The Montana winter sun barely crept over the Rockies when Victor Ramsay guided his pickup into the gravel driveway of Milwood Creek High School. Twenty years as an Army Ranger had taught him to appreciate silence—the kind that came before dawn, before the world woke with its demands and complications. He’d returned to this small town three years ago after his discharge, hoping it would give his fifteen-year-old son Drew something Victor never had growing up on military bases: stability.
Sarah had died when Drew was seven. Cancer that spread faster than any enemy Victor had faced overseas. Since then, it had been just the two of them, navigating life with the careful balance of a father who’d seen too much trying to raise a boy who’d lost too soon.
