Chapter 6 Daisy
The storm rolled in Thursday night. I'd watched it build all day, dark clouds stacking over the mountains. By the time I got home from the clinic, the wind was whipping through the trees and the sky had turned the color of a bruise.
Cal met me at the door with his jacket on.
"Got called in. Multiple accidents on Skyline Road. Might be gone all night."
"Be careful."
"Always am." He paused at the door, looking back at me. "There's flashlights in the kitchen drawer if the power goes. And Daisy?"
"Yeah?"
"Lock the doors."
He left before I could ask why that felt like more than standard uncle advice.
The cabin felt bigger with him gone. Emptier. I made myself dinner and ate it standing at the counter as I watched lightning split the sky over the mountains. The thunder came seconds later, close enough to rattle the windows.
I loved storms. Always had. There was something cleansing about them, the way they stripped everything down to essentials. Rain and wind and raw power, and you either found shelter or you didn't.
One moment the cabin was bright and warm. The next, darkness. Complete and absolute, broken only by the flicker of lightning outside.
“Powers out,” I mumbled as I found the flashlights and lit some candles I'd discovered in a cabinet. It made the cabin glow soft and golden, shadows dancing on the walls with every gust of wind.
It was fine. I was fine. Just a storm. Just a power outage. Nothing to worry about.
I curled up on the couch with a book, trying to read by candlelight, trying not to think about the fact that I was alone in a cabin in the mountains during what was quickly becoming a more serious storm than first predicted.
A knock on the door made me jump.
I froze. Cal wouldn't knock, and no one else had any reason to be here, not in this weather, not at this hour.
Another knock. Louder.
I grabbed the flashlight and approached the door slowly. "Who is it?"
"Knox."
My heart slammed against my ribs. I stood there for a long moment, flashlight in hand, trying to decide whether to open the door or pretend I hadn't heard.
"Daisy." His voice was muffled by the wood, barely audible over the rain. "I’m getting soaked out here. Open the damn door.”
Cursing, I stepped forward and opened it slightly.
Knox stood on the porch, soaking wet, rain streaming down his face and plastering his shirt to his chest. He looked like he'd walked through the storm itself to get here.
"What are you doing here?"
"Saw your power go out from the road." He pushed wet hair off his forehead. "Cal's working the accidents on Skyline. He asked me to check on you."
The last thing I wanted was Knox Parker dripping water on my floor while lightning crashed outside. I just wanted to tell him to go to hell and slam the door in his face.
Instead, I stepped back and opened the door wider. “Get inside then." I grumbled as the wind pushed him closer to me as the thunder boomed overhead.
He stepped over the threshold, hand going to my shoulders to steady me as the wind wiped around us in the doorway, shielding me slightly as he walked into the candlelit cabin.
"There's towels in the bathroom," I said as I shut the door behind him.
He nodded and disappeared.
I stood in the living room, heart pounding, wondering what the hell I was doing.
***
He came back a few minutes later, towel around his shoulders, wet shirt replaced by one of Cal's flannels. His hair was still damp, curling slightly at the ends.
I looked away and busied myself with the candles.
"Storm's supposed to last a few more hours," he said. "Power company's saying morning before they can get crews out."
"Great."
"I can leave Daisy. Cal just asked me to check you were okay here, and it is obvious you are."
I turned. He was standing in the doorway to the hall, shoulders tense, watching me like he was waiting for a blow.
"In this?" I gestured toward the window, where rain was sheeting down so hard it looked solid. "Sit down," I said. "I'll make coffee. The stove's gas, so it still works."
He sat as I made coffee. The normalcy of the ritual helped, gave my hands something to do besides tremble.
When I handed him the mug, our fingers brushed. I felt the contact like a spark, sharp and electric, and I pulled back too fast.
Knox noticed. Of course he noticed as his jaw tightened, but he didn't say anything.
I sat on the opposite end of the couch, as far from him as I could get without being obvious about it. The candles flickered. The storm raged. The silence between us grew teeth.
"I'm not scared of storms. “I said finally.
"I know you're not."
"Then why are you here? Really."
He was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, I could hear the emotion in his voice. "Because I couldn't stay away."
Why did I feel like I had emotional whiplash from him. And why did I want him to tell me that he missed me. That he never stopped loving me, the way I never stopped for him. Even if he was a grade A asshole.
My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat as I finally answered. "You stayed away because you wanted to."
"No." The word was fierce, almost angry. "I stayed away because I had to. There's a difference."
"Had to?" I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "Nobody had a gun to your head, Knox. You made a choice. You didn't show up. You didn't call. You let me wait in the dark for three hours thinking something had happened to you, and then you never explained. That was a choice."
He flinched.
"You're right," he said quietly. "It was a choice. And I've regretted it every day since."
"Then why did you make it?"
The question came out raw. Desperate. Eight years of wondering, of telling myself I didn't care, crumbling in an instant.
Knox hung his head for a few seconds, before looking me straight in the eye. Those dark eyes latched onto mine.
"Because I thought it was the only way to protect you."
"Protect me from what?" I volleyed straight back at him. I wanted answers, and if he was finally going to give them to me, I wasn’t going to let up.
His jaw worked, like he was fighting himself, and I watched the battle play out across his face.
"Knox." I shifted closer without meaning to. "Protect me from what?"
"From me." The words came out broken. "From my life. From everything I would have cost you if I'd stayed."
"That wasn't your decision to make."
"I know." He dropped his head, staring at his hands. "Believe me, I know."
The storm howled outside. Lightning flashed, illuminating the room in stark white before plunging us back into candlelit shadows.
I wanted to demand the full truth and make him explain what protecting me actually meant.
Instead, I saw the man before me. At the man he'd become. At the exhaustion in his shoulders and the grief in his eyes and the way he sat there like he was waiting for me to destroy him.
"Did you ever think about me?" The question slipped out before I could stop it. Quiet. Vulnerable. The kind of question I'd sworn I'd never ask.
Knox raised his head and met my eyes.
"Every day," he said. "Every single day for eight years.
You're the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I sleep.
You're in every empty room and every quiet moment.
You're the reason I stopped fighting and started building.
Because I wanted to be someone you could be proud of, even if you never knew. "
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. Couldn't do anything but stare at him while his words settled into my chest like stones.
"Knox..."
"Don't." He stopped me. "Don't say anything. I'm not telling you this because I expect anything. I'm telling you because you asked, and I'm tired of lying to you."
"You've been lying to me?"
"By omission. For eight years." He stood abruptly, moving to the window, putting distance between us. "I should go."
"Knox." I stood too. Crossed the room until I was standing behind him, close enough to touch. "Don't run away from me. Not again."
He turned and we were inches apart. I could see the rise and fall of his chest, the tension in his shoulders and the way his hands were clenched at his sides like he was fighting to keep them there.
"You don't want this," he said. "You don't want me."
"Don't tell me what I want."
"Daisy." My name in his mouth nearly was my undoing. "I'm trying to do the right thing here."
One second I was standing there, angry and confused and aching with eight years of unresolved want. The next, my hands were fisted in Cal's flannel shirt and my mouth was on his.
He went rigid and for one horrible second, I thought he was going to push me away.
Then he broke.
His hands came up to cup my face, tilting my head back, and he kissed me like he was drowning and I was air. Deep and desperate and consuming, as his tongue slid against mine, his body pressing me backward until my shoulders hit the wall.
I gasped as he swallowed the sound, one hand sliding into my hair, the other gripping my hip hard enough to bruise. The kiss was nothing like I remembered. It was better. Hotter. Eight years of want compressed into a single point of contact that burned through every rational thought I had.
"Daisy." He pulled back enough to breathe, his forehead against mine, his chest heaving. "We need to stop."
"No."
"I haven't told you everything. There are things you don't know."
"Then tell me."
He pulled back further. In the candlelight, he looked wrecked.
"Not tonight," he said. "You deserve the truth, but you deserve it when you're not looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you might forgive me." He stepped back and ran a hand through his hair. "I should go."
"The storm..."
"Is the least dangerous thing in this room right now." He grabbed his wet jacket from the chair and looked at me one last time. "I'm sorry. For all of it. I'll explain everything. I promise."
Then he was gone, disappearing into the rain, leaving me standing in the candlelit cabin with my lips swollen and my heart in pieces on the floor.
I touched my mouth. I still felt him there.
Eight years. Eight years of telling myself I was over him. Eight years of building walls and moving on and pretending the boy I'd loved was dead and buried.
One kiss and every wall came crashing down.
I sank onto the couch and stayed there until the storm passed and the sun came up, replaying every word, every touch, every devastating confession.
You're the reason I stopped fighting and started building.
I wanted to be someone you could be proud of.
He'd changed for me. He'd spent eight years becoming someone different, someone better, and I'd never known.
What else didn't I know?
Because that kiss had told me something I'd spent eight years trying to deny.
I wasn't over Knox Parker.