Lawson looks to his brother, then between Beau and me. All of us giving him the same reassuring look. One that says“we’re in this with you.”
He steps closer, lowering his voice—not because he’s unsure, but because this part isn’t meant for even the walls to hear. “I’ll take him up Stillwater Ridge first thing in the morning,” Lawson says.
My stomach tightens—not in fear, but in understanding.
Stillwater Ridge isn’t just a rise in the land. It’s a brutal cut through the back end of the property, where the trees thin and the earth gives way to nothing but sharp rocks and an endless drop. A place Mr. Taylor repeatedly warned us about growing up as a group of always-adventuring teenage boys.
“Stay off the ridge in the winter,”he said.“Snow hides its edges. One wrong step and you won’t just fall—you’ll disappear.”
I picture the Ridge in my mind—the way the land just… ends. How sound seems to fade away when you stand near it. How even the wind seems to avoid that place.
Lawson’s voice is steady when he finishes. “No one will ever find him down there.”
“I’ll go with you,” I say without question.
“Jas—”
“No. I’mgoingwith you. The four of us are in this together.”
Law nods once before inhaling a deep breath. “We need to let the rest of them think they got away.”
My pulse kicks.
Lawson’s eyes meet mine again. And I see it now. The promise. The threat. “We don’t rush. We don’t make noise. We don’t give Miles Keller one more opportunity to get the upper hand on us.”
Beau’s jaw tightens. “And what do we do in the meantime?”
Lawson’s mouth curves. Not into a smile. But something much,muchcolder.
“We find out where they are. And until we do, we make it crystal fucking clear who we are and what we can do.”
The fire crackles between us while the snow outside keeps falling, erasing tracks and the evidence from the night, softening the land, doing its best to pretend this night never happened.
But inside, the plan is already in motion.
And as the four of us figure out exactly what the steps are, above us—wrapped in blankets, breathing steadily in Lincoln’s bed—Abigail sleeps.
Safe.
Ours.
Chapter four
Beau
Morningcomessoftandgray, like it’s afraid of what it might find if it arrives too loudly. There’s no post-Christmas warmth blanketing the house. No merriment lingering from the perfect day we had before…
There’s only stillness and deafening silence.
Snow still drifts past the windows in slow, lazy spirals, wrapping the world in white and effectively erasing last night’s events from its memory. The ranch looks peaceful from the outside. Untouched. Innocent.
But I know better.
We all do.
Abigail is asleep in Linc’s bed.
Not curled tight or gripping the edge of the blankets for warmth. Not shivering. Just… sleeping. Her chest rises and falls in a slow, steady rhythm that I seem to have memorized sometime in the night. Her hair fanned across the pillow, copper against white cotton, and her mouth is parted slightly, like she’s mid-thought even in her dreams.
