I pulled my phone from my pocket and scrolled to the photo I'd taken before leaving the house of the Bible entry, smudged and rewritten, the ghost marks of the original text barely visible beneath.
"I found something," I said, handing him the phone.
Torin enlarged the image, squinting at the screen. "What is this?"
"Family Bible. Birth records. Someone wrote over this entry. You can see the marks underneath where they erased the original."
He zoomed in further, tilting the screen toward the light spilling from the community center windows. "I can't make out what it said before."
"Neither could I. But someone didn't want it there."
Torin handed the phone back, his expression unreadable. "You think this is connected to the feud."
"I think whatever happened in 1912 changed everything," I said. "The families were working together. Breeding horses. Sharing stock. And then two years later it all stopped. Completely. No overlap, no cooperation. Just a hard line that's held for over a century."
"And you think Lois was looking for the reason why."
"Yes."
Torin exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his jaw. "If you keep digging, people are going to push back. You saw Slade in there. He wasn't being friendly. He was warning you."
"I know."
"Claire—"
"I'm not stopping." I met his eyes, keeping my voice steady. "Whatever Lois found, whatever she was trying to piece together, it mattered. And if someone's still trying to hide it, that tells me it still matters now."
The muscles in his jaw worked. I could see the conflict there—the part of him that wanted to protect me warring with the part that knew I wouldn’t hide behind him. That this was my choice to make.
"Then we do this carefully," he said. "No broadcasting what you find. No confronting anyone without backup."
"We?"
His gaze didn't waver. "Yeah. We."
Something warm unfurled in my chest. Not relief, exactly. More like recognition. He wasn't trying to stop me or take over. He was choosing to stand beside me.
"Okay," I agreed.
Torin glanced back toward the community center, where voices and laughter spilled through the open door. "You want to head out?"
"Yes."
We walked to our trucks in silence. Behind us, Mustang Mountain carried on, celebrating progress, toasting the future, pretending the past was settled.
But I knew better now. And so did Torin.
CHAPTER 10
TORIN
The Merc was quiet for a Sunday night. A handful of locals scattered across the small tables Ruby kept near the front windows, the coffee machine running its familiar low hum behind the counter.
It had been a few weeks since Claire came back to Mustang Mountain, long enough for the town to settle into a rhythm of watching her. Long enough for the rumors about Lois’s files to make their way through every kitchen and feed store in the valley.
Claire pushed through the door ahead of me, and I gave the room a quick scan. I clocked who was there, where they were sitting, and the quickest way out if things went sideways.
The temperature dropped the moment people recognized her. Not dramatically. No one stood up or walked out. It was way more subtle than that. A conversation at the corner table tapered off mid-sentence. A woman by the display case looked up from her phone and then looked carefully away.
