Mayor Crowe’s smile vanished. “You do not come down from that mountain and command Ash Hollow.”
“No,” Rowan said. “I come down when Ash Hollow ties a woman outside in freezing weather and calls it law.”
Roland moved first.
His hand dropped toward his pistol.
Rowan caught his wrist before the gun cleared leather. He twisted once, hard and clean. Roland bent forward with a strangled curse, his pistol falling into the snow.
“Reach again,” Rowan said quietly, “and I’ll make that hand too expensive for you to keep.”
Several people gasped.
Mayor Crowe raised both hands. “There is no need for violence.”
“There was no need for rope,” Rowan said.
He drew the hatchet from his belt and cut Clara’s bonds in one stroke.
Pain rushed into her hands like fire. Her knees failed before pride could stop them. Rowan caught her under the arms and held her upright, steady but not possessive.
The crowd stared.
Clara hated that they stared more at the size of her body in his arms than at the marks on her wrists.
“Let her go,” Roland hissed, clutching his twisted hand.
Rowan did not look at him. “No.”
Mayor Crowe descended one step. “If you take her away, you interfere with justice.”
“If you follow without honest law,” Rowan said, “you trespass.”
“This is not over.”
Rowan turned his head slowly.
“No,” he said. “I doubt it is.”
Then he walked Clara out of Ash Hollow while the entire town watched and did nothing.
The climb up Blackbriar Pass was cruel.
The road narrowed between black pines bent beneath snow. Wind cut across the ridge in sudden blades. Clara tried to walk at first because she would rather have dropped dead in the road than be carried like a helpless bundle in front of him.
After the fourth stumble, Rowan stopped.
“You’re done.”
“I can walk.”
“You can fall. That’s not the same.”
“I’m heavy,” she muttered.
His eyes moved over her face, not her body. “You’re half frozen.”
“That’s not what people mean when they say it.”
“I’m not people.”
She did not know what to do with that.
He lifted her without ceremony. No grunt of disgust. No joke. No strained expression meant to remind her that she was a burden. He carried her as if carrying someone hurt was simply what strength was for.
His cabin appeared at dusk, tucked above a creek sealed under ice. It was rough, built from old pine and stone, but cared for. Wood stacked under a lean-to. Snow brushed away from the door. A line of traps hung clean and oiled beneath the eaves. Horseshoe chimes clinked in the wind.
Inside, warmth hit Clara so sharply she cried out.
Rowan set her by the fire and moved without wasted motion. Blanket. Kettle. Tin cup. Clean rag. Salve. A basin of warmed water.
He did not hover. He did not ask foolish questions. He worked like a man who understood that mercy could be quiet.
When he handed her broth, her fingers shook too badly to hold the cup.
He crouched in front of her. “May I?”
She swallowed and nodded.
His hands closed around hers, guiding the cup carefully. “Slow.”
The broth was salty, hot, and perfect. It burned all the way down. Clara closed her eyes because gratitude felt too much like weakness, and she had already been weak in front of too many people.
After a while, Rowan said, “Did Pike hurt you anywhere I can’t see?”
She stiffened.
He noticed at once and leaned back. “I’m asking for injury. Nothing else.”
“My jaw. My wrists.”
“Ribs?”
“No.”
“Head?”
“No.”
“Open your coat.”
Her eyes snapped to his.
The fire cracked loudly.
Rowan’s expression did not change, but something in his gaze softened.
“Not for that,” he said. “The lining. You kept pressing your arm against it the whole climb.”
Clara went cold in a way the fire could not fix.
He had seen.
Rowan sat back on his heels, giving her space. “I won’t touch you. I won’t take anything from you. But if whatever is hidden there is why they tied you to a rail, I need to know how much trouble followed us home.”
For a long moment, the only sound was wind against the shutters.
Then Clara unbuttoned her coat with stiff fingers. She reached into a torn seam and pulled out a folded ledger sheet, damp from melted snow and body heat.
Rowan did not reach for it.
She held it out.
“This is why they wanted me quiet.”
He took the page carefully. His eyes moved across the columns, initials, signatures, supply codes, dates, quantities. The room seemed to tighten around him.
“You understand it?” Clara asked.
“I understand enough.”
“Then you know it isn’t about peaches.”
“No.”
Her throat closed. “Are you going to give me back?”
His gaze lifted.
“To them,” she said. “If this is worse than theft. If it brings guns to your door. If you decide I’m not worth the trouble.”
Rowan folded the page once and set it between them on the table.
“Trouble has known my door for ten years.”
“That isn’t an answer.”