Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Daisy remained exactly where he had left her.
The brass candle mold still rested in her hand, although her grip looked far less certain than it had a few moments earlier.
Her face had lost what little color remained, and her attention stayed fixed on the open doorway as she listened for sounds Flint could no longer hear.
Since sight could offer her no answers, she searched for them through every other sense available to her.
The sight hollowed him out.
"He touched me."
Flint stopped moving. "What do you mean?"
Daisy lowered the hand holding the candle mold and drew a careful breath.
"He grabbed my arm. He was standing by the shelves when I came in. I thought something had fallen.” Her breath shook.
“I asked whether Nathan had decided to haunt my workshop early, since he usually waits until breakfast to irritate me.”
Flint felt sick.
"I heard him move after that. Until then, I thought I'd imagined the noise."
Flint's gaze drifted across the workshop, taking in the overturned crate, the shattered jar, and the candle tins scattered across the floor.
Daisy had walked into the room expecting an ordinary evening and found a stranger waiting among the shelves she navigated every day by memory and touch.
While she'd been trying to identify a misplaced sound, the man had been studying her movements and learning exactly how vulnerable she was.
The thought filled him with a fury so deep it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
"He caught my arm before I reached the table," Daisy said. She swallowed hard before continuing. "I knew if I let him keep hold of me..." She shook her head. "I grabbed the first thing I could reach and swung."
Flint looked at the heavy brass tool still resting in her hand.
One corner had been dented during the struggle, and a faint smear of blood marked the edge.
A rush of conflicting emotions hit him all at once. The sight horrified him because the injury proved how close the man had come to her. At the same time, a fierce pride rose through him because Daisy had refused to stand helplessly while somebody threatened her.
A reluctant smile touched his mouth. "Remind me never to make an enemy of you."
Daisy's laugh emerged unsteady, though the familiar spark of her humor survived beneath the fear. "I'd recommend that. My reputation for violence appears to be growing."
Flint picked his way across the workshop, careful to avoid the broken glass scattered across the floor. "Are you hurt?"
"No."
He stopped a few feet away and studied her face. Daisy stood straighter when she felt cornered by concern, as though stubbornness might accomplish what comfort couldn't.
"Really?"
A faint sigh escaped her. "I'm all right as far as serious injuries go. My arm will probably complain about his manners tomorrow, but that's the extent of the damage."
The attempt at humor failed to disguise the strain in her voice.
Flint lifted a hand, intending to check her arm for himself, yet the gesture died before he reached her.
The thought of another man's fingers wrapped around her wrist lingered too vividly in his mind, and he couldn't shake the image long enough to touch her without wondering how frightened she'd been.
“What did he say?” Flint asked.
Daisy’s face changed. Her fingers curled against the edge of the table. “He said my name.”
Flint went still. The room seemed to shrink around him. “He knew your name?”
She nodded. “He said, ‘Daisy Whitmore.’ Like he was checking whether he had the right person.” She swallowed. “Then he said, ‘Tell Flint we’re tired of waiting.’”
"Anything else?" he asked, though he already knew her silence held more than she'd shared.
Daisy ran her fingertips lightly along the edge of the worktable. The gesture looked unconscious, yet Flint recognized it as one of the ways she steadied herself when a memory threatened to pull her somewhere she didn't want to go.
When she finally spoke, her voice sounded thinner than before. "He said Amos wondered whether you'd run faster for a blind woman than you did for yourself."
Flint stared at the shattered glass scattered across the floor.
Amos had always possessed a talent for discovering the weakness a person guarded most carefully and turning it into a weapon.
Flint had seen him ruin livelihoods over smaller grievances than this.
He had watched families bend beneath pressure that began with a threat and ended with a warning nobody could misunderstand.
Until now, those memories belonged to another life.
This felt different.
Amos hadn't chosen Daisy at random. He had learned enough about her to understand exactly where the deepest hurt lived, and he had used that knowledge within minutes of meeting her.
The cruelty of it left Flint feeling hollow.
Amos had found him.
Far worse, Amos had found Daisy. And if a man like Amos had learned how much she mattered, he would never stop looking for ways to use that knowledge.
The slam of the front door echoed through the house, followed almost immediately by Nathan calling Daisy's name with enough urgency to strip every trace of his usual composure from the sound.
"In here," Daisy answered.
A rapid succession of footsteps crossed the kitchen, and Nathan appeared in the workshop doorway carrying his medical bag.
The sight that greeted him seemed to stop him mid-stride.
His gaze swept across the damaged room, taking in the shattered jar, the overturned crate, the open back door, Flint's revolver, and finally Daisy herself.
The habitual impatience he carried through most days vanished so completely that Flint felt its absence.
"What happened?"
Nathan didn't wait for an answer. He crossed the room and reached Daisy's side, allowing her to find him rather than immediately taking hold of her.
It was a small thing, though Flint noticed it all the same.
Nathan had spent years learning how to help his sister without making her feel helpless, and he managed it with a grace Flint still hadn't mastered.
"Are you hurt?" Nathan asked.
"I'm frightened, angry, and currently standing in a puddle of lavender oil," Daisy replied. "As introductions to an evening go, I've certainly experienced better ones."
Nathan's expression never changed.
The humor faded. "A man came into the workshop."
Nathan's face lost what little color remained. "Did he hurt you?"
Daisy hesitated before answering, and that hesitation told him everything.
"Where?" Nathan asked quietly.
"My arm."
She lifted her sleeve without further argument.
Nathan examined the bruising beginning to darken her skin, and Flint watched the struggle play across his features as the physician fought a losing battle with the brother.
The doctor assessed the injury with professional care.
The brother looked ready to drag every man involved into the street and settle the matter personally.
When Nathan finally raised his head, his gaze landed squarely on Flint. "He was inside?"
"Yes."
Nathan glanced around the workshop as though seeing it differently than he had an hour earlier. "A man walked into your workshop while you were alone."
"I noticed," Daisy said, a little more sharply than she intended. "I was there."
Under ordinary circumstances, the remark would've earned a reluctant smile from him. Tonight, it only deepened the strain lining his face. "You shouldn't have been."
"Would you prefer I start bringing an armed escort every time I make soap?"
"I'd prefer criminals stopped appearing in places they don't belong."
The answer came so quickly that it silenced them both.
Nathan glanced toward the open doorway. "So this was planned."
"Yes."