My husband had spent years warning me never to set foot on that farm. So after he passed away and the lawyer handed me the key, saying that from now on the place belonged to me, I was ready to sell it right away and put everything behind me. But before making my final decision, I still wanted to see it once for myself. When the door opened, I finally understood why, all those years, he had never wanted me to set foot there.

A painting at the Minneapolis Institute twenty years earlier. A black horse against a storm-dark background. I had stood in front of it long enough for Joshua to tease me for falling in love with anything that looked like it might kick down heaven’s front gate.

And he had remembered.

“Did he ever…” I stopped, then tried again. “Did he ever tell you he was sick?”

Ellis lowered his eyes. “Not directly. But the last six months, he worked like a man who knew time had changed its terms.”

I looked at Midnight again. The horse lifted his head higher and stepped toward the stall door, enormous and shining and alive. Grief is strange that way. It can hit hardest not in funerals or documents or last words, but in the evidence of how long someone planned to love you after they were gone.

“His brothers were here yesterday,” I said.

Ellis’s jaw tightened.

“That so.”

“You’re not surprised.”

“No, ma’am.” He folded the rag once, neatly. “They’ve been circling since word got out about oil on neighboring land. Funny thing, none of them cared much for the family farm when it was just dirt and bad roofs. Now they speak about legacy like they invented the word.”

“What can you tell me about them?”