The Quiet Between Gunshots

The fence line had been broken for years, but no one in Briar Hollow talked about it.

It cut crooked along the edge of the Caldwell land, cedar posts leaning like men too tired to stand straight, barbed wire slack where rust had eaten through metal meant to last forever. In spring, wildflowers softened it. In summer, the grass grew tall enough to hide the gaps. But in winter-when everything lay bare-the damage showed plain as truth.

People drove past without slowing. Boundaries, once ignored long enough, stopped being boundaries at all.

Sadie Bennett parked her truck on the shoulder and shut off the engine. The country song died mid-lyric, leaving behind a ringing quiet that pressed in on her ears. Heat clung to her skin as she stepped out, boots sinking slightly into red dirt that still held the day’s warmth.

She hadn’t planned to stop.

She rarely planned anything that mattered anymore.

Still, her hands had turned the wheel as if hey remembered something she didn’t want to. Muscle memory, maybe. Or the kind of pull that came from unfinished things.

The land smelled like dry hay and sun-warmed earth, with something sharp beneath it-iron and old rain and memory. Sadie rested her forearms against the top wire, ignoring the sting as it pressed into her skin. Pain had a way of keeping her present.

Beyond the fence, the Caldwell house sat back from the road, half-lost beneath oak trees and time. White paint faded to the color of bone. Porch sagging. Windows dark and watchful.

She swallowed.

She was seventeen again, standing right here with her back against this same fence, Colton beside her, their shoulders barely touching. He’d been laughing-too loud, too careless-while she kept watch on the road like the world might catch them if she looked away.

”You ever think about leaving?” he’d asked then, twisting a blade of grass between his fingers.

She had. God, she had. But she’d shaken her head anyway. “Someone has to stay.”

He’d looked at her like he didn’t quite believe that was true.

The memory loosened something tight in her chest.

”You always did stop where you weren’t supposed to.”

The voice came from behind her-deep, steady, close enough that she felt it in her bones before her mind caught up. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t need to be. The sound of it slipped under her skin and stayed there.

Sadie closed her eyes before she turned. Just for a second. As if bracing herself against impact.

Colton Caldwell stood several yards back, hands hooked into the belt loops of his jeans, boots planted wide in the grass. He was broader now that the boy she remembered, shoulders thickened by years of work that didn’t care how tired you were. His jaw was dusted with stubble, his dark hair curling at the ends where sweat and sun had gotten to it.

His eyes hadn’t changed.

Still the cool, unsettling gray that never gave anything away unless her wanted it to.

”I could say the same,” she said. Her voice didn’t betray her. She’d practiced that kind of control.

A flicker crossed his face-recognition, maybe. Or regret. It was gone before she could name it.

Silence settled between them, heavy and familiar. Cicadas buzzed. Wind shifted the grass. Somewhere far off, a truck backfired-sharp and sudden- and Sadie flinched before she could stop herself.

Colton noticed.

”You okay?” he asked, voice lower now. Careful. Still deep, but gentled.

”Fine.”

He studied her like he knew better. Like he always had.

”I didn’t know anyone was living out here,” Sadie said, gesturing vaguely toward the house.

”Wasn‘t planning on it,” he replied. His gaze slid to the porch, the windows, the roofline. “Plans change.”

They had that in common.

People said the Caldwell place had been abandoned since the fire. Said Colton left town the night after and never looked back. Sadie had learned the hard way that small towns told storied to make things easier to live with.

”You fixed the fence?” she asked, nodding toward the wire between them.

His jaw tightened-just barely. “Eventually.”

It wasn’t promise. It was a stall.

Sadie shifted her weight, dust scuffing under her boots. The road behind her was empty in both directions. Too quiet. She felt suddenly exposed standing there, the field wide open at her back.

Another memory surfaced-unwanted, sharp.

Colton’s hand closing around her wrist the night everything went wrong. Not rough. Not angry. Desperate.

”Sadie, listen to me,” he’d said. “You can’t tell anyone.”

She hadn’t known what scared her more then-what he was asking, or how badly he needed her to say yes.

”I should go,” she said now.

Colton didn’t move to stop her. His hands stayed hooked at his waist, posture loose in a way that meant he was anything but. He watched her the way men did when they were measuring distance-between past and present, between want and consequence.

”Be careful on this road,” he said as she reached her truck. “Not much traffic anymore.”

Sadie paused, keys cool and solid in her hand. “If something happens,” she said evenly, “someone would notice.”

Colton met her gaze, and something unguarded slipped through the cracks.

”You’d hope.”

The drive home felt longer than it should have. Dust followed her tuck like a thing alive, clinging no matter how fast she went. She didn’t look in the rear view mirror again, but she felt the weight of his eyes long after the bend swallowed him whole.

Birar Hollow appeared ahead, sun sinking behind the water tower, the town settling into its evening rhythms. Porch lights flicked on. A tractor rumbled somewhere in the distance. Normal. Safe. Predictable.

That was the lie the town lived on.

Sadie pulled into her driveway and saw it immediately-something pale head her front steps, half-hidden in the grass.

An envelope.

No stamp. No return address. Just her name written across the front in careful, unfamiliar handwriting.

Her stomach tightened.

She stood there for a long moment, keys still in her hand, heart beating slow and heavy.

Because there were only three people in Briar Hollow who ever wrote her name like that.

And two of them were dead.