“Oh, my,” Siobhan cackled as soon as she turned from taking a large casserole pan out of the oven and her gaze landed on Quinn.

“To the sink with you,” Sage whispered, cupping Quinn’s elbow and guiding her away from Siobhan.

“What?” Quinn asked.

Saying nothing, just smiling, Sage wet a paper towel then scrubbed at Quinn’s jawline. Pulling the towel away, she showed Quinn the sooty marks before tearing off another sheet and repeating the entire process.

“Apparently his tongue wasn’t sooty when he kissed you,” Siobhan teased with a whisper. “Or he kept it in his mouth.”

Heat fanned across Quinn’s cheeks.

Sage winked at her. “Don’t worry, someday Siobhan’s going to be head over heels for some guy and we can be merciless with her then.”

“I wish,” the young woman pouted. “The men around Willow Gap are either dull, related to me, or my boss. It’s really imperative that you get that Viking doctor out here for the clinic or Emerson brings me some hunky FBI agent instead of Madigan on his next trip.”

“Whatever it is,” Sutton said, coming in to claim the casserole Siobhan had just taken from the oven. “Leave Madigan out of it.”

“Talk about head over heels,” Sage whispered as she softly bumped Quinn’s shoulder.

“Nothing’s wrong with my hearing, dear sister.”

Quinn smiled at the exchange. Sutton, Walker, and Barrett called Sage “sister,” and not just when they were taking her to task over teasing them. It was the same way with how the family treated Walker’s wife. She heard brotherly love every time they said it and when Lindy called the two women “daughter.”

Without fail, witnessing the affection these women had found with their husbands’ family made Quinn want to tear up.

Siobhan waited for Sutton to leave the room before she sidled up to Quinn. “He’s met the woman like once—”

“A little more than once,” Sage corrected. “He saw her at my wedding and Ashley’s. There was the time they both helped Ashley with her poaching investigation. And he visits Emerson in Billings.”

“You mean he visits Madigan by showing up at Emerson’s office,” Siobhan snickered then seized Quinn’s shoulders. “Now, let’s see if there’s any other evidence of just how much—”

Another timer went off, sparing Quinn further inspection or embarrassment. Sage asked her to get the milk pitcher while Sage grabbed the fresh-baked dinner rolls from the oven and, together, they headed into the dining room.

A few seconds later, Barrett followed, freshly showered and dressed in the clothes Quinn had retrieved from his room. Adler called from the entry hall that he was back.

With everyone gathered, Barrett pulled Quinn’s chair out, Sutton doing the same for his mother and cousin while Adler attended Leah and then Sage, sweetly kissing his wife’s neck before he slid into his chair at the head of the table.

As they did at every meal, they held hands, Lindy leading grace, thanking the Lord for the safety of her family. Barrett squeezed Quinn’s hand, his grip soft and warm. The simple contact made her chest swell and she squeezed back.

“Amen!” Leah called before her grandmother could reach the end of the prayer. Sweeping her legs under her, she rose up and stretched across the table for a roll.

“Leah,” Adler corrected. “I’m not having your daddy come back from Texas to see you’ve lost all your manners.”

Settling back in her booster seat, she folded her hands in her lap, her little mouth a pucker of sorry-not-sorry contrition.

With a wink at his oldest brother, Sutton picked up the plate full of rolls, dropped one on his plate then passed it to Sage, who let Leah pick one.

Pinching the bread, she pulled off a bite and popped it into her mouth. Her little face melted with a warm, doughy pleasure.

Quinn looked from the little girl to Barrett. His gaze locked on Quinn’s, Barrett slid his hand under the table to rest on her leg, the heat of his touch penetrating her jeans.

Siobhan clucked like an irritating hen just as the front doorbell rang.

Adler rose from the table. “I’ll get it.”

Barrett teased Quinn with a parting squeeze then grabbed his fork.

Sneaking another roll, Leah began to hum as she plucked it apart.

“Quinn…” Adler called, just his head and part of his shoulder sticking through the doorway.

His gaze slid to Barrett. “Both of you.”

Quinn stood up and left the dining room with Barrett. Worry lines etched her forehead as she tried to figure out who would show up at the ranch needing to talk to her—her and Barrett.

“Chief Finley,” Barrett said as they reached the hall to find a man somewhere in his fifties. He wore a white shirt with a black tie, a red patch over the right shirt pocket identifying him as being part of the county fire department.

“What can I do you for?” Barrett asked.

Quinn didn’t like the man’s gaze. It wasn’t that it was judgmental or hostile or anything like that.

It was regret, Quinn realized as his mouth flattened into a thin line, his head offering a nod in her direction.

“Needed to make sure everyone who might be out at Jasper’s was accounted for. Adler said your brother Sutton’s here, too. I guess I need to speak with him, as well.”

“I don’t understand,” Quinn said despite the awful certainty building in her stomach, a certainty that only grew heavier when Barrett wrapped an arm around her shoulder in an attempt to brace her against whatever the fire chief was about to say.

“We got a report of smoke up on the ridge…”

He shook his head, his face bunching up.

“You’re Leland’s father,” she said, matching the outlines of his face with those of one of the young ranch hands who had helped put on her new roof.

“Yes, ma’am. He was real proud of the work he did up there.”

Barrett’s arm tightened around Quinn’s shoulder. “How bad is it?”

“Completely torched. The house, a car with plates registered to Sutton, some kind of little trailer…even the outhouse.”

Sutton had come into the hall, quietly listening as the fire chief recounted the destruction they had found.

Quinn shook her head. “How could it spread like that? The trees are gone, the outhouse is fifty feet away, the trailer…”

The pace of her breathing accelerated as she spoke until she was panting. Barrett steered her over to a bench in the hall and sat her down.

“Lower your head,” he coaxed, his hand moving between her knees to separate them.

Sutton spit out the word that had already taken shape inside Quinn’s mind.

“Arson?”

“Looks that way,” the chief answered. “Definitely looks like an accelerant was used. Got a fire line running from the cabin to the car, another to the trailer. Probably gasoline.”

Quinn looked at Barrett for explanation.

“They were probably sloppy carrying the gas can,” he explained. “Or they intentionally let the liquid drip as they walked from the house to the car. Either way, the fuel burned a line where the gas was spilled.”

The chief shoved his hands into the pockets of black slacks.

“Either of you have an idea of who would do something this? Ex-boyfriend or girlfriend might not like how much time you two have been spending together?”

The sound that left Quinn was more bark than laugh.

“My dance card was empty when I left L.A.”

She kept shaking her head, her mind working to bury the possibility that this had anything to do with her life in California. She’d been so careful not to let anyone know where she was going or why.

“I put up a few trail cams,” Barrett told the chief. “Depending on how the perp went up the ridge, maybe we got lucky.”

By now, everyone had left the dining room and hovered at the edges of the entry hall.

“Quinn live here now,” Leah said from the comforting circle of Sage’s arms.

Quinn dipped her head to hide the tears. Sage whispered something to the little girl, but too much blood pounded through Quinn’s head for her to make out any more words. She turned cold and numb inside, her flesh malleable as Barrett lead her out to Sutton’s truck and lifted her up to the back seat then fastened the safety belt.

Barrett slid in next to her while Sutton climbed behind the wheel and followed after the chief’s truck.

Smoke still hung over the ruins of the cabin and car when they reached Jasper’s ridge. Quinn managed to rouse herself enough she could unhook her own seat belt and slide out of the truck as one of the firemen approached the chief holding a thin rectangle in his hand.

In her shocked state, it took Quinn a few seconds to realize he was holding a canvas backside up.

With Barrett gone for four days, she’d spent some of the time painting, finally finishing a picture on the third day of his being gone that she liked enough to show him.

She had placed the canvas on a windowsill. It should have been ashes like the rest of the cabin, but there wasn’t even a hint of soot or any charring on the piece. Just a slash that almost reached from one corner to the other.

A slash and “FAT LOSER” written in black lipstick on the white backing.

“Found this propped up against a tree,” the man told the chief.”

Quinn pulled away from Barrett, evading his attempt to close the distance she had opened up.

“I don’t need to see the pictures from the trail cam,” she told the men. Hand shaking, she pointed at the black lipstick. “It’s not an old boyfriend. It’s my sister.”

“Well, I still need to see if the trail cams picked anything up,” Finley said, nodding at the man who had brought the slashed canvas over. “You go on with Mr. Turk, let him show you where the cameras are at, but you need to haul them down and bag the memory cards.”

Finley turned to Quinn.

“When we’re done collecting those cards, ma’am, we need to head back to Willow Gap and stop in at the Sheriff’s office.”

Signaling the young fireman to wait a moment, Barrett put his hand on Quinn’s shoulder. Flinching, she shook her head.

“Quinn, I know it feels like everything is lost.”

She shook her head harder, broke away from his touch and the gathering of men. She walked to the edge of the clearing and looked down the ruined hillside.

Hearing footsteps behind her, Quinn looked over her shoulder. Blinking through tears, she saw Barrett’s concerned face. She wanted to tell him to turn back, but emotion squeezed at her throat. She would have walked away, silently signaling her desire to be alone, but the ground was uneven, not all of the carnage of the original fire removed to allow her to walk and cry at the same time.

Barrett wrapped his arms around her in a tight hug.

“Baby, don’t shut down,” he rasped, his lips grazing the edge of her ear. “I promise I’ll make this right for you.”

Quinn squirmed in his embrace. He had told her the craziness in California wouldn’t follow her out here. She didn’t blame him that it had. It was her family, her problem.

He had protected her all these weeks—from being homeless, from a mountain lion, from a bear. Now it was her turn to protect him.

“It’s too much to ask of you,” she bit out when he wouldn’t release her from his iron hold. “Naomi doesn’t worry about getting caught. She’s certified crazy. What if next time she sets fire to a building someone’s in, someone like your mom or—”

Her voice broke at the prospect of mentioning Leah. But just because she couldn’t say the little girl’s name didn’t mean she could deny the possibility that every person around her was in danger from her crazy half-sister, even the littlest, most precious among them.

“Finley’s chomping at the bit,” Sutton softly called from a dozen feet away. “I’ll stay with Quinn while you show Minot where the trail cams are.”

“We’ll talk about this later,” Barrett promised, cupping Quinn’s face and tilting her head even though she refused to meet his gaze. “This is not over.”

Letting her go, Barrett walked silently past his brother. Sutton stayed where he was, giving Quinn her distance as he kept a watchful eye on her.

Feeling the air begin to cool as the sun neared the horizon, she wrapped herself in a hug and sank to the ground.

By the time Barrett returned, the sun had disappeared entirely, her hope sinking with it.