"This is family business."
Nathan nodded.
"Looks like it."
Samuel waited for more.
Nothing came.
Hannah almost turned to Nathan.
She stopped herself.
This was hers.
She faced her brothers again.
"I'm not going back."
Samuel gave a sharp breath.
"You can't mean that."
"I do."
"You'd throw away your family over one bad day."
Hannah stared at him.
"One bad day."
Samuel looked away first.
She said, "You didn't stop being my brothers when you drove off. I stopped being convenient."
Peter's face changed.
Samuel's did not.
Hannah continued.
"I kept the books because father trusted me to. I ordered feed because neither of you remembered when prices shifted. I wrote the buyers. I tracked calves. I corrected your sums. I did all of it because it was our home."
Her voice stayed steady.
"Then father died and suddenly the home was yours and the work was mine."
Peter opened his mouth.
No words came.
Hannah stepped back.
"So, no. I'm not coming home to fix what you broke after you decided there wasn't room for me."
Samuel shoved his hat back onto his head.
"You'll regret this."
"Maybe."
He turned sharply.
Peter did not.
For a second, he looked at Hannah as if he wanted to say something.
Then his eyes moved past her, toward the house, toward the window beside the kitchen, toward the room where Hannah kept her trunk.
His face went pale.
Hannah noticed.
Peter looked away too quickly.
"Come on," Samuel said.
Peter mounted.
Samuel swung onto the bay.
They rode out through the gate without looking back.
Nathan watched until they disappeared down the road.
Then he picked up the hammer again.
Hannah stood in the yard.
Cold air moved under her collar.
Nathan said, "You all right?"
She nodded.
It was not true.
He seemed to know.
He did not press.
That evening, supper was quiet.
Hannah hardly touched the stew.
Nathan did not comment.
Afterward, he took both plates to the washbasin.
Hannah looked up.
"You don't have to do that."
"I know."
He washed them anyway.
Later, long after Ben and the hands had gone to the bunkhouse, Hannah sat at the desk with the lamp low.
She kept seeing Peter's face.
Not ashamed.
Not sorry.
Afraid.
She opened the locked trunk.
Everything looked untouched.
The ledgers were where she left them.
The folded papers, the old receipts, her father's notes.
She ran one finger along the edge of the top book.
Nathan came in from checking the barn.
"You planning to sleep tonight?"
"Eventually."
He hung his coat on the peg.
Hannah closed the trunk.
"Peter saw this."
"The trunk?"
"Yes."
"Meaning?"
"I don't know."
Nathan looked at her.
"That bother you?"
"Yes."
He walked to the stove and added one piece of wood.