TANGLED IN HER WEB

The rain outside the cracked pane of the workshop sounded like dry beans hitting canvas. Lucas didn't care about the rain. He cared about the notch on the mahogany table leg he was turning. One millimeter off, and the whole pedestal would wobble. That was the rule of the yard: measure twice, cut once, and never let Julian see you hesitate. "You're going to burn the spindle if you keep pressing that hard," Julian said, leaning against the doorframe. He was wiping his forearms with a rag so soaked in grease it barely absorbed anything. Julian was two years older, three inches taller, and carried himself with a quiet, heavy authority that made men twice his age wait for his nod before unloading a trailer. "It's fine," Lucas muttered, easing off the chisel. His hands were sore from six straight hours on the floor. "The wood's stubborn." "The wood isn't stubborn, Luke. You're just pulling the lathe fast because you heard the gate." Lucas didn't argue. He set the chisel down on the bed of iron shavings, his pulse ticking against his collarbone. He hadn't heard the gate over the belt drive, but Julian’s ears were different. Julian noticed everything—a shift in the wind, a squeaking floorboard, or the exact second a timber beam was about to snap. Footsteps crunched on the wet gravel outside—light, deliberate, entirely unhurried despite the downpour. Clara walked into the workshop. She didn't shake off her umbrella; she simply folded it, letting the water stream onto the sawdust-covered floor. She wore a dark wool coat that looked out of place in a timber yard, but her eyes swept the room with the quiet calm of someone who had grown up in these barns before leaving for the city five years ago. She was their cousin on their mother's side, back three months now, carrying an air of quiet independence that left both brothers constantly trying to gauge where her loyalties lay. "Your father’s sitting at his desk," Clara said softly, her voice cool and steady. "He wants you both in the house before five." Julian didn't look up from the cabinet door he was sanding. "He can sign those papers without us. It’s his yard." "It was his yard," Clara corrected, taking two slow steps forward. The smell of cold air and lavender drifted off her wool coat, cutting through the thick reek of damp pine and machine oil. She stopped right between them—close enough to Julian that her sleeve brushed his arm, but her eyes stayed on Lucas. "Now it’s bound up in the estate. And by six o'clock, the bank settles it with me." Lucas felt a sudden tight knot in his stomach. "He promised Julian the river parcel. He wrote it down three years ago on the shop ledger." Clara looked at Lucas, her mouth softening into a small, tired smile that didn't reach her eyes. "A note in a ledger isn't a deed, Luke. Uncle Thomas spent thirty years confusing what he wished was true with what was legally signed." She reached out, her fingers catching the rough hem of Lucas’s denim jacket, steadying herself—or keeping him still. "Don't look at me like I'm the villain here. I'm keeping the machinery from being auctioned off at pennies on the dollar." Julian stopped sanding. The rasp of the paper died completely. "You didn't come down here to talk about the signing," Julian said, his voice flat and low. "What did you do with the river deeds, Clara?" Clara pulled her hand back from Lucas’s jacket, her expression smooth and unbothered. "Ask your brother what he brought me at the dry kiln last night." Julian’s head snapped toward Lucas. His hands tightened into fists, his knuckles turning pale against the grime on his skin. Lucas froze, the air locked in his chest. He hadn't told Julian about meeting Clara by the kiln. He hadn't told him about the quiet conversation in the dark, the scent of her skin, or the ledger pages she had asked to see—pages he’d handed over because she’d convinced him it was the only way to clear their father's debts. Before Lucas could utter a word, a heavy, muffled thud echoed from the house up the hill, followed instantly by the sharp, stuck blare of a truck horn out front. Clara turned her head toward the door, her face unreadable. "That’s early, even for the lawyers."