The Shattered Threshold
Cole didn't flinch. He reached into his coat and pulled out a heavy metal pry bar.
"The bridge at Miller's Creek washed out an hour ago, Mrs. Gable," Cole whispered through the glass. "Sheriff Miller isn't coming. You’re alone out here."
With a sudden, violent heave, Cole drove the steel bar between the door jamb and the latch. The wooden frame splintered with a deafening CRACK.
Nora didn't scream. She stepped back into the hallway, reached behind the coat rack, and lifted her late father’s twelve-gauge double-barrel shotgun from its wooden brackets, racking the slide with a clean, terrifying mechanical snap.
"Step through that door," Nora said, raising the barrel level with his chest, "and see what forty years on a mountain teaches a woman about defending her home."
Cole froze on the threshold, the pry bar hanging in his gloved hand. The sight of the steel barrel held with steady, unshakeable aim gave him pause.
"You're an old woman, Gable," Cole sneered, though his feet remained planted on the porch mat. "You fire that weapon, and you spend the rest of your life in a state penitentiary."
"I'm sixty-two years old, Cole," Nora said, her eyes boring into his. "I’ve delivered half the babies in this county and buried the rest. I have nothing to lose, but you have about three seconds to decide if Richard Vance’s paycheck is worth a chest full of birdshot."
From behind Cole, the high, piercing wail of a siren echoed across the valley.
May you like
Flashing blue and red lights broke through the tree line at the top of the ridge road. Sheriff Miller hadn't taken the bridge; his four-wheel-drive patrol convoy had cut straight through the private logging trails.
Cole cursed, dropping the pry bar. He turned and sprinted down the porch steps toward his SUV, the tires tearing up grass and gravel as he sped toward the rear logging road just as the first patrol cruiser crested the hill.
