A small pile of neatly stacked firewood sat on the steps.
No note.
No tracks.
Just split cedar, still fragrant with sap, the kind of wood that burned clean and hot.
Sarah’s fingers trembled as she brushed snow off the top log. She turned her head, scanning the street. No one watched. The town still slept with its doors shut against responsibility.
Still, she knew.
Somehow she knew.
Her eyes drifted toward the far edge of town where a single column of smoke twisted up behind the ridge, the same place the giant cowboy had disappeared the night before.
Sarah pressed her lips to Silas’s forehead and whispered, “Someone saw us.”
And for the first time in weeks, she let herself believe that seeing didn’t always mean harm.
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