“It is what it is,” Earl snapped, and the last shred of his pride climbed into his throat and lodged there. “The bank’s coming. I got no more time.”
Claire felt her breath wobble. Three weeks ago, she had been a wife. She had been a woman with a small rented house by the river and a husband who came home smelling of sawdust and pine sap, who kissed her forehead and asked, every evening, if their baby had kicked.
Then the fever took Jonah, swift and unfair, and left her with an empty bed and a silence so heavy it made her ribs ache.
And now, when she had barely learned to walk through grief without falling apart, her own blood was trading her like a mule.
A shadow moved near the door.
A man stepped forward, tall, broad-shouldered, the kind of mountain-built that looked carved by wind instead of food. His coat was plain, his hat worn but clean, his boots scuffed from honest miles. His face carried the stillness of someone who didn’t waste expressions.
He said nothing at first.
He simply waited, like a storm that had decided to hold its thunder until the right moment.
Sheriff Halvorsen unfolded the document, eyes scanning the lines, and for a second his gaze flicked to Claire’s belly.
He looked away immediately, ashamed of his own discomfort.
