Chapter Twenty-Five
The letter arrived hidden among routine business, tucked between an invoice and a sheet covered in supply costs that Julian insisted required immediate attention whenever he carried them through the door.
He'd appeared shortly after breakfast with an armful of ledgers balanced against his hip, talking his way through figures before he'd even crossed the threshold.
By the time he'd finished discussing the Sheridan House order, he'd already convinced himself three separate shortages threatened catastrophe, then vanished again before anyone could point out the world remained intact.
Daisy hadn't given the paperwork much thought until later.
The workshop was quiet around her while she sorted documents into neat stacks across the worktable. Her fingertips moved across familiar textures, smooth invoices, rough shipping manifests, wax seals, folded receipts, until they brushed paper that felt different.
She paused.
A smile tugged at her lips before she'd even unfolded them.
Clara.
The loops and angles pressed into the page carried their own signature. Clara always wrote with a heavy hand, each letter leaving a faint ridge that lingered long after the ink dried.
Carefully, Daisy opened the fold.
Lavender drifted upward.
The scent settled around her like an old memory, bringing dusty summer roads, creaking porch swings, and evenings spent listening to laughter carry across the ranch yard while supper cooled on the windowsill.
Her throat grew tight.
"Daisy?"
She started so hard that the paper slipped beneath her fingers.
Flint leaned against the doorway. "I see my timing remains spectacular."
"Must you always appear out of thin air?"
"I wear boots that weigh more than most children."
"You've clearly trained them."
A grin touched his voice. "I'll accept that as a compliment." He crossed the workshop, each step familiar now. The floorboards announced him long before he reached her side. "Letter from home?"
"Clara."
His easy humor softened. "How are they?"
Daisy traced the edge of the page. "I don't know yet."
Flint glanced at the folded sheets. "How do you usually read her letters?"
"Slowly." A smile tugged her mouth. "Clara presses hard when she writes. I can follow some of the shapes with my fingers."
"Can you?"
"Not enough to know whether she's bringing good news or trouble."
Before she could unfold the pages, Flint spoke again. "Would you like me to read it?"
The question caught her off guard.
Many people rushed to help before she asked. Others avoided offering altogether, afraid of offending her. Flint somehow managed to land in the middle, where neither pity nor awkwardness had any place.
Slowly, she held the letter toward him.
His fingers brushed hers as he accepted it. "Let's see what Clara has to say."
The paper crackled softly while he unfolded the pages.
A heartbeat later, Clara's voice seemed to fill the workshop.
Flint read about Wyatt nearly drowning himself in a water trough after insisting he could repair a gate without assistance.
He delivered Samuel's latest predictions of ranch-wide disaster with enough dry skepticism that Daisy almost laughed aloud.
When he reached the part about Ruth secretly distributing extra slices of pie while conducting a dramatic investigation into their disappearance, she heard the smile hiding beneath every word.
By the time he reached the second page, Daisy found herself smiling openly.
She could picture them all as clearly as if she'd stood among them.
Wyatt charging ahead with more confidence than caution. Samuel grumbling his way through every season. Ruth pretending innocence so enthusiastically that nobody believed a word of it.
Daisy smiled wider with every paragraph.
As Flint continued reading, the ranch slowly unfolded around her.
Clara's words carried dusty summer roads and long evenings beneath open skies.
She could almost hear the familiar clatter of dishes after supper and the distant murmur of conversation drifting across the yard while daylight faded into dusk.
The memories returned with surprising ease, bringing a homesickness she'd spent years teaching herself to ignore.
By the time Flint reached the final page, the ache had settled deep inside her.
The easy rhythm of his reading faltered. "What is it?"
Paper shifted softly beneath his fingers.
When he answered, the humor that had colored his voice throughout the letter was gone. "Wyatt's worried."
"Wyatt's worried."
The amusement left Rose’s voice. "Worried about what?"
He drew a slow breath. "You."
Daisy felt the shift more than she saw it. "Samuel's convinced Wyatt is hiding something from him. Ruth says the two of them have been whispering often enough to make anyone suspicious. Neither of them believes everything's fine, and they're beginning to worry."
Flint lowered the letter and rested it against the table, his thumb lingering along the folded edge as silence settled across the workshop.
Daisy sat quietly, her fingertips drifting over the paper in her lap. The lavender scent Clara always favored still clung to the pages, though it seemed fainter now than it had a few minutes earlier. "They're worried."
Flint exhaled. "They have reason to be."
Daisy turned her head toward him. "But most of all, they miss you."
She heard the scrape of his palm against his jaw, a familiar habit whenever thoughts weighed heavily on him. "They miss the man they remember."
The self-condemnation woven through the remark made her stomach twist. "Samuel and Ruth aren't that easily frightened off."
A huff escaped him. "You've always thought better of me than I deserved."
Daisy resisted the urge to argue. Flint had spent years collecting reasons to doubt his own worth, and no conversation was going to untangle them all. "They still love you."
He didn't answer right away. When he finally spoke, his voice had gone rough around the edges. "I've thought about going to see them."
The admission surprised her enough that she straightened. "You have?"
"More than once." She listened carefully while he shifted his weight against the worktable.
"Every time the idea gets far enough to feel real, I start imagining Amos learning where they've been hiding me all these years.
I picture his men riding onto the ranch, asking questions, looking around, and suddenly it stops feeling worth the risk. "
"But they'd want to see you again.” She swallowed hard. "I miss them. I miss the ranch, too."
After a beat, Flint broke the silence. "What do you miss most?"
At first, dozens of memories rushed forward.
The answer came before she could stop it. "Riding."
Pain followed close behind.
She hadn't spoken that truth aloud in years. Nathan had never heard it. In fact, she'd guarded it carefully from everyone. Admitting how much she missed horses felt dangerously close to admitting how much had been taken from her.
"You haven't ridden since the fever?"
She shook her head. "No."
Her fingers curled against the edge of the letter.
Memories surfaced with painful clarity: leather reins in her hands, wind against her face, the steady rhythm of hooves carrying her across open ground.
She remembered every detail as though no time had passed at all.
The quiet lingered long enough for Daisy to assume the conversation had run its course.
Then Flint spoke. "We could change that."
She turned her head toward him. The certainty in his voice caught her attention immediately. "Change what?"
"The riding."
The letter slipped slightly beneath her fingers. For once, she couldn't think of a reply.
Flint continued before she found one. "We've got horses. We've got open country. Seems wasteful letting both sit around unused."
A startled laugh escaped her. "You make it sound like repairing a loose fence."
"I've repaired fences."
"I know."
"They complain less."
She nodded. "Ah, the sympathy I've always wanted."
"We could go riding, Daisy."
She shook her head.
"I'm serious. Do you want to?"
The question struck her harder than any argument could have. Because he wasn't asking whether it was practical or whether it could be done. He wasn't listing obstacles or offering solutions. He was simply asking what she wanted.
And the answer rose immediately.
Yes.
She missed the freedom of it. More than that, she missed the confidence that had once come with it. The feeling that her body was capable of carrying her wherever she wished to go.
"Maybe."
A low, warm laugh escaped Flint. "That's a terrible attempt at hiding a yes."
"I didn't say yes."
"Daisy, whenever you want something, you start by arguing with yourself."
She hated how accurate that sounded.
The silence that followed felt different from the one before. The heaviness had eased, leaving behind something lighter and far more unsettling.
Hope.
It had slipped quietly into the room and settled between them, persistent enough that she couldn't ignore it.
And for the first time in years, Daisy found herself wondering what it might feel like to sit in a saddle again.
***
An hour later, Daisy stood beside one of Nathan's horses..
The gelding shifted beneath her hand, powerful muscles rolling beneath a sleek coat warmed by the afternoon sun.
His breath brushed across her sleeve in steady bursts, carrying the scent of hay and leather and horseflesh that she hadn't experienced this closely in years.
Her stomach churned.
Standing beside the horse, she was struck by its size. Somehow, it seemed much larger than she remembered, all powerful muscles and towering height.
Flint stood several feet away, close enough to help if she needed him, far enough that she never felt crowded.
He'd spent the walk from the workshop talking about completely unrelated matters, rambling through a story involving Nathan, a broken fence gate, and a chicken that apparently held strong opinions about property boundaries.
Daisy suspected Flint had invented at least half the story.
Possibly all of it.