Chapter Thirteen
Daisy sat very still long after the conversation ended.
The kitchen had gradually emptied around her.
Wyatt had followed Flint outside. Nathan disappeared into his office under the excuse of checking patient records, though Daisy suspected he simply needed a moment away from everyone.
Clara remained beside her at the table, quietly gathering abandoned coffee cups.
No one seemed eager to speak.
Daisy understood why.
The name Amos Grady still echoed unpleasantly in her mind.
She had heard stories over the years, just like everyone in Cheyenne. Men lowered their voices when discussing him. Store owners became careful with their words. People who worked near the railroad district learned when to mind their own business.
She’d never imagined Flint would become tangled in that world. He had always been a kind, big-hearted person, quick to help. This wasn’t the Flint she knew.
The thought felt wrong every time it crossed her mind, as though someone had taken two pieces from entirely different puzzles and forced them together.
Not Flint.
The thought kept circling back no matter how hard she tried to push it away.
Across the table, Clara set down a cup. "You've gone quiet."
Daisy let out a dry laugh. "That seems to be happening often today."
Clara pulled out the chair beside her and sat down.
The familiar creak of wood brought an unexpected comfort.
Daisy had missed Clara. Three years ago, Daisy wouldn't have needed to explain herself. Clara would have known exactly what was wrong. They had been so close.
They’d spent countless afternoons together at the Callahan ranch, sharing everything from childish secrets to grown-up dreams neither of them had been embarrassed to admit aloud.
Clara had known when Daisy was angry before Daisy herself realized it.
She had known that Flint was the reason behind an unusually cheerful smile.
She had known every hope Daisy carried for the future.
Then life had fractured.
Letters could only bridge so much distance.
Clara still knew her better than anyone, but there were now entire pieces of Daisy's life she had only heard about second hand.
"You look like you're trying to solve a complicated puzzle," Clara observed.
Daisy rubbed her forehead. "I'd much rather be solving a complicated puzzle. Puzzles usually have solutions."
"That's optimistic. Have you met my husband?"
A laugh escaped before Daisy could stop it. "Poor Wyatt."
"Don't waste your sympathy. He married me voluntarily."
The familiar teasing loosened some of the knot in Daisy's chest, enough so she could breathe around it.
For a few moments, neither of them spoke. The house settled around them with the quiet creaks of old wood, and from somewhere outside came the faint murmur of voices.
Men's voices.
Wyatt's deep rumble carried first. Then Nathan's followed.
Then Flint spoke.
Clara studied her for a moment before asking quietly, "You truly didn't know? About Amos?"
Daisy shook her head. "No."
Clara leaned back in her chair with a sigh.
Daisy folded her hands. "Part of me feels foolish."
"Why?"
"I never imagined Flint could become this man."
Clara's expression softened. "How?"
The question should’ve been easy to answer.
Instead, Daisy found herself searching for a reason and coming up empty.
She hadn't seen Flint in three years. She hadn't ridden beside him, shared meals with him, or listened to him talk about his days the way she once had. Whatever road had led him to Amos Grady, she'd only seen the end of it.
Yet some stubborn part of her still felt blindsided.
"I think I kept imagining him the way he used to be," she admitted.
Clara was quiet for a moment. "I think everyone did."
Daisy swallowed hard.
The Flint she remembered belonged to summer evenings at the ranch and long rides beneath an endless Wyoming sky. He belonged to bonfires, laughter, and impossible plans for the future. Not debt collection with men like Amos Grady.
The two versions refused to fit together in her mind.
"He sounded ashamed."
Clara leaned back in her chair. "Good."
Daisy blinked. "Good?"
"If he'd sounded proud, I'd be much more concerned."
Despite everything, a startled laugh escaped Daisy. Only Clara could say something like that with complete sincerity. "I've missed you."
"I know."
"You don't even sound surprised."
"I'm not." Clara reached over and squeezed her hand. "You always miss me after difficult conversations."
Daisy laughed again, shaking her head. "I don't know what to do with this."
Clara's tone softened. "Which part?"
Daisy let out a tired laugh and rubbed her thumb against the edge of her sleeve.
"All of it." Once the words started, they came easier than she expected. "I feel guilty because I left. Every time someone talks about what happened to Flint afterward, I keep wondering if things would've been different if I'd told him the truth from the beginning."
The confession sat between them for a moment.
Daisy had carried it for three years, through lonely evenings in the workshop, through sleepless nights when memories refused to leave her alone. No matter how often she reminded herself of why she'd made that decision, the guilt never disappeared completely.
"If I had just told him the truth about my sight..."
"Daisy." Clara interrupted quietly, but there was enough firmness in her voice to stop her. "You know I love you.”
Daisy smiled faintly. "That sounds dangerous."
"It probably is."
Clara squeezed her hand. "Because I love you, I'm going to say something you won't enjoy hearing."
"There it is," Daisy muttered. "The warning."
"You should have told him."
There was no accusation in Clara's voice. Somehow, that made it harder to hear.
Daisy lowered her gaze. "I know."
Clara didn't let her hide behind the answer. "You should have given him the chance to decide for himself what kind of life he wanted."
Daisy swallowed. "I know."
"And you should’ve trusted him enough to make that choice with all the facts."
The ache in Daisy's chest deepened, not because Clara was being cruel, but because every word was painfully true.
For years, she’d hidden behind the belief that she had acted out of love. She had convinced herself that leaving Flint was a sacrifice rather than a choice, that she was sparing him a future filled with responsibilities he had never asked for. At the time, it had seemed noble. Necessary, even.
Now she wasn't so sure.
Looking back, all she could see was loss. Flint had been left to wonder why she had disappeared. She had spent years building walls around herself. The future they once imagined together had quietly slipped away while neither of them fought for it.
Maybe she’d protected Flint from nothing at all.
Clara's thumb brushed gently across the back of her hand, grounding her before the guilt could pull her any deeper. "But Flint's choices belong to him."
Daisy lifted her head.
"You leaving explains some things. It doesn't explain all of them. The work he took. The people he surrounded himself with. The secrets he's been keeping." She shook her head. "Those were his decisions."
Daisy's eyes leaned toward the tabletop before finally asking the question that had been lingering in the back of her mind. "I left him."
Clara agreed. "Yes."
"And he was heartbroken."
"That's one way of putting it."
Daisy looked up. "One way?"
"Oh, Daisy." Clara leaned back in her chair. "The man spent two months looking like someone had kicked his favorite horse."
Despite everything, a laugh escaped her. "That's not fair."
"It might actually be kinder than the truth."
Daisy shook her head, smiling.
Clara seemed encouraged. "At one point, Ruth threatened to lock him in the barn because she was tired of watching him mope around the ranch."
"She did not."
"She absolutely did. Flint kept wandering out to stare at fences like they held the answers to life's great mysteries."
Daisy covered her mouth, laughter mingling painfully with old memories.
The image was ridiculous enough to be funny and familiar enough to hurt. She could almost see it: Flint leaning against a fence rail, pretending he was working while everybody around him knew exactly what was wrong.
When Clara spoke again, her voice was serious. "He loved you, Daisy."
The laughter faded.
Daisy kneaded her hands in her lap. Some truths became harder to hear instead of easier.
"And before you ask," Clara continued, "yes, I think he still does."
Heat crept into Daisy's cheeks. She was grateful Clara couldn't possibly mistake the reason. Hearing the words spoken aloud felt dangerous. Hope always did.
For years, she had worked very hard not to hope for anything at all.
Clara reached for her coffee cup. "But none of that excuses what happened afterward. Working for Amos Grady wasn't your decision. Keeping secrets wasn't your decision. Whatever pain Flint carried after you left, he's still responsible for the choices he made with it."
Daisy slowly nodded. The distinction mattered more than she had realized.
She could understand Flint's hurt. She understood loneliness better than most people. She even understood how grief could leave a person vulnerable to bad decisions.
But understanding wasn't the same as excusing.
For the first time since his confession, the knot of confusion inside her loosened enough for her to think clearly.
Old wood complained somewhere toward the front of the house.
Both women paused.
Daisy tilted her head. "Who's outside?"
Clara listened for a moment. "Wyatt and Flint." A smile entered her voice. "And unless I've completely lost my hearing, Nathan just joined them."
Daisy sighed. “That sounds equally likely to end in reconciliation or a fistfight.”
"With those three?" Clara said dryly. "I'd put money on both."
Daisy laughed. Then she pushed back her chair.
Immediately suspicious, Clara gasped. "Where are you going?"
Daisy rose to her feet. "To eavesdrop."
Clara barked out a laugh. "Well, at least you're honest about it."
"One of us has to be."
Together they crossed into the front room, moving quietly toward the partially opened window near the porch. Neither woman spoke as they stood nearby, both pretending they had arrived there by accident and neither fooling the other for a second.
Outside, the men's voices carried clearly through the partially opened window.
"...sending word home."
Wyatt.
Daisy leaned forward slightly, resting one hand against the windowsill.
"No."
Flint's answer came so quickly that there was no mistaking his meaning.
Wyatt apparently wasn't impressed. "You can't avoid them forever."
"I've done a decent job so far."
A laugh came from Clara beside her.
Even Daisy could hear the flaw in that argument.
"That's your defense?" Wyatt asked. "Really?"
"It worked."
"It worked if your goal was making Ma worry herself sick."
The porch fell quiet.
This silence felt different from the earlier tension at the kitchen table. Less angry. More familiar. Like brothers revisiting an old argument neither of them particularly enjoyed.
When Flint finally spoke again, most of the humor had drained from his voice. "I don't want them seeing me like this."
Daisy's grip tightened against the windowsill.
Wyatt said quietly, "You mean alive?"
A rough breath escaped Flint. "You know what I mean."
For a moment, Daisy forgot about Amos Grady and the confession in the kitchen.
Instead, she found herself thinking about the years in between.
Somehow, she'd always assumed Flint maintained some connection to the Callahans. A letter now and then. An occasional visit. Something. She'd never stopped to consider the alternative. Now she realized how wrong she'd been.
Flint hadn't simply wandered away from the ranch. He'd cut himself off completely.
The realization bothered her. Not because Samuel and Ruth had clearly suffered for it, though they had, but because she suddenly understood how little Flint thought of himself. Somewhere along the way, he'd convinced himself that disappearing was easier than coming home and risking disappointment.
Nathan's voice joined the conversation. "Samuel and Ruth deserve to know you're alive."
"I know."
"Then stop behaving like a wanted outlaw every time somebody mentions writing a letter."
Clara covered her mouth. "That sounds exactly like Nathan."
Daisy smiled.
There was no gentleness in her brother's approach. When Nathan believed he was right, subtlety became the first casualty.
When Flint finally answered, his voice was quieter than before. "So everyone can be disappointed in person?"
The question struck Daisy harder than she expected. He was so full of certainty, as though disappointment was the most natural outcome he could imagine.
For one painful moment, she didn't hear the hardened man who'd worked for Amos Grady. She heard the orphaned boy who had never quite trusted good things to stay. The boy who'd spent years waiting for someone to change their mind about wanting him.
"You idiot," Wyatt said. "Ma and Pa love you. You could ride up tomorrow on the back of a circus elephant, and Pa would still ask if you wanted supper."
Nathan nodded. "He's right."
"That's the worst thing you've ever said to me," Flint muttered.
"Good."
Daisy found herself smiling before she realized it.
The danger surrounding Flint hadn't disappeared. Amos Grady was still out there. The questions raised by Flint's confession remained unanswered. Nothing about their situation had truly improved.
Yet listening to the three men on the porch, she heard something that had been missing all evening. Perhaps no forgiveness or resolution, but family. Messy, stubborn, occasionally infuriating family.
The thought lingered long after the conversation drifted elsewhere.
Eventually, Clara touched her arm. "What are you thinking about?"
Daisy considered the question. "A great many things."
"That's usually a dangerous answer."
A smile tugged at Daisy's mouth. "I'm tired."
"Long day."
"I'm tired of men making decisions for me."
Clara laughed immediately. "I can see as much."
Daisy folded her arms. "Nathan decides what information I should have."
"True."
"Wyatt decides who ought to receive letters."
"Also, true."
"And Flint keeps deciding which truths I can handle."
Clara's laughter only grew. "I had a feeling this was heading somewhere."
For the first time all evening, Daisy felt certain about something.
Everyone around her had been making choices on her behalf. Some of those choices came from love. Others came from fear, guilt, or a misplaced desire to protect her. The reasons hardly mattered anymore.
She was finished accepting it.
Flint could stay. She wasn't cruel enough to send an injured man into danger, especially not one she still cared about far more than she wished.
But things were going to change.
No more half-truths or carefully edited versions of the truth. No more deciding what Daisy Whitmore could bear without bothering to ask her.
Tomorrow, she intended to make that very clear to Flint Callahan.
And this time, he was going to listen.