“You're the one who should be careful.”
The sheriff separated them verbally.
No evidence enough for arrest.
Oil cans were common.
Vale Supply sold hundreds.
The tag in the lamb could prove contamination, not perpetrator.
They needed more.
Magdalena hated how correct that was.
That night, she could not sleep.
She went to the kitchen.
Ethan was there.
Shirt open at the throat.
Hands around coffee.
He looked exhausted.
“You too?”
she asked.
“Yes.”
She sat.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Then Ethan said:
“My father built that barn.”
“I know.”
“I helped.”
“How old?”
“Fourteen.”
“He let you work?”
“He made me redo every bad joint.”
“Sounds like him.”
“You never met him.”
“No.”
“You complain exactly like he did.”
Magdalena smiled.
Ethan looked into his cup.
“When he died, I thought keeping everything exactly the same meant honoring him.”
She waited.
“It didn’t.”
“No.”
“I should've changed things sooner.”
“You were surviving.”
“So was the ranch.”
He looked at her.
“You changed more in three weeks than I did in three years.”
“That isn't fair.”
“To whom?”
“You.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“You inherited debt.”
“Drought.”
“Bad contracts.”
“People leaving.”
“You aren't responsible for everything that happened before you understood it.”
Ethan looked away.
Magdalena reached across the table.
Placed her hand over his.
He stared.
“You told me to ask.”
“For kisses.”
“Only kisses?”
She smiled.
“You are allowed to hold my hand without filing legal papers.”
He turned his palm upward.
Their fingers laced.
Simple.
Intimate.
Then Ethan said:
“Stay tonight.”
Magdalena’s heart stopped briefly.
He added immediately:
“Not like that.”
She laughed.
“Very smooth.”
“I mean I don't want to be alone.”
Her expression softened.
“That I understand.”
They sat in the kitchen until dawn.
Nothing more.
The next breakthrough came from something ordinary.
Soap.
Magdalena was washing soot from work shirts when she noticed one sleeve smelled faintly of lamp oil.
Not unusual after a fire.
Except this shirt belonged to someone who had claimed he never entered the barn.
Jacob.
Magdalena held the fabric.
Her stomach tightened.
She did not accuse him.
She checked laundry from before the fire.
One older shirt also smelled faintly of industrial oil.
Then she looked at his boots.
Square heels.
Same size as prints near the cut fence.
Not proof.
Enough for questions.
She told Ethan.
His reaction was immediate denial.
“Jacob has been here eighteen years.”
“So?”
“My father trusted him.”
“That isn't evidence.”
“He practically raised me.”
“Still not evidence.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
“You think he burned my barn?”
“I think his shirt contains the same oil.”
“From helping during the fire.”
“The older shirt?”
Silence.
Magdalena continued.
“And his boots fit the fence prints.”
“Half the county wears those.”