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“Yes.”

He comes to my side anyway, wrapping his jacket around my shoulders to cover my torn strap. His hand settles at the small of my back. I lean into him.

Dad watches us, but he doesn’t object. Maybe he doesn’t have the strength. Maybe he understands now.

Paramedics arrive minutes later with state police close behind them. They place Dad on a stretcher despite his protests. One paramedic shines a light into his eyes while another cleans the blood from his face.

“I’m riding with him,” I tell Samuel.

Dad reaches for my hand. “No.”

I stare at him. “You’re hurt.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I know you’re safer with Samuel.”

Samuel goes still beside me.

Dad’s fingers tighten weakly around mine. “Go back to the cabin. Stay there until this is over.”

“You believe him now?”

Pain passes over his battered face. “I should have believed him before.”

The paramedics lift the stretcher.

Dad looks at Samuel. “Keep her safe.”

Samuel’s hand presses more firmly against my back. “With my life.”

“I know.”

The ambulance doors close.

By the time Samuel drives me back into the mountains, night has swallowed the roads. I sit in the middle of the bench seat instead of near the passenger door. My body rests against his side, and his arm curves around me whenever the road straightens. Neither of us speaks much. We don’t need to.

The cabin appears between the trees, its orange porch lights glowing beneath the eaves. Samuel parks. I’m out of the truck before he turns off the engine. He follows me onto the porch.

“Sophie.”

I turn. He stands one step below me, bringing our faces nearly level. Blood marks the side of his neck. A bullet must have grazed him. His dark beard is wet from the mist, and his eyes are filled with the same fear I felt inside that workshop.

“You’re hurt.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It isn’t nothing.”

“I thought I was too late.”

His voice breaks.

That tiny fracture destroys me.

I take his face between my hands.