Could the man who'd frozen once, failed catastrophically, trust himself to act when it mattered? Every instinct screamed that he'd fail again, that fear would lock his muscles and cloud his judgment, and someone would die because Silas Boon was too small, too weak, too broken to be relied upon. But Norah was here, his wife, his partner, and she was trusting him to be more than his worst moment. "Yes," he said, and meant it. I can shoot.
Then we do this together, Norah replied. She raised her voice, projecting across the pasture with the kind of command that made men twice her size pay attention. You men by the treeine. You're trespassing on private property. Leave now or face consequences.
The shape stopped moving. A moment of silence, then laughter. Rough and male and full of the kind of cruelty that comes from men who've learned the world rewards violence. That's a woman, one of them called back. They got a woman guarding their cattle.
And a man, Silas shouted, stepping forward so they could see him clearly in the moonlight. With a rifle and legal right to protect my property. Last warning. Leave now. More laughter.
That little man. Hell, boys. This will be easier than we thought. They started moving again, spreading out in a pattern Silas recognized, flanking maneuvers, trying to get on multiple sides so they couldn't be watched at once. Professional rustlers then, or at least experienced ones.
They'd done this before, succeeded before, and they weren't about to be scared off by a small rancher and his oversized wife. Silas's hands tightened on the rifle, his heart hammered against his ribs. Fear threatened to swallow him whole. Silas," Norah said quietly urgently. "Look at me."
He did. In the moonlight, her face was fierce and certain, and in her eyes, he saw not doubt, but absolute faith. She believed he could do this. She'd married him, invested everything in him, chosen him fully, and she believed. You're not alone this time, she said.
Whatever happens, we face it together. You and me, partners. Something in her words reached past the fear, past the trauma, past 6 years of guilt and self-loathing. She was right. He wasn't alone.
And maybe that made all the difference. Together, he agreed. The rustlers were closer now, close enough that Silas could see they were armed, could make out the hard edges of their faces. Five of them, like he'd counted. Too many for two people, too dangerous to face without help that was miles away.