June was on the porch shaking out a dishcloth.
The riders spread across the yard in a half-circle.
Deke remained in the center on a tall bay horse, gloved hands resting on the saddle horn. He looked almost cheerful.
“Morning, Wyatt,” he called. “Ladies.”
Wyatt set the pitchfork against the barn wall and walked into the yard.
“Something you need?”
Deke smiled. “Just neighborly conversation.”
“You brought a crowd for it.”
“Conversation sometimes goes smoother with witnesses.”
Willa put down the bucket. June stepped off the porch and moved beside her sister.
Wyatt hated that they had come closer instead of going inside.
He understood why they had.
Deke’s gaze touched them and lingered with poisonous amusement. “Caroline always did have a flair for drama.”
Willa’s face hardened. “Don’t say her name.”
Deke looked delighted. “There’s fire in this one.”
Wyatt stopped ten feet from the horse. “You’re on my land.”
“For now.”
The riders chuckled.
Deke reached into his coat and withdrew a folded paper. “Sheriff Pike came to see me early. Seems there are wild claims flying around. Land. Water. Murder.” He shook his head sadly. “Ugly things to say without proof.”
Wyatt said nothing.
“I thought I’d save everyone embarrassment.” Deke held out the paper. “Five hundred dollars for whatever papers Caroline left those girls. Cash by noon. You hand them over, they leave Mercy Ridge, and we all forget this unfortunate misunderstanding.”
June drew in a sharp breath.
Willa laughed.
It was not bitter this time. It was astonished.
“Five hundred?” she said. “For something you say is worthless?”
Deke’s smile thinned. “I was being generous.”
“No,” Willa said. “You were being scared.”
The riders shifted.
Wyatt’s eyes stayed on Deke.
For the first time, he saw the old man beneath the polish. Not weak. Not yet. But mortal. A man with much to lose and fewer years to rebuild if loss found him.
Deke folded the paper again. “Careful, girl.”
“She has a name,” Wyatt said.
Deke leaned forward in the saddle. “Does she have yours?”
The yard went silent.
Willa’s head turned slightly toward Wyatt.
June held her breath.
Deke smiled like a knife being drawn. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Caroline Ward’s bastards come limping into town, and suddenly Wyatt Calder wants to play father. But blood’s a tricky thing. People will ask. Courts will ask. You ready to swear to it? Ready to let everyone know Caroline crawled into your bed before she took her sorrow elsewhere?”
Wyatt moved so fast one of the riders reached for his gun.
Deke’s horse startled as Wyatt seized the bridle.
The bay tossed its head, but Wyatt held firm, his scarred face inches from Deke’s boot.
“Say one more word about her like that,” Wyatt said, “and you’ll deliver the rest of your threats from the dirt.”
Deke’s eyes flashed with true hatred.
There he was.
Not the smiling rancher. Not the respectable man from Main Street. The man from the fire. The man with smoke in his hair and murder under his nails.
“You always were too sentimental,” Deke said softly. “Thomas had that problem too.”
Wyatt’s fingers tightened on the bridle.
Deke realized his mistake almost as soon as he made it.
Willa heard it. June heard it.
Thomas.
Not Mr. Vale. Not the dead man. Thomas.
Familiarity spoken before caution could dress it.
Wyatt smiled then, and there was no warmth in it.
“I remember the buckle,” he said.
Deke went still.
“The one that broke when you kicked me back from the barn.”
Behind Deke, one rider muttered, “Boss?”
Wyatt reached into his pocket and drew out the tarnished half-moon of brass.
The morning seemed to narrow around it.
Deke stared.
His face did not confess, but his eyes did.
Willa saw.
June saw.
Perhaps even the men behind him saw enough to begin wondering what sort of wages could purchase a soul and whether Deke Barlow paid promptly.
Wyatt held the brass up. “Thomas kept this.”
Deke’s jaw flexed.
“Or maybe he tore it from you before he died,” Wyatt said. “Maybe that’s why you had to let him burn.”
One of the horses sidestepped nervously.
Deke sat back. “You can’t prove a thing.”
“Then why are you here?”
No answer.
Wind moved through the yard, carrying the smell of hay, frost, and something older rising from the earth.
Willa stepped forward.
Wyatt wanted to pull her behind him. He did not.
She stood beside him instead.
“My mother was afraid of you,” she said. “But she still kept the papers.”
June came to Wyatt’s other side, trembling but upright.
“She sent us here,” June said. “That means some part of her stopped being afraid.”
Deke looked at the three of them standing together, and something bitter twisted his mouth.
“Well,” he said. “Ain’t that touching.”
Wyatt lowered the brass.
“Leave.”
Deke gathered his reins. “This isn’t over.”
“No,” Wyatt said. “It’s finally started.”
Deke turned his horse hard enough to tear up frozen dirt. His riders followed, less neatly than they had arrived.
When the last hoofbeat faded, June sat down abruptly on the porch step as if her legs had misplaced their purpose.