“She’ll make it. I’d put money on it.”

He peeled off the blue gown, slow, his muscles groaning in protest at every motion, and dropped it in the bin.

Then he turned to me and gave me a stiff, formal nod — the kind of nod, I thought, that one soldier gives another after a long, brutal night holding a line that mattered.

“Thank you, Sarah. For letting me finish.”

“Anytime, Mr. Ransom.” My eyes were pricking again. I didn’t fight it. “Same time tomorrow?”

Something cracked open in the thick silver of his beard — a real smile, small and tired and true, the first one I had seen from him in twelve hours.