Chapter 28. Agreed in Principle

Josie's POV

We rode out of the valley at dawn, and he didn't tell me.

The trucks were still at the Cedar Run gate where we'd left them, nose to tail at the edge of the field. One was gone. While the Guard riders loaded the horses, I walked down to the empty space at the end of the line and breathed in.

Exhaust, two days old. Spilled coffee, the cheap, burnt kind. Marsh's soap and tobacco all along the running board where he'd sat. Pettigrew's clean, careful smell by the front fender.

And Weston. Not a passing trace, the way a man smells who comes running up and finds the road already empty. A deep one, worn into the gravel in a single spot three steps from the running board, the way a man smells when he's stood in one place for a long time, talking.

I got there too late, he'