“Then why give it to me?”
He placed the final blackberry pie into the sack and tied the cord.
The camera of the moment seemed to drift around them, circling past the empty pie plates, the bundle of money, Clara’s tightening fingers, and the stranger’s unreadable expression.
“Will you be here tomorrow?” he asked.
Clara frowned.
“Yes. Every afternoon.”
A faint smile appeared on his face.
“No,” he said softly. “Tomorrow, I’d like to meet you.”
Before she could ask what that meant, he lifted the sack over his shoulder and walked into the crowded street.
Clara stepped around the counter.
“Wait!”
He did not stop.
She watched him pass the blacksmith, cross in front of the saloon, and disappear behind a wagon carrying cedar planks toward the edge of town.
Only then did Clara look down at the money again.
Beneath the bills lay a small silver button engraved with a symbol she had not seen in twenty years.
**A circle split by a single lightning bolt.**
Her breath vanished.
Clara snatched up the button and closed her fist around it.
That mark had belonged to her father.
Silas Whitmore had worn the same symbol on his coat the night he disappeared.
She had been eight years old.
He had kissed her forehead, promised to return before dawn, and ridden away beneath a storm-dark sky. The next morning, his horse was found beside the river, its saddle covered in blood.
His body had never been recovered.
Clara turned toward the street, but the stranger was gone.
Behind her, the church bell rang five times.
The sound rolled through Red Creek as Clara stood motionless beside the empty stall.
Then a familiar voice spoke near her shoulder.
“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
Clara spun.
Sheriff Amos Rusk stood beside the counter, broad-bellied and silver-haired, one hand resting above his gun belt. He had served Red Creek since before Clara was born. To most people, he was dependable and fatherly.
To Clara, he was the man who had raised her after her father vanished.
She forced her fingers to relax around the button.
“A customer bought everything.”
Rusk glanced at the money.
“That customer paid too much.”
“He seemed generous.”
“Generous men are usually hiding expensive sins.”
The sheriff studied her face.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing important.”
Rusk’s gaze remained fixed on her for a beat too long.
Then he smiled.
“You should go home before dark.”
Clara nodded.
Rusk walked away, but not before glancing toward the road where the stranger had disappeared.
Clara waited until he turned the corner.
Then she opened her fist again.
The silver button gleamed in the dying light.
On its reverse side, scratched into the metal, were three words: