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Emily didn’t pull her hand away. Her voice softened, but only at the edges. “Jesse needs you here. We all do.”

Simon looked from Emily’s set face to Bass’s rigid shoulders. “She’s right.”

Bass turned a hard glare on him.

Simon lifted one shoulder, a weary gesture. “I dislike it as much as you do.”

Beau stepped into the space between them. “At first light,” he said, voice low and even, “we talk to Mr. Morris. We find out who’s been asking after the ranch. We check the crossing, the water rights, the south pasture, everything.”

Nate watched them all from near the doorway. “Why the south pasture?”

Beau looked at him, his eyes clear and certain. “Because if I wanted to move stolen horses without using the main road, I’d cut across the low draw near the south crossing.”

Walter gave a grim nod from his post by the door. “If I wanted a ranching family desperate enough to sell,” he said, “I would not start by making an offer.” He let that settle. “I would start by making life uncertain.”

No one argued after that.

Carolina folded her arms, the motion pulling her worn dress tight across her shoulders. “Then we stop feeding fear and start gathering facts.”

Everyone looked at her.

She looked exhausted, a dark smudge like a bruise beneath each eye. A strand of hair had worked free from its pin and clung to the damp skin of her temple. Nate’s hands twitched at his sides with the urge to sweep her into his arms, carry her upstairs, and bar the door against the whole town.

Instead, she stood firm, her boots planted on the rough floorboards.

“Jesse needs quiet,” she continued, her voice low but carrying. “Izzy needs rest. The men watching the clinic need coffee. Whit and Marshal Davis need every name and description we can provide, but they do not need all of you shouting over each other.” She nodded toward the table where a loaf of bread sat beside a knife. “I need someone to slice that before half this room faints from hunger and pride.”

Georgia’s hand was already moving toward the bread knife. “I’ll do it.”

“I can do that,” Simon said, his words slightly thick from his swollen jaw.

Georgia’s hand stilled. She looked at him. “You were just punched in the jaw.”

“Yes,” he said, flexing his fingers. “But my hands remain uninjured.”

She studied him for a moment, then pushed the knife handle toward him. “Fine. Cut the slices evenly.”

Simon took it, his brow furrowing. “As if there is another way to cut bread.”

An abrupt laugh escaped Beau, and the room loosened enough for people to breathe.

Tater cleared his throat from near the medicine shelves. “I can make coffee.”

Aunt Cleo’s voice cut through from the doorway, dry as dust. “Not unless you mean to poison us all.”

Nate spun toward the sound so fast a joint in his neck gave an audible pop.

Aunt Cleo stood just inside the threshold, one gnarled hand wrapped around her cane, the other clamped firmly on Maddy’s arm. Maddy stared at the floor, guilty enough to confess before anyone accused her.

Bass’s gaze swept from the old woman to the girl, his jaw working. “How’d you get here?”

Aunt Cleo peered at him over her spectacles. “By wagon. Unless you think I flew.”

“Maddy,” Simon said, the name a low warning.

Maddy’s chin came up. “She said she was coming with or without me. I figured it safer if I drove.”

“You’re fifteen.”