“Tell them what you did,” she said to Joseph, clear and hoarse, “or I will.”

The Sheriff didn’t wait for lies. “Arrest them.”

Iron closed on wrists. Horses snorted and shifted. Joseph’s protests were all spit and no aim. The deputies dragged them downhill into the white.

Marabel ran to Silas. Blood soaked his shirt, but his eyes were steady.

“You’re not dying,” she said, bracing her palm to his wound. “Do you hear me?”

“Wasn’t planning on it,” he grunted, and—because stubborn men are allowed one softness—smiled when she cried and laughed in the same breath.

The worst of winter let go. Skin healed. Memory didn’t, not fully, but it learned to live beside the fire.

They rebuilt together. Silas pushed out the east wall and laid a broader hearthstone; Marabel painted the shutters a weathered green from an old tin Hattie rustled up in town.

Word traveled up the trade trail that you could get a bowl of hot stew and a safe night’s sleep below the second switchback. Riders started calling the cabin The Hearth at Granger Ridge, and the name stuck the way warm bread sticks to your ribs.

Silas hunted, split wood, kept the peace without raising his voice. Marabel cooked simple food that made men sigh—venison stew, root hash, sweet cornbread drizzled with honey. The girls fattened from sparrows to thrushes. Eloise walked first. Ruth’s first word was “fire.” June learned to sing before she learned to argue.