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“Yeah,… well, that’s another reason why I’m calling. I’ve got a dog here that needs a home rather badly.”

“So, bring him on out,” Timber suggested. “He can hang out with the other two.”

“Don’t you mean the other four?”

He snorted. “Oh shit. I have to go find Lucy and Bingo.” He walked back down the hallway and stopped at Dwight’s door. He poked his head in and asked, “Have you seen two small dogs, one that’s missing a leg?”

Dwight looked at him, then sheepishly pointed at the corner of the headboard, and there were Bingo and Lucy, curled up on the bed.

With a smile, Timber walked back out with a wave.

Shaking his head, he returned his attention to Tiffany. “I guess we don’t need to worry about those two. Bingo and Lucy are curled up on Dwight’s bed.”

“Is he okay with animals like that?” she asked, half anxiously.

“Yes, they’ll be fine.”

“That’s good,” she muttered. “I put a lot of work into keeping Lucy alive and giving her a second chance.”

“Don’t worry. She’ll have a second chance here,” he stated calmly. “And the guys know what they’re doing, so no worries there.”

“I hate to worry,” she admitted, with a groan, “because, once I hand them off, I’m supposed to stop all that, you know?… Worrying?”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Timber declared, with a laugh. “Once you start putting time and effort into helping somebody, you always have an invested interest in making sure they’re okay. So don’t ever judge yourself for coming from the heart.”

“Coming from the heart is one thing,” she admitted, “but, when you get it beaten up a time or two, it makes it that much harder. Anyway, we can talk about the dog later. I’m so glad to hear you’ve got some help out there. Good night.” With that, she quickly ended the call.

Timber frowned. Something had been so intensely private about that little bit of extra information he’d gotten from her this time, and it made him wonder about her own history and about what had brought her to this corner of the world.

Five years ago, she had told him, and then she’d bought the business herself.

She was probably in a situation similar to what he had been.

Either buy it now and invest yourself in pursuing your dream, even though you’re not quite ready, or move on.

With the phone in his pocket, he closed up the downstairs for the night, grateful that it was at least summertime, and they didn’t need heat, since he wasn’t really set up for that yet.

An old stove was in the front room, but he didn’t think it would do very well over the winter.

So, once they got everything patched and a new roof on that section, he would need to pop in new stovepipes and put a new stove in.

But that wasn’t today’s worry. With a bit of a smile on his face and fatigue in every ounce of his body, he crashed for the night.

Sometime in the middle of the night—after he’d gone to bed, exhausted yet happy—he heard the donkey braying.

He was up and out of bed and racing down the stairs, as he heard Dwight at the doorway.

“Easy, I think he’s okay. Go easy. I’ll go out right now myself.”

And behind him, Toby added, “I’m going north.”

“In that case,” Timber replied, “I’ll go east.” And, with that, they all split up and moved silently out into the night, confirming that whatever had startled the animals—at least the donkey in particular—wasn’t a problem.

As Timber moved closer and closer to where the doe was, or had been, he heard movement in the shadows.

He froze and waited to see what would come out of the darkness.

What came out surprised him, yet maybe it shouldn’t have.

The doe was there, still hiding off to the side, yet he was delighted.

Her fawn was tucked up in the tall grass beside her, and she watched everything going on silently around her, as if waiting for something to happen, knowing she might need to run.

Yet she was calm, and her composure calmed him down.

He watched from the shadows as a black bear rumbled through the bush and passed him.

It stopped, catching his scent, but, with an age-old wary look in his direction, kept on moving.

Timber smiled and let the old guy go. Yet that bear wasn’t so old that he couldn’t fend for himself, which is when the bear would become more dangerous around the livestock.

However, this bear was definitely at a stage in life where he was starting to slow down a little bit.

It was possible there wouldn’t be another winter for him because the infirmity of age in the wild came quickly. And it happened to everyone, not just to the people around you, but also in nature. Still, this particular bear wasn’t quite to that stage yet.

As the bear walked slowly past Timber and past the doe, hiding ever so slightly in the shadows, Timber relaxed and took a deep breath.

And that’s when he saw an arrow in the tree above the doe’s head.

He didn’t know how long it had been there, but it looked to be the same as the one he had removed from her shoulder earlier, and that was not something he wanted to see.

It was also pretty clear that it was a sign, a symbol from somebody or a warning that Max was out here, that he was always around and could do what he wanted, and Timber and his friends couldn’t stop Max.

When footsteps moved his way, he slipped back into the shadows again and waited to see what came out, but it was Dwight, moving cautiously and yet not as worried as Timber would have expected.

When Timber stepped out of the shadows, Dwight stopped, noted the arrow above his head, and asked, “Did that just arrive?”

“I’m not sure,” Timber admitted. “I didn’t see it the last time I was in this area, so I’m afraid it’s new.”

Dwight stared at it and nodded slowly. “That’s not good.”

“No, it’s not good, but it’s very typical.”

“Aye, that it is,” he murmured, studying it.

“I don’t think it was there before, but it matches the one I took out of the doe.”

Dwight added, “I recognize it.”

If Dwight recognized it, Timber was more than ready to believe him. “Max?” he asked.

Dwight nodded. “Yeah, just a warning, a warning that he’s here, a warning that he can come and go at will.”

“He can. It’s not as if I have the place fenced, and, even if I did, that won’t stop anybody who really wants in,” Timber admitted.

Dwight nodded calmly.

“Do you have a personal relationship with Max?” Timber asked Dwight.

“Nope, ain’t nothing personal about it. He’s just bad news.”

“And did you know him before?”

At that, Dwight gave him a hard look and replied, “I don’t think anybody ever really knows assholes like this. If you’re asking if I know him, yes, I do. He’s somebody I’ve been keeping an eye on for a very long time.”

“Your family?”

Dwight stilled, looked over at him, and slowly nodded. “Yes.”

“But no vigilante motives, right?”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “Right now, you’ve got bigger issues, and that’s keeping this man off your own family. And believe me, when it comes to Max, he doesn’t care for anything. And, if he finds out there’s something you care about, he’ll confirm that goes first.”

“ Nice man ,” Timber muttered, frowning at that.

“Yep, so you might want to keep that vet girlfriend of yours off the property for the moment.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said instinctively.

Dwight looked over at him and shrugged. “If she ain’t, she should be.”

“You know her?”

“I know good people.”

And that was so typical of him—minimum verbiage, and everything stated in such a way that you knew he meant whatever he said and said whatever he meant. So he wouldn’t elaborate on any of it.

Slowly the two men walked back, leaving the doe staring after them.

Timber wished he could reassure her, but, if he showed any affection or extra love to this one, he knew Dwight was right.

Max would take out the doe and her fawn in a heartbeat.

She’d already been through enough, and the last thing he wanted was for her to suffer anymore.

As they walked back, Dwight asked, “Have you got any way to trap him?”

“I figured you might have that covered,” Timber replied, with a mild laugh.

“It’s not that I’m getting soft,” Dwight replied, “but it’s about staying on the right side of the law. Almost everything I think up would have worked, depending on where I was stationed, but not so much for the here and now.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem,… trying to stay legal,” Timber muttered, “but we need some defense. Otherwise he could take us out in our sleep. Yet I don’t sleep that heavy.”

“Neither do I,” Dwight shared, “but this isn’t a normal circumstance.

This guy is like a ghost, and, like a lot of ghosts, he’s got some vendetta.

And even if you knew what it was that he wanted, he won’t give up just because he gets his revenge.

That’s not who he is. He’ll confirm that he gets what he wants and that you pay.

” At that, Dwight turned and strode into the house.

Timber stared after him for a long moment.

Something was uniquely comforting and also terrifying about Dwight.

Comforting in that, as long as you’re on the right side, he was there for you every step of the way.

But he also had an agenda, and, as long as you were on his side when it came to that agenda, it was all good, but God help you if you crossed him.

Timber wondered if he had traded a snake in the grass for a different kind of snake altogether.

With those thoughts heavy on his mind, he headed upstairs to grab a few hours of sleep himself. God knew he would need it to face whatever was coming.