In the passenger seat, the bleeding border collie rests his head against my leg like he knows I'm fighting for both our lives.
Behind us, the sirens get louder.
2
Gabriel
Discipline. Order. Control.
The three anchors that kept me breathing through war zones and heartbreak. They turn reviewing overnight reports into meditation. A ritual. A lifeline that keeps the restless energy at bay.
Coffee grows cold as I scan Martinez's precise handwriting: three noise complaints from the Drunken Spur, one domestic that "resolved itself."
I make a note to check on the domestic anyway. "Resolved" often means someone got scared enough to be silent.
The last report stops my pen mid-stroke. Trespassers on the Blackwell ranch. Beau Blackwell, wealthiest rancher in the county, commands respect like a force of nature.
His land doesn't get trespassed on by accident.
"Morning, Sheriff." Martinez hangs up his jacket, still fumbling with his radio like it personally offended him. Good kid. Green as spring grass, but he will learn.
"Quiet night?" he asks.
"Quiet enough." I drain the coffee and stand, feeling the familiar weight of my badge settle against my chest. Two years wearing it. Two years of borrowed authority that's starting to feel earned.
Briarhaven needed a sheriff, and I needed a place where ghosts couldn't find me.
"I am heading out to check the Blackwell situation. Radio if anything comes up."
The morning air hits clean and sharp as I step outside. Mrs Henderson waves from her flower shop, and I return the gesture, something loosening in my chest at the simple normalcy. This town has been good to me. Better than I have any right to expect.
A place where being Gabriel Maddox, sheriff, matters more than being Gabriel Maddox, the Marine who could not save the person he loved the most.
My patrol truck starts with a rumble that vibrates through my bones. Familiar. Reliable. Nothing like the chaos I left behind.
The radio crackles as I pull onto Main Street.
"Sheriff, you copy?"
"Go ahead, Martinez."
“Second call about suspicious activity near the creek on Blackwell property. Caller's reporting smoke now. Possible campfire.”
My hands tighten on the wheel. Rustlers have been a growing problem this spring, and the Cutter Brothers keep running their mouths about easy money. I've been watching them for weeks, waiting for them to make their move.
"Copy that. I am five minutes out."
The mountain road winds through pine forests still holding patches of snow in their shadows.
This is what drew me to Montana, the vastness, the space to breathe without watching your six. Space to forget the sound of sirens and gunfire, the weight of decisions that went wrong, the look in someone's eyes when addiction finally wins.
I push those thoughts back where they belong. That life is behind me.
The patrol truck hugs curves as I climb higher, and despite the nature of the call, something in my shoulders relaxes.
These mountains settle the restless part of my soul that years of military discipline could not quite tame. No crowds, no chaos, just problems that actually have solutions.
I am thinking about stopping by the Drunken Spur later, my usual way of keeping a pulse on the town's undercurrents, when movement explodes through the treeline ahead.
