“I always am.”
Outside, the ground was churned into mud. Tire treads cut through the field like ugly calligraphy. My heart clenched when I saw how fresh they were. They led away from the road and then diverged—one set toward the neighbor’s property, one cutting close to our pen. There were prints that didn’t match our boots. Ethan crouched, hands on his knees, tracing the patterns with a finger.
He found the shredded blanket first near the back of the barn. The toy bear lay on the ground with one eye missing. The quilt from Jamie’s bed had been dragged. The old, hot panic that had been a background hum all week rose and hit me full in the chest. Someone had been here in the night. Someone close enough to touch.
Ethan didn’t flinch. He moved with slow, efficient anger, checked gaps in the fence and cursed softly. He pointed toward the road where the mud had a darker, oily smear. Then his boot scraped something half-buried.
He lifted it. A corner of paper, curled and blackened as if burned and stuffed into the earth. He brought it up toward his face.
My breath stopped.
I knew what the print said before I could see the whole thing. Taxes. Final notice. The same phrase the developer had muttered the other night when he called. I saw the scorched edges and the black smudge where flames had tried to take the words.
Ethan’s face mapped unreadable things. He straightened and turned, holding the burned paper between his fingers like a small, smoking truth.
“Not local,” he said. “Tracks aren’t ours.”
He looked at me then, and for the first time since I’d walked the lane with Jamie in my arms I saw fear in his eyes that wasn’t for himself. It was a tight, raw line that went straight to the bone.
“We were watched,” he said. “Last night. Someone was on the property. They slashed the kid’s blanket, burned a notice and shoved it back into our field.”
My throat went dry. Jamie’s breath hitched against my shoulder.
Ethan folded the paper down; the scorch flaked at the edges. “Who?” I asked, too small.
He didn’t answer immediately. He pointed to the tire tracks that led off toward the county road. The tread pattern was unfamiliar—wider than farm equipment, the kind on vehicles that rent trouble.
A car had idled by the diner last night. A man had slid a photo across a counter. The sheriff had looked at me sideways at the county office. The developer had called. All those small aggressions stacked into something that felt suddenly orchestrated.
Ethan nudged the paper with his thumb. Blackened ash dusted the dirt.
“We’ll get a name from this,” he said. “We’ll trace them.”
He reached for my hand. His fingers were hot. For a heartbeat the bond between us felt like a living thing—an ache when his thumb left my skin and a sudden, biting need when he held on. Around us the cows lowed. The storm had left its marks and whoever had come in the dark had left theirs.
Ethan stared down the muddy line toward the road, then back at the farmhouse where Jamie’s small world sat fragile and bright.
“We’ll keep the child safe,” he said. “No one takes him.”
Fierceness moved through his face—the look of an alpha who had promised—and I understood then in a way that frightened me. Promises with him were not suggestions. They were edicts.
I should have felt relief. Instead the old knot of fear—what a bond would cost, how public that protection might become—twisted tighter.
He folded the burned paper into his palm and held it up like a flag. The scorch blackened his fingertips.
“We’ve got tracks that aren’t local,” he said again, his voice edged. “And a warning burned into our field.”
The wind picked up, shaking wet leaves. Beyond the barn the lane was a dark ribbon and somewhere out there someone watched.
He looked at me, and the thing he’d been refusing to say all week hovered on the edge of his mouth.
“We’re not just dealing with county forms,” he said. “Not anymore.”
Before I could answer, before I could weigh the promise against the price, he straightened and called out, low and steady.
“Pack.”
He didn’t need to shout. The figures at the treeline answered at once and fanned out.
