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.

I watched from the window as the SUV pulled away with my daughter in the silver sedan behind it, and for the first time since arriving in Alberta, I felt genuinely afraid.

Not of losing the farm.

Of losing Jenna to the story they would tell her next.

Ellis waited until the vehicles disappeared beyond the gate before speaking.

“There’s something you should know,” he said.

I turned. “About the brothers?”

“About the property. And about your husband.”

He hesitated in a way that made clear he did not hesitate often.

“Mr. Mitchell asked me not to mention it unless things became necessary.”

A strange laugh caught in my throat. “I’m beginning to suspect my husband prepared for necessity more thoroughly than most people prepare for retirement.”

Ellis gave the faintest shadow of a smile. “That sounds about right.”

He led me not to the house or office or stables, but beyond them, toward an old weathered barn I had noticed only in passing. Unlike the rest of the property, it had been left mostly unrestored. Gray boards. Sagging roofline. Rusted hardware. The kind of structure a person’s eye skipped once it had seen the polished version of everything else.