Chapter Twelve
Flint had faced armed men with less dread than he felt sitting at Nathan Whitmore's kitchen table.
Wyatt's question hung in the air. Why didn't you come home?
The answer settled heavily in Flint's chest.
Because Daisy had left.
After she'd gone, every fence post, every pasture, every corner of the Callahan ranch had become a reminder of everything he'd lost. Staying had hurt more than leaving ever could.
Then the years passed. One bad decision led to another until he'd become a man he barely recognized himself. A man he didn't want Wyatt, Samuel, or Ruth looking at too closely.
None of those reasons sounded any better spoken aloud.
So, he studied the knife marks carved into the tabletop and let the silence stretch.
Daisy broke first. "Flint was injured, and someone brought him here.”
Her voice was steady enough to fool most people.
Not him.
He could hear the strain beneath it.
"He was unconscious for days."
Wyatt's attention snapped toward her. "What happened?"
Daisy hesitated. Only for a moment, but Wyatt noticed.
She knew pieces of the story. Enough to understand Flint was in danger. Enough to know someone had nearly beaten him to death.
The rest remained buried.
"Someone attacked him," she said carefully. "Nathan found him badly injured."
"Not exactly." Nathan's voice cut across the room.
Flint glanced up.
The doctor stood near the doorway with his arms folded tight across his chest. He'd been growing quieter throughout the conversation, which Flint had learned was usually a bad sign.
Clara frowned. "What do you mean?"
Nathan released a slow breath through his nose.
"It means I didn't find him." The room stilled. "A patient brought him to me. Found him half dead in an alley and decided he wasn't ready for a grave yet."
Wyatt's gaze swung back to Flint. This time, there was nothing welcoming in it. "What kind of trouble are you mixed up in?"
Flint said nothing.
At this point, silence had become both his favorite tool and his worst habit.
Apparently, Nathan had reached the same conclusion. "Maybe you should answer that."
Daisy shot her brother a warning look.
"No." For the first time all evening, the doctor looked genuinely angry. "No, because I'm tired of everyone pretending this isn't serious."
Clara straightened in her chair.
Wyatt's expression darkened.
Across the table, Flint felt the familiar pressure gathering in his chest.
Nathan pointed toward the front window. "You invited people here."
Daisy stared in his direction. "What are you talking about?"
"You invited them here."
"I wrote a letter."
"Exactly."
She pushed her chair back an inch. "No. Flint didn't know I sent it. He had no idea Wyatt and Clara were coming."
Flint glanced at her and felt a familiar knot tighten in his chest. Even now, after everything that had happened, Daisy was trying to shield him from the consequences of his own choices. Some things, it seemed, never changed.
Nathan wasn't interested. "That doesn't make it better."
Daisy folded her arms. "I wanted Clara here."
"And if someone followed them?"
That stopped her.
Nathan took a step forward. "You don't know who's watching this house. You don't know who's asking questions. You don't know who's connected to whom. For all we know, someone could've tracked them halfway across the territory."
Flint hated how reasonable it sounded.
Every day he spent under this roof increased the risk.
Every day, Daisy paid the price for letting him stay.
But she didn’t seem to feel the same way. "Nathan—"
"No."
The single syllable cracked through the room.
For a moment, Flint saw past the anger. Nathan wasn't being stubborn, and this wasn't about pride.
He was afraid.
Nathan had spent weeks watching his sister care for a wounded stranger who arrived carrying trouble large enough to get them all killed. He had every reason not to trust Flint Callahan.
The doctor's gaze locked onto him. "This is because of you."
Flint's jaw tightened. "I know."
Nathan barked out a humorless laugh. "Do you? Because from where I'm standing, you've spent weeks hiding half the truth."
Daisy frowned. "What truth?"
Silence settled over the table.
Clara looked to Nathan. Wyatt looked to Flint. Flint wished the floorboards would split open and swallow him whole.
Instead, Nathan kept staring. "What exactly have you told her?"
Flint's stomach sank.
Very little. Certainly not enough. Shame crept through him as he realized just how much Daisy still didn't know. Every omission had seemed easier at the time. Sitting across from her now, they felt a lot like lies.
When Daisy finally turned toward him, the simple movement twisted something deep in his chest. After everything, she still trusted him.
"Flint?"
There was no accusation in Daisy's voice, only a question, and somehow that made everything worse.
He swallowed.
Not like this. Not here.
But Nathan had clearly decided the time for half-truths was over. "You should tell her."
The room seemed to hold its breath. Flint stared at his hands beneath the table, his fingers curled into fists.
"Tell me what?" Daisy asked.
Nobody moved. Nobody rescued him.
Finally, Nathan did it himself. "The men hunting him aren't random criminals."
Daisy went still.
Not the startled stillness of someone surprised by bad news. Something deeper. Flint watched the understanding spread across her face piece by piece, as though she were fitting together fragments that had never quite made sense before.
Flint closed his eyes. Darn Nathan.
"Nathan," Clara said quietly.
There wasn't much reproach in her voice, but there didn't need to be.
Nathan ignored her. His gaze remained fixed on Flint. "Tell her who they're working for."
Flint's stomach dropped.
When Daisy turned toward him, confusion sharpened her voice. "Flint, what is it?"
A month ago, he would have preferred another beating to this conversation. Sitting beneath Amos's fists had been easier than sitting across from Daisy, who looked at him with trust in her unseeing eyes.
At last, he swallowed. "Amos Grady."
The name landed like a stone in the middle of the kitchen.
Wyatt sat forward so abruptly that his chair legs scraped against the floorboards. Clara turned toward him, concern flashing across her face, but Wyatt wasn't looking at her. His attention had fixed entirely on Flint.
Amos Grady wasn't the sort of man people discussed lightly.
"What?" Daisy whispered.
The silence that followed wasn't empty. It felt crowded with questions nobody quite knew how to ask.
Wyatt finally broke it. "Doing what?"
Flint let out a breath and dragged a hand across the back of his neck. The honest answer sounded ugly. The polite answer sounded worse. "A little of everything."
Wyatt's expression suggested that the answer had earned him approximately two seconds of patience. Flint almost smiled despite himself.
Almost.
"Moving cattle. Guarding shipments. Collecting debts."
Clara paled slightly, and Nathan stiffened. Across the table, Daisy lowered her gaze to her folded hands.
That hurt more than either of the others.
Nathan had expected the worst from him.
Daisy hadn't.
"They paid well," Flint said quietly. "Better than any ranch work I could find."
He rubbed a thumb against a scarred patch of wood near his elbow. "When I started, I told myself it wasn't permanent. Just long enough to get back on my feet."
Nathan scoffed. "That excuse has probably built half the criminal organizations in the country."
Clara shot him a look. "What? It's true."
Normally, the exchange might have drawn a smile from Daisy.
This time it didn't.
Flint found himself staring at the table again. Funny how often he'd done that lately. Anything to avoid looking directly at the disappointment waiting across from him.
"At first, it didn't seem that different from other work," he admitted. "You haul cattle. Ride escort. Deliver messages. Nobody tells you much."
"And eventually?" Wyatt asked.
Flint gave a short laugh that held no humor. "Eventually, you stop asking questions."