The gunshot didn’t sound like thunder.

Thunder rolled. Thunder warned.

This was a crack, sharp as a snapped bone, that bounced off plank walls and hitching posts and the glass of the general store window, then got swallowed by the dry Wyoming wind as if the sky itself didn’t want to keep it.

Clara Hart had been running for so long her lungs felt carved out with a spoon.

Red Willow, Wyoming Territory, was not a big town, not the kind of place that could hide a secret well. A single main street. Two dozen buildings that leaned into the dust. A church that looked like it had been built by a man who was afraid of heaven falling on him. A saloon with a piano that always sounded thirsty. And everywhere: eyes.

She’d meant to pass through at dawn, buy water, keep going. But she’d been careless for one breath too many. She’d turned her head at the wrong moment. She’d seen the dark coat. The low brim. The limp that came from an old injury and an old habit of violence.

So she ran.

Her boots slapped the hard-packed road. Her skirt snagged at her calves, too long for speed, too tight for mercy. Her hair, pale as wheat straw in the sun, whipped behind her like a banner that announced her exactly where she was.

“Clara!” someone shouted, and it wasn’t a friend. It was a hook thrown at her name.

A second sound came over her shoulder: the familiar, awful click of a hammer drawn back.

She didn’t dare look. Looking was a kind of surrender. And she’d surrendered enough in her life.

She pushed harder, a desperate sprint past the barber’s pole, past a man unloading crates, past a mother yanking her child against her skirts. Her thoughts weren’t thoughts anymore, just heat and instinct.

Then the bullet found her.

It struck between her shoulder blades, a hot, brutal punch that turned her world into white light. Pain blossomed with cruel intelligence, radiating outward, stealing her breath and turning her legs into borrowed things.

Clara tried to keep running. For one more step. Two.

Her knees buckled. The ground rose to meet her, the dirt road becoming a hard, indifferent face.

And then it wasn’t the ground.

It was arms.

Strong arms that caught her with the kind of gentleness that didn’t make sense in a world that had just shot her in the back.

“I’ve got you,” a man’s voice said, low and steady, like he’d decided the world was going to behave for the next ten seconds whether it wanted to or not. “Stay with me, miss. Don’t you go drifting.”

Clara’s vision blurred, dust and sun and blood weaving together. She forced her eyes open anyway, because she’d learned long ago that the moment you closed them around strangers was the moment you woke up owned.

She saw a face above her: hard lines softened by concern, dark hair pushed back from a sweat-damp forehead, green eyes sharpened into focus like he was aiming at her life and refusing to miss.

His hat had slipped back, hanging by its cord. His jaw was set like a gate bar.

For one strange heartbeat, Clara thought: I’ve never been looked at like this. Not as a thing to be taken. Not as a problem to be solved. As someone worth catching.

Then the edges of the world tilted.

She heard shouting in the distance, the quick rhythm of boots, the panicked hiss of townspeople deciding whether to help or hide. Somewhere behind them, another man’s voice barked a command, and Clara knew with bone certainty that the dark coat wasn’t done.

The cowboy tightened his hold, turning as if his body could shield her from everything that had ever chased her.

“Help!” he roared, his voice ripping down the street. “She’s been shot. I need a doctor!”

Faces appeared in doorways, first cautious, then horrified. An elderly man pointed down the street with a trembling hand.

“Doc Harlan’s. Second house past the barber.”

The cowboy didn’t thank him. Didn’t pause. He just lifted Clara as if she weighed nothing but urgency and started running.

Each step jostled her wound, each jolt sending sparks of pain through her spine, and her blood soaked through his shirt, warm and thick, as if her body was trying to write its ending on him.

“No,” he muttered, breath harsh in her ear. “No, no. You stay with me. I didn’t catch you just to watch you slip away.”

Clara tried to speak. Tried to tell him he shouldn’t. That people who helped her got punished. But her mouth wouldn’t obey. Her tongue felt like it belonged to someone else.

The whitewashed building came into view, a small sign swinging in the breeze: DR. HARLAN PIERCE.

The door flew open before the cowboy reached it, as if the town itself had finally decided to be useful. A man in his sixties stood there, spectacles perched low, beard neatly trimmed, hands already moving.

“Lord above,” the doctor said, taking one look at Clara’s back and the cowboy’s blood-soaked shirt. “Bring her in.”

Inside smelled of herbs and boiled cloth. The doctor gestured to a wooden table in the center of the room.

“Face down,” he ordered. “And you, cowboy, tell me what happened while I cut away this dress.”

The cowboy laid Clara down with careful hands, like she was something fragile that had already been cracked once too often.

“She was running,” he said, voice tight. “Man in a dark coat shot her in the back. I didn’t see his face clear, but I saw him raise the pistol.”

The doctor didn’t waste time on questions that didn’t stop bleeding. Scissors flashed. Fabric tore. Clara felt cool air against her skin, then the sting of antiseptic that made her want to scream just out of spite.

“The bullet’s in there,” the doctor said grimly. “Missed the spine if we’re lucky. You’re going to hold her steady. She may wake when I go fishing.”

“I’ll hold,” the cowboy said, and there was no doubt in him. Just certainty.

Clara’s eyes snapped open when the forceps pressed deep. A scream tore out of her, raw and animal, and the room lurched with it.

“Easy,” the cowboy murmured, both arms braced around her shoulders, firm without cruelty. “Doc’s helping you. Look at me, miss. Look at me.”

She turned her face just enough to see him. The green eyes, steady as fence posts. The sweat at his temple. The stubborn kindness that made her furious because she didn’t know what to do with it.

“Who…?” she rasped, voice shredded.

“Name’s Luke Mercer,” he said. “And I won’t let anything else happen to you. That’s a promise.”

A ridiculous thing to promise. Men promised all sorts of things.

Still, her fingers clutched his sleeve with surprising strength, like her body knew the difference between a lie and a vow.

“Clara,” she whispered. “Clara Hart.”

Then pain rolled over her again and dragged her under.

A moment later, the doctor held up a bloody lump of metal.

“Got it,” he announced. “Not as deep as I feared. She’s lost blood, but she’ll recover if infection doesn’t take her.”

Relief hit Luke Mercer so hard he had to swallow to keep from making a sound like gratitude.

“What do I do?” he asked.

“You get her somewhere safe,” the doctor replied, already dressing the wound. “Whoever shot her may come back. And she can’t stay here. My sister-in-law’s arriving tomorrow, and I’ve got no spare bed.”

Luke didn’t hesitate, like hesitation was a luxury he didn’t recognize.

“I rented a cabin outside town. Private. She can recover there.”

The doctor’s eyebrows rose. “That’s generous.”

Luke’s mouth tightened. “Broad daylight. On Main Street. Someone thought he could shoot a woman in the back and walk away. I don’t like living in a world that gets comfortable with that.”

Before the doctor could answer, the front door opened again, and a man with a salt-and-pepper mustache stepped in, hat in hand, eyes tired in a way that suggested he’d been disappointed by humanity for a living.

Sheriff Asa Caldwell.

“Heard gunfire,” the sheriff said. Then he saw Clara and softened by a fraction. “She alive?”

“She will be,” the doctor replied. “Thanks to this young man.”

The sheriff’s gaze pinned Luke. “You saw it?”

Luke recounted what he could: the dark coat, the raised pistol, the limp on the right leg.

“Her name?” the sheriff asked.

“She told me. Clara Hart. That’s all.”

Caldwell frowned. “No Harts in Red Willow. Passing through.”

His eyes slid to Luke, then to the doctor. “Where will she be staying?”

When Luke told him, Caldwell’s mustache twitched like it wanted to be a smile but couldn’t afford it.

“Watch yourself, Mercer. Folks don’t get shot in the back unless trouble’s holding their hand.”

Luke’s voice went dry. “I’ll hold the trouble’s hand right back.”

The sheriff studied him another moment, then nodded toward the door. “I’ll send Deputy Raines tomorrow to take her statement. If she can speak.”

When the law left, the doctor helped Luke settle Clara into a wagon with clean bandages and a bottle of laudanum that looked like it held the devil in liquid form.

“Change the dressing twice daily,” Dr. Pierce instructed. “If fever sets in, bring her back. And don’t let her move too much. The wound’s clean now. Keep it that way.”

Luke nodded like he was memorizing scripture.

The ride to his cabin took less than half an hour, but to Luke it felt like he was hauling a fragile miracle across a map full of knives. Clara moaned softly when the wheels hit ruts, and every sound twisted something inside him that he didn’t have a name for.

The cabin sat in a small stand of cottonwoods, modest and quiet, with sturdy shutters and a door that latched like it meant it.

Luke laid Clara on his bed, built up the fire, and sat beside her with his Winchester across his knees as if guarding her was now part of his job description.

In the flicker of flame, Clara looked less like a hunted woman and more like someone who had once been young without fear. High cheekbones. Mouth pressed tight even in sleep. A stubborn set to her brow.

Who shot her? Why?

He didn’t know.

But somewhere between catching her in the street and watching her breathe in his cabin, Luke felt a vow settle into him like a weight that also warmed.

He would not let her be taken again.

Near dawn, Clara stirred. Her lashes fluttered, and confusion swam in her gaze until she found Luke.

“Where…?” she whispered, voice thin.

“My cabin,” Luke said gently. “Outside Red Willow.”

Pain flashed across her face when she tried to move.

“Easy,” he warned, hand hovering like he wasn’t sure he had the right to touch her. “Doc pulled the bullet. You’re alive. It’s going to hurt.”

Clara stared at him, suspicion and gratitude wrestling in her eyes. “Why?”

Luke blinked. “Why what?”

“Why are you here?” she said. “Why didn’t you hand me to the doctor and go back to your horse like it wasn’t your concern?”

Luke hesitated, searching for the kind of answer that wouldn’t insult her intelligence.

“Because I saw you fall,” he said finally. “And I… couldn’t leave you there.”

Clara’s throat worked. She swallowed something that might have been tears, might have been pride.

“You shouldn’t,” she murmured. “People who help me—”

“Get hurt?” Luke finished, quietly.

Her silence was an answer.

Luke leaned back, gaze steady. “Then I’ll take my chances.”

Clara closed her eyes for a moment, as if the truth was too bright to hold.

“It wasn’t a stranger,” she said at last. “Not really.”

Luke waited, letting the quiet be a door she could open when ready.

“His name is Edwin Carrington,” she continued, voice flat with practiced distance. “Denver money. Denver manners. He… kept me. He called it an arrangement. I called it survival.”

Luke’s jaw tightened. “You left him.”

“I ran,” she corrected. “Three months ago.”

“And now he sent someone to kill you,” Luke said, anger rising like a storm he didn’t know where to put.

Clara opened her eyes again. “He doesn’t let go of what he thinks is his.”

Luke’s voice went hard. “You’re not his.”

Clara’s mouth twitched, bitter. “He disagrees.”

Luke stood, paced once, then forced himself to stop, because pacing didn’t solve predators.

“We tell the sheriff,” he said.

Clara’s head snapped toward him, fear sharp. “No.”

Luke held her gaze. “Why not?”

“Because Carrington buys law the way other men buy whiskey,” she said. “Not everyone. But enough. Enough that word gets back. Enough that I end up chained again.”

Luke stared at the fire as if it might offer a map. When he spoke, his voice softened.

“All right. No sheriff, not yet.”

Clara exhaled, shaky relief.

“But we do what we must,” Luke added. “You heal. I keep watch. And if he comes—”

“I leave,” Clara interrupted, trying to push herself up. Pain crushed her back down, and she hissed.

Luke moved to her side instantly, steadying her with a hand on her shoulder, firm but careful. “You’re not riding anywhere like this.”

“I can’t stay,” she insisted. “He’ll come. He’ll hurt you.”

Luke leaned closer, voice low. “I grew up on a cattle drive where the cook once threw a frying pan at a rattlesnake and won. I’ve seen worse than a rich man with a wounded pride.”

Clara laughed, one broken sound that turned into a wince.

“Rest,” Luke ordered gently. “Just for today. Let tomorrow borrow its worry from itself.”

She stared at him, and something inside her shifted, as if she was remembering what it felt like to be cared for without payment.

Over the next days, the cabin turned into a small world with its own rules: bandages changed, soup stirred, fire tended. Luke moved around Clara like he was learning a new kind of careful. Clara, stubborn even in pain, tried to sit up too soon, tried to walk too far, tried to act like being shot was just a delay, not a warning.

One evening, as the sun bled out behind the cottonwoods, she spoke again, the words coming like a confession she hadn’t planned to make.

“My father had a ranch near Laramie,” she said. “Not big. Enough. Then a winter killed the herd. Then the bank took the land. Then my father…” Her voice cracked. She swallowed. “He left a rope behind and a silence that lasted years.”

Luke’s hand covered hers on the quilt, warm and steady.

“My brother was sixteen,” Clara continued. “I took work where I could, but there’s only so much decent work for a woman alone. Carrington offered money. A house. Protection.”

“And a cage,” Luke said softly.

Clara nodded once, eyes shining but fierce. “I told myself I was doing it for my brother. And maybe I was. But after a while, I couldn’t recognize myself in mirrors.”

Luke’s voice roughened. “How’d you get out?”

“I saved coins like they were stepping stones,” she replied. “Little at a time. When my brother found work back East, I ran. I thought distance would erase him.”

Luke looked at her wound, then at her face. “Men like that don’t get erased. They get confronted.”

Clara’s gaze dropped. “I’m tired of running.”

The words hung between them like a prayer and a threat.

Hoofbeats broke the moment.

Luke was on his feet instantly, rifle in hand. He peered through the shutter gap, then relaxed a fraction.

“Deputy,” he said. “Sheriff sent him.”

Clara went pale anyway.

Luke turned back. “We keep it simple,” he said. “You didn’t see who shot you. You’re passing through. You don’t know why. Can you do that?”

Clara’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

Deputy Raines was young, earnest, nervous. He asked gentle questions, wrote in a small notebook, glanced once too long at Clara’s fine hair comb, then decided politeness was safer than curiosity.

“Sheriff says the shooter left town,” Raines reported as he stood to go. “Checked out next morning. Rode west.”

Luke’s stomach tightened. Clara’s gaze flicked to his, a silent exchange: He thinks I’m dead.

After the deputy left, Luke went into town for supplies, keeping his face casual while his mind stayed sharp as a spur.

At the saloon, he nursed one beer and listened.

That was when he heard it: a well-dressed stranger sliding a coin across the bar.

“Asking about a blonde woman,” the stranger murmured. “Might’ve been using the name Hart.”

Luke didn’t turn. He didn’t need to. His spine understood danger.

“She got shot,” the bartender replied, shrugging. “Don’t know if she lived.”

“And where would she be if she did?”

Luke stood, left coins, walked out like his heart wasn’t punching the inside of his ribs.

By the time he rode back, his thoughts were already building a plan from necessity.

He saw the hoofprints before he saw the cabin.

Fresh. Multiple. Too close.

Luke tied his horse off and approached on foot, revolver drawn. Voices leaked through the thin walls.

A man’s voice, smooth as a knife.

“Mr. Carrington will be pleased to learn you survived.”

Clara’s voice answered, tight but steady. “Tell him he can rot in hell.”

Luke moved to the window gap. Inside, Clara stood with Luke’s rifle in her hands, but her knees trembled, her face drained. A tall man in a dark suit edged closer, confident.

“You can barely stand,” the man mocked. “Put down the gun. I’ll make sure your trip back to Denver is comfortable.”

Luke didn’t wait.

He kicked the door open and stepped in with his revolver aimed.

“Step away from her.”

The man spun, hands half-raised. Narrow face. Thin mustache. Eyes like cold pennies.

“This doesn’t concern you,” he said.

“It concerns me plenty,” Luke replied. “You’re in my home threatening my friend.”

The man smiled as if Luke had told a joke. “Lawrence Pike. Mr. Carrington’s man.”

Luke’s gaze sharpened. “Was the shooting your idea, Pike?”

Pike’s expression flickered. “A necessity. Miss Hart was… difficult to persuade.”

Luke’s voice went low, deadly calm. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to leave. You’re going to tell Carrington she died from her wound. And you’re never coming back.”

Pike’s smile thinned. “And why would I do that?”

Luke didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

“Because if you don’t,” he said, “I’ll put you in the ground and plant a cottonwood over you, and no one will ever know where you went.”

There was no brag in him. Just certainty.

Pike stared, measuring. Then his shoulders sagged.

“You’re making a mistake,” he hissed.

Luke stepped aside, still aiming. “Get out.”

Pike backed toward the door. Before leaving, he looked past Luke at Clara.

“He’ll never stop,” Pike said, almost pitying. “You know that.”

Clara lifted her chin, voice steadier than her body. “Tell him he already lost.”

Pike left.

Only when Luke watched him ride away did he turn back to Clara and see the dark stain spreading beneath her bandage.

“You tore your stitches,” Luke said, alarm cutting through him.

Clara’s breath came shallow. “I… had to stand.”

Luke cleaned the wound as carefully as he could, hands steady even as anger shook his insides. Not at Clara. At the world that made her bleed for insisting she belonged to herself.

That night, Luke didn’t sleep. He listened to every creak, every owl call, every whisper of wind against the shutters.

At dawn, he made a decision.

“We’re leaving,” he told Clara when she woke.

“To where?” she asked, voice hoarse.

Luke glanced toward the north, where he’d once planned to look at a small ranch for sale. “There’s a place. Remote. Good sight lines. A creek. A house that can hold a promise.”

Clara swallowed. “I can’t ride.”

“You can,” Luke said gently, and then firmer: “You must.”

Dr. Pierce came out, replaced torn stitches, and scolded them both while understanding urgency was its own kind of medicine.

“Riding will hurt,” he warned Clara. “But if you’re going, go now. And keep that wound clean unless you want to die after surviving a bullet.”

They rode north by back trails, through trees when possible, stopping when Clara’s face went gray with pain. Luke fed her small sips of laudanum, hated himself for it, then hated the world for making it necessary.

By midafternoon, they crested a hill, and the ranch spread below: a modest house, a barn, a corral, a ribbon of creek shining like a quiet promise through pasture.

Clara breathed out, wonder softening her face. “It’s… beautiful.”

“It could be home,” Luke said, and surprised himself with the truth of it.

They cleaned dust, checked locks, moved furniture into defensive positions. Even in safety, Luke couldn’t stop preparing. He’d learned that peace was often just danger catching its breath.

Two weeks passed. Clara healed. She began to move without wincing. She planted a small garden patch as if pressing her hands into soil could anchor her to the earth. She laughed once, then again, testing the sound like it might break.

One evening, when sunset painted the sky copper and rose, Luke sat beside her on the porch steps.

“I don’t know what you’ll do next,” he said quietly. “But I know what I want.”

Clara’s gaze stayed on the distant hills. “Which is?”

Luke’s throat tightened. Honesty felt like stepping into deep water.

“I want you to stay,” he said. “Not because you owe me. Because I… I care for you, Clara Hart. More than makes sense.”

Clara’s hand slid into his, fingers warm and sure. “I cared for you the day you caught me,” she confessed. “When I thought I was dying and you looked at me like my life mattered.”

Luke turned to her, eyes intent. “Then let it matter. Here.”

Clara’s smile trembled. “If Carrington comes—”

Hoofbeats answered her.

Five riders appeared on the road, dust rising around them like a warning banner. The lead man rode a black horse and wore the kind of expensive confidence that didn’t belong in a place where the earth had to be earned.

Clara’s face went pale. “That’s him.”

Luke stood, rifle in hand, heart hammering steady. “Inside. We do this smart.”

Clara didn’t move away. She reached for the shotgun they’d found in the house and loaded it with hands that didn’t shake as much as she thought they would.

Together, they took positions.

Carrington dismounted with practiced grace, as if the dirt itself should bow.

“Quaint,” he called, voice carrying. “This is where you decided to play farmer, Clara?”

Luke stepped onto the porch, rifle held ready. “You’re trespassing.”

Carrington’s gaze slid to him, amused. “And you must be the cowboy.”

“Says Luke Mercer,” Luke replied evenly. “And she’s not coming with you.”

Carrington smiled without warmth. “She has an arrangement with me.”

Clara stepped into view beside Luke, shotgun leveled. “I’m not your arrangement anymore.”

Carrington’s eyes narrowed, his composure cracking for a heartbeat. “You took something, Clara.”

“I took myself,” she replied, voice steady. “That’s what you can’t forgive.”

Carrington’s men shifted, hands near holsters.

Luke recognized the moment when talking was just decoration on a trap.

“Last chance,” Luke warned. “Leave.”

Carrington’s mouth curled. “I’m not a man who accepts being denied.”

His fingers snapped.

Guns rose.

Luke fired first, dropping one man before the porch railing shattered with return shots. He yanked Clara down, and they tumbled inside, thick walls taking the brunt of the bullets.

“Remember the plan,” Luke gasped.

Clara nodded, moved to the side window, shotgun ready. Luke took the front angle, firing methodically, conserving rounds, forcing Carrington’s men to hesitate.

The gunfight was a harsh, breathless storm. Wood splintered. Glass sprayed. Clara’s ears rang.

One attacker tried the back door.

Clara had predicted it.

When he burst in, she fired. The shotgun blast caught him in the shoulder and chest, sending him sprawling with a scream that turned into silence.

Outside, Carrington shouted, furious. “I will pay you whatever you want, Mercer! Name it!”

Luke’s voice rang back, steady as iron. “She’s not for sale.”

Then Carrington did what men like Carrington always did when money failed.

He took it personally.

He rushed the porch and slammed through the front door with a revolver raised, eyes wild.

Luke met him in the doorway. They collided hard, bodies crashing into the wall. Carrington pressed the gun to Luke’s throat, breath sour with rage.

“I’ll kill you,” Carrington hissed. “And I’ll take her anyway.”

“Edwin,” Clara’s voice cut through the air like a blade.

She stood in the kitchen doorway, shotgun aimed at his back.

“Let him go,” she said. “Or I shoot.”

Carrington laughed, shaky confidence. “You won’t.”

Clara stepped closer. “You’re right. I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

Her voice steadied into something colder, something finally done begging.

“But you taught me what happens when I don’t choose.”

Carrington’s grip loosened, doubt flickering for the first time.

Luke moved.

He knocked the gun hand upward. The revolver discharged into the ceiling. Plaster rained down like snow.

They grappled, crashing out onto the porch, fists and fury. Carrington fought like a man who had never lost, who believed losing would kill him worse than any bullet.

A shot rang out.

Pain ripped across Luke’s ribs as the bullet grazed him.

Luke roared, not from pain alone but from refusal. He wrenched the revolver away and flung it into the yard.

His fist connected with Carrington’s jaw once, twice. Carrington staggered back, blood on his mouth, eyes burning.

“It’s over,” Luke panted, hand pressed to his side. “Your men are down. You’ve lost.”

Carrington spat blood into the dust. “I have connections. I’ll bring the law. I’ll claim you stole her.”

Clara stepped onto the porch beside Luke, shotgun lowered but ready.

“No,” she said calmly. “Because I’ll tell every newspaper from Cheyenne to Denver what you did. How you kept women like pets. How you used money like a rope.”

Carrington stared at her, calculation flickering beneath rage. He’d built his life on reputation. Clara wasn’t threatening his body. She was threatening his mirror.

“You’d ruin yourself,” he hissed.

“I already survived you,” Clara replied. “What’s left to ruin?”

Carrington’s face tightened, then smoothed into a mask again, the mask of a man deciding his pride had to settle for a different meal.

He turned sharply, called his remaining men, and mounted his horse.

As he rode away, he threw one last glance over his shoulder.

“If I ever see either of you in Denver,” he warned, voice thin with promise, “all bets are off.”

Luke didn’t answer. He just stood with Clara, watching dust swallow the retreating riders until the world was quiet again.

Only then did Clara’s knees wobble. Luke caught her, the same way he had in Red Willow, arms steady, gentle.

“You’re free,” he murmured against her hair.

Clara pressed her forehead to his shoulder, breath shaking. “Say it again.”

“You’re free,” Luke repeated, voice thick. “And you’re not running anymore unless you want to.”

Weeks later, they married in Red Willow’s small church. Dr. Pierce and Sheriff Caldwell stood witness, both men pretending not to be moved while their eyes shone anyway. Clara wore a simple dress she’d sewn herself, wildflowers pinned into her hair like the earth was claiming her as its own.

Luke wore his best vest and looked at her like catching her had been the beginning of his life, not an interruption.

The ranch, which they named COTTONWIND, grew under their hands. Luke worked the land with the patience of someone building something that couldn’t be bought. Clara planted a garden that widened each season, and with time she discovered a gift for healing, for helping women through childbirth, for turning pain into purpose.

They faced hard winters, drought, and the quiet fear that sometimes returned in Clara’s dreams. But when fear came, it found two people instead of one.

One autumn morning, when the aspens turned gold and the creek ran cold and clear, Clara found Luke repairing a fence. She stood in the grass, hands resting on her belly, smiling like she was holding sunrise.

Luke looked up, and his breath caught.

Clara’s voice shook with joy. “We’re going to have a baby.”

Luke crossed the distance in three strides, hands careful, reverent, as if touching her now was touching the future itself.

“We’ll do right by them,” he promised.

Clara nodded, tears bright. “We already are.”

Years later, when their children ran through the pasture chasing fireflies and the house held laughter like it was built into the beams, Clara would sit on the porch with Luke and watch the sky darken into stars.

Sometimes she’d press her fingers to the faint scar on her back, not as a wound anymore, but as a reminder.

“I was shot while running,” she’d say softly.

Luke would squeeze her hand. “And I caught you.”

Clara would smile, eyes on their home, their land, their life. “You caught more than my body.”

Luke’s gaze would stay on her, green eyes steady as ever. “Then I’ll keep catching you,” he’d answer. “As long as you’ll let me.”

And the wind would move through the cottonwoods, whispering over Cottonwind Ranch like a blessing earned the hard way.

THE END