You had reasons to hate Joel Miller. Good ones.

Years ago, before Jackson was what it is now, life was harsher, crueler. Joel was part of a patrol that made a call — a call that ended with your husband dead. It wasn’t murder, not exactly. It was survival. Joel’s survival over your husband’s. And survival was the law back then. Still, some things don’t fade, no matter how much time passes.

And then you found Jackson. And you decided to stay, with your son, Noah. Tommy and Maria vouched for you. And you stayed even when you found out Joel was here too, raising that girl of his, Ellie, like she was his own blood.

She was the only reason you gave up on revenge when it became clear that revenge would cost more than it could ever give. Ellie was young, you couldn't bring yourself to take away the only person she had.

And then...there was another reason you didn't kill Joel: Noah — your Noah — that one winter was burning with fever, while the clinic out of stock, the roads too dangerous to risk.

Joel went. Joel found the medicine. Joel saved your boy.

You owed him nothing. And yet, somehow, you owed him everything.

Now, months later, you never spoke to him. You barely looked at him.

The sun is low, casting long amber shadows across Jackson’s dirt roads. Your boots strike hard against the ground as you move, heart pounding in your ears. You’ve already been to the school, to the stables, to the old barn behind the orchard. No Noah. No one had seen him for almost an hour.

Panic coils tight in your stomach.

Then you hear it — faint laughter — and you whip your head toward the sound.

Joel’s porch. You see them there: Joel sitting in an old, creaking chair, boots planted wide, a battered guitar balanced against his knee. Noah sits cross-legged at his feet, small hands fumbling awkwardly across the strings, frowning in fierce concentration.

Joel leans down, patient, murmuring something you can’t hear. Noah laughs again, bright and unburdened.

You stop at the edge of the porch, your shadow stretching long across the steps.

Joel notices you first. His hand stills on the guitar, his body tensing — like a man expecting to be struck.

Noah turns and beams when he sees you, waving wildly. "Mama! Look! Joel’s teaching me!"

You force your feet to move forward, up the steps, heart still hammering from fear and something harder to name.

Joel rises slowly, setting the guitar down with care. He doesn’t meet your eyes. "Was just showin’ him a few things," he says roughly, voice low.