Magdalena reached across the table.
Placed her hand over his.
He stared.
“You told me to ask.”
“For kisses.”
“Only kisses?”
She smiled.
“You are allowed to hold my hand without filing legal papers.”
He turned his palm upward.
Their fingers laced.
Simple.
Intimate.
Then Ethan said:
“Stay tonight.”
Magdalena’s heart stopped briefly.
He added immediately:
“Not like that.”
She laughed.
“Very smooth.”
“I mean I don't want to be alone.”
Her expression softened.
“That I understand.”
They sat in the kitchen until dawn.
Nothing more.
The next breakthrough came from something ordinary.
Soap.
Magdalena was washing soot from work shirts when she noticed one sleeve smelled faintly of lamp oil.
Not unusual after a fire.
Except this shirt belonged to someone who had claimed he never entered the barn.
Jacob.
Magdalena held the fabric.
Her stomach tightened.
She did not accuse him.
She checked laundry from before the fire.
One older shirt also smelled faintly of industrial oil.
Then she looked at his boots.
Square heels.
Same size as prints near the cut fence.
Not proof.
Enough for questions.
She told Ethan.
His reaction was immediate denial.
“Jacob has been here eighteen years.”
“So?”
“My father trusted him.”
“That isn't evidence.”
“He practically raised me.”
“Still not evidence.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
“You think he burned my barn?”
“I think his shirt contains the same oil.”
“From helping during the fire.”
“The older shirt?”
Silence.
Magdalena continued.
“And his boots fit the fence prints.”
“Half the county wears those.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not saying arrest him.”
“I’m saying watch.”
Ethan hated it.
But agreed.
They watched.
Jacob did nothing suspicious.
Three days.
Then four.
On the fifth, he rode out after midnight.
Ethan and Magdalena followed at a distance.
Magdalena insisted.
Ethan objected.
She won.
Jacob rode to an abandoned line shack two miles east.
Another rider waited.
Arthur Vale.
Ethan reached for his gun.
Magdalena grabbed his wrist.
“Listen.”
They moved closer.
Voices carried through broken boards.
Arthur:
“You were supposed to scare him.”
Jacob:
“You told me no one gets hurt.”
Ethan’s face went white.
Magdalena held his arm.
Arthur said:
“The ranch should have been sold after the cattle.”
“You kept dragging it out.”
Jacob:
“I did what you asked.”
“I changed the feed.”
“Blocked the ditch.”
“Cut the fence.”
“The barn wasn't me.”
Magdalena stopped breathing.
Arthur’s voice sharpened.
“I know.”
“Then who?”
Silence.
Magdalena and Ethan exchanged a look.
Someone else had set the fire.
Arthur continued.
“You're done.”
Jacob: