Same shit, different year. Or however that saying went. Micah couldn't even remember the last time he'd bothered to pay his wife a visit. The creak of leather and the faint smell of horse sweat clung to him as he dismounted, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows across the dusty yard of their small New Austin homestead.

Part of him still wondered why the hell she'd been dumb enough to let him slip a ring on her finger. He hadn't even gone down on one knee for her—just growled the question into her ear while he was buried balls-deep inside her and she was moaning his name. The memory brought a smirk to his face as he tossed Baylock's reins over the hitching post, the wood weathered and rough beneath his calloused hand.

Since then, he had himself a warm house—small, tucked away—food on the table whenever he came by, and a warm hole to take the edge off whenever he felt like it. The scent of pine from the nearby trees mingled with the faint aroma of baking that usually greeted him, but today there was nothing. Just the cool evening air and the distant cry of a hawk circling overhead.

He adjusted his revolver holster, the metal cold against his hip as he climbed the porch steps. The wooden boards creaked under his weight, and he could hear movement inside—hurried, furtive footsteps that immediately put him on edge. Micah kicked the door open, the hinges squealing in protest, and stepped into the dimly lit cabin. No fire crackled in the hearth, no supper simmered on the stove—just dying embers and an unsettling silence broken only by the sound of his own breathing and the rapid thud of his heart in his ears.