While I was at work, my parents, my sister, and her two kids were already hauling boxes into my mountain house. Mom smiled like it was settled. “We all live here now. It’s family property.” They planned their big “move-in day.” I planned something else.

“Always someone trying to take the things we work hardest for.”

My chest tightened. Not because he meant anything specific, but because the truth of that sentence hit deeper than he probably realized.

I nodded.

“Yes. Exactly.”

He didn’t pry. Didn’t ask for details. Instead, he simply moved to the next door.

But as he rounded the cabin toward the back, I followed.

And that’s when we both noticed the SUV.

An unfamiliar, older-model SUV sat idling at the edge of the drive, its windows tinted dark. It faced the cabin but didn’t pull in. It just sat there.

Walter noticed it too.

“Friend of yours?” he asked.

“No.”

The SUV lingered for another long second, then rolled slowly down the hill, disappearing around the bend.

My stomach dropped.

Lydia.

It had to be. She had probably driven by to see if I’d opened the door, if I’d changed my mind, if the locks were still the same.

But she would be disappointed.

The locks were changing.

Walter glanced at me but didn’t comment. Instead, he finished the back door and moved on to the basement entry.

“This one’s old,” he said, tapping the frame. “I’ll reinforce it.”

“Please do.”

While he worked, I walked back inside and pulled out every important document I owned—deed, mortgage, tax statements, insurance policy. I laid them across the dining table in neat rows, the official paper forming a barrier between truth and the lies my family had been spreading.

As I ran my finger across the embossed seal of the deed, something in me hardened.

I wasn’t being dramatic. I wasn’t being selfish. I wasn’t being unreasonable.

I was defending my home.

A quiet knock sounded at the open front door. I turned quickly, heart pounding.

“I made muffins,” Mrs. Rowan said gently as she stepped in, hands clutching a small container covered with foil. Her face was warm, though worry softened the corners of her eyes. “Thought you might need something to eat.”

My shoulders loosened a fraction.

“Thank you,” I said. “I… it’s been a lot.”

She nodded sympathetically.

“I can only imagine.”

We stood there quietly for a moment, the wind rustling through the pines.

“I found a glove on the porch this morning,” I said finally. “A leather one. Not from the movers.”

Her brows knitted together.

“A glove? What kind of glove?”

“Leather. Men’s.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line.