett’s eyes hardened.
“We will.”
Boone denied everything.
Naturally.
He claimed the match case had been stolen weeks earlier.
He produced two men willing to swear he had been in a card room during the fire.
The sheriff could not arrest him based on initials alone.
But the investigation uncovered something larger.
Boone had quietly purchased delinquent ranch notes throughout Albany County.
Then cattle had disappeared from several of those ranches.
Families unable to meet payments surrendered their land.
Boone acquired it cheaply.
Garrett’s attorney began collecting evidence.
Sarah helped.
Her household accounting skill became unexpectedly valuable.
Invoices.
Sale records.
Shipping manifests.
Brand registrations.
She noticed the pattern first.
Cattle supposedly sold by failing ranches had appeared weeks later in Boone shipments under altered descriptions.
Garrett spread documents across his desk.
“You found this?”
Sarah pointed.
“Same approximate weights. Same ages. Same dates.”
Cole whistled.
“Boone’s been stealing cattle, then using the losses to bankrupt owners.”
Garrett looked at Sarah with unmistakable pride.
“You may have just handed the sheriff his case.”
Sarah felt satisfaction, but it did not last.
Boone disappeared before the arrest warrant could be served.
For six weeks, no one saw him.
Spring became summer.
Thorne Ranch repaired the barn.
Penny regained her fearless energy.
Garrett began courting Sarah in the most Garrett-like manner possible.
Which meant he announced his intentions as if negotiating a land agreement.
They were sitting on the porch after supper when he said, “I would like permission to court you.”
Sarah nearly dropped her coffee.
“You kissed me before asking to court me.”
“I recognize the procedural flaw.”
She laughed.
“Procedural flaw?”
“I’m attempting to do this correctly.”
“According to whom?”
“I asked Finch.”
Sarah stared.
“You asked Mr. Finch how to court me?”
“He was unhelpful.”
“I’m shocked.”
“Then I asked Cole.”
“That was a mistake.”
“An enormous one.”
Sarah laughed harder.
Garrett watched her.
The tenderness in his face quieted her.
“I don’t know how to do this anymore,” he admitted.
“Neither do I.”
“I had a wife.”
“I had a husband.”
“We loved them.”
“Yes.”
“And loving someone new doesn’t erase that.”
Sarah’s throat tightened.
“No.”
Garrett took her hand.
“Then perhaps we can be bad at this together.”
Sarah smiled.
“That sounds fair.”
From behind the porch chair came Penny’s voice.
“Can I court too?”
Garrett nearly jumped.
Sarah closed her eyes.
“How long have you been there?”
Penny crawled out.
“Long.”
“Were you listening?”
“Yes.”
Garrett stared at her.
Penny folded her arms.
He folded his.
She narrowed her eyes.
He narrowed his.
Then both began laughing.
Summer brought picnics near the creek.
Even that was a victory.
Garrett had avoided moving water for years.
The first time Penny ran toward the bank, he shouted so sharply she froze.
Sarah touched his arm.
“She’s safe.”
Garrett swallowed.
“I know.”
But his hands shook.
Sarah took one.
They walked toward the water together.
Penny crouched beside the creek.
“Fish!”
Garrett stopped.
Then smiled.
Daniel liked fish.
He sat beside Penny.
For nearly an hour, they watched minnows in shallow water.
Sarah sat beneath a cottonwood, looking at them.
Garrett turned.
Their eyes met.
He did not need to say anything.
Neither did she.
For the first time, Sarah let herself imagine permanence.
Then August brought a letter.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
Sarah opened it in the kitchen.
Only one sentence appeared inside.
Leave Thorne Ranch before your daughter loses more than a barn.
The paper slipped from Sarah’s fingers.
Boone was still out there.
And this time, he had threatened Penny directly.