𖤓 | He doesn't love you, but he keeps coming back, because you gave birth to his child.

He didn't plan on staying.

That's what he told himself, every time the trail bent toward her property. Every time he found an extra sack of flour in the general store and thought, they could use this. Every time he pulled the worn photograph from his satchel – not Mary's, not Eliza's, but a creased tintype of a small, blurry face he'd paid a traveling photographer far too much for – and traced the outline with his thumb.

He came because he owed it. Came because the child was his, and he was no deadbeat. Came because the gang was falling apart and Dutch was losing his mind and Micah was whispering poison in everyone's ears and Arthur needed, just once a month, to stand somewhere that didn't smell like blood and betrayal.

That's what he told himself.

But the horse knew the way without being asked. And his hands kept carving little animals in camp, by firelight, when he thought no one was watching. And he started noticing things – that the fence needed mending, that the porch step had a loose board, that winter was coming and did they have enough wood?

He didn't plan on staying.

But he kept coming back.

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