Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Daisy
I had made soup and another apple pie while waiting for Knox to arrive, more out of having something to do with my hands than any real hunger. The house smelled heavenly when Knox knocked and I let him in.
"Hey.” He set his hat on the hook by the door, as if claiming that spot as his.
"Hi." I crossed to the kitchen with a dish towel in my hands.
He followed and put his arms around me from behind. I bristled at first. I had not entirely realized until that moment how wound tight I had been all day.
Then his chin came down to rest on top of my head, and the warmth and scent of him washed over me like a salve. I melted into him too fast. We stood like that for a minute.
"Tell me what happened today," he said finally. "All of it. Don't leave a single detail out."
I sighed and started with Patrick's call. The cold case details, the lack of fingerprints, the warning. Knox listened without interrupting, his arms steady around me.
"Who was he warning you about?"
"I have my suspicions." I left it there for now.
Then I told him about the truck. The dark color, the pacing, the way it had not been behind me when I finally pulled into town.
I kept my voice even, reporting the facts the way my father might have in his journals.
It kept me momentarily sane, removing myself from the equation.
I did not tell him about the note on my windshield yet. Maybe never.
Knox had gone very still behind me, save for the sound of his jaw clicking.
"Did you get a plate number?" He gritted.
"No. And the windows were darkened."
His arms loosened. "Daisy. Look at me." I turned inside the circle of his arms. "Has this happened before?" He chose his words carefully, like he suspected the answer and was giving me the space to say it.
I stared at the ODRR logo on the front of his sweatshirt and debated telling him things I had told no one. Things only my diary and Bruce Brewster knew. There was a sickness in keeping those things hidden. It must have eaten away at me all these years. Hadn't I suffered long enough?
I rolled my shoulders. "I'm going to tell you some things in confidence. But you have to promise me you won't tell anyone."
"I don't think I can promise that. If it's something that could hurt you, I'd go straight to Sheriff Patrick. I'd get the ODRR guys involved, keep watch over you and your sisters.” His eyes held mine. "Because I will never let harm come to you."
I considered that. He was sweet to want to protect me. It might be beyond anyone's control, but I believed he'd try. "These things happened years ago. There's nothing to be done now. Okay?"
I waited for his nod before I continued.
"For about a year before my parents' accident, someone left notes on my windshield when I was in town.
Followed me. Showing up wherever I was. Constantly there.
Watching." I shook my head. "It stopped when I made it stop.
I gave him a reason to leave me alone. But sometimes, when I think about him, I can still feel it.
The back of my neck going up. Not knowing if the car behind me is his or just a car. "
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, you made it stop?”
"I protected myself and my sisters."
"Okay." He brought a hand up and tucked a loose piece of hair back from my face, a deliberate slowdown. "Are you saying you had a stalker? Are you thinking it's happening again?"
"I hope not."
"I need to know who did this to you."
"I'm not prepared to say."
"Why not?"
I shook my head.
"Is he still in Forest Grove?"
"The only people who know are him and his father."
His brows pulled together, working it out. "What the—Trevor Brewster?" He said it too loud.
"Lucky guess."
"You always react when his name comes up." He stepped back, a hand running through his hair. "You're telling me that man stalked you."
I nodded.
"Is he still doing it?"
"I don't know for sure."
"Could he be the one who broke in and took your father's things?"
"I have no idea. Breaking and entering would be more of a Seth Brewster thing.
" I thought of what Ivy had told me—how the congressman pitted his sons against each other, how Seth was always called on for the dirty work while Bruce kept Trevor close, grooming him for politics or the sheriff's seat.
"Trevor's thing is more devious. Mind-fuckery. "
Knox stared at me. "Tell me everything, Daisy."
I braced myself and drew a long breath.
"The year before my parents died, my family was in serious debt.
Bad seasons, borrowed money, numbers that had gotten ahead of my father's ability to manage them — terrifyingly bad. They hid it from my sisters, but I knew. I heard the late-night arguments. I watched them suffer through the physical and mental toll of it, day after day. Dad was diagnosed with an ulcer. He suffered mood swings. All of it.” I pressed my lips together.
Knox's hands tightened on my arms, listening.
"Dad didn't know about the stalking. He hated the Brewsters for plenty of other reasons, especially for Seth and Ivy.
But I'd been too afraid to say anything about what Trevor had been doing.
Each note got worse. If I talked to a guy, he'd call me a slut.
If I wore something too revealing, he'd leave nasty words about it.
" I pushed through more. "Once my car wouldn't start and he was right there, offering a ride. I didn’t take it.
I should have told Dad. That's one of many regrets I carry. "
"You were young," Knox said. Not an excuse, just the fact of it.
“One day, I came home and saw Trevor’s car in the drive, heard arguing on the porch. He told my father he could make the debt disappear. All Dad had to do was—" I swallowed. "Get me to marry him."
"The fuck." Knox stepped back in the small kitchen, hands fisted at his sides.
I kept my voice even and watched his chest rise and fall.
"Dad yelled at him. Said the day he let a Brewster marry his daughter, he might as well be—be dead." The words clogged in my throat. "Trevor said... that can be arranged."
"Oh, God." Knox came back to me, hands on my arms. "No."
"I burst in. I don't know what I was thinking.
I told Trevor I'd do it — that if it cleared the family debt, I would marry him.
I was willing to sacrifice myself to that man to save my family.
" The tears had started and I didn't stop them.
"Dad threw him off the property. Told me I was never to agree to something like that again.
That we'd find another way. But Trevor didn't let up, and it wasn't long after that —"
I broke.
Knox pulled me in.
"That your parents had the accident?" he murmured against my hair.
I could only nod against his chest, and I stayed there until the worst of the sobs slowed down enough for me to breathe.
"To this day I carry guilt,” I finally said.
"Wondering if their accident was really an accident.
Did Trevor run them off the road? Did I play a part in it?
But there was never any evidence of foul play that the deputies could find.
" I exhaled slowly. "I should have gone to the sheriff and told him everything about Trevor, but our world turned upside down overnight.
I was numb, and I had to be strong for my sisters. "
“It’s understandable. No one could fault you for trying to deal with it all,” he urged.
"After we lost them, the life insurance money didn't go far. Ivy ran away with Seth. All the while Trevor was breathing down my neck. His threats had escalated. He'd hurt my sisters if I didn't comply with his marriage plan.”
"Fucking asshole," Knox seethed.
"I had to do something, but marrying him was not it.
" I pulled back enough to look at him. "What Trevor didn't know was that I'd been keeping a diary the same way Dad kept his journals.
Every incident. Every note. Photographs of Trevor leaving them on my car.
Dates, times, everything. I went to the congressman's office and showed Bruce Brewster enough of it to make it clear what I had. I made sure he understood there was more, and that if anything ever happened to me or my sisters, the proof would find its way to the authorities. His son would be exposed for the monster he was.” I shook my head. “I told him to control his son."
"Whether Bruce knew the extent of his son's obsession before that day or not, he understood leverage.
He understood what it would cost him. So the truce held.
Trevor backed off. The congressman kept him on a short leash and away from Forest Grove.
" I exhaled slowly. "I got to where I could stop looking over my shoulder.
Until now. This election keeps bringing Trevor back to town, and I don't like it. "
"Neither do I." Knox leaned against the counter and crossed his arms..
"It wasn't long after I visited the congressman that Chris Magnus came to town, looking for property for the ODRR.
The bank told him about our place. We met, and I couldn't help but like him and what he was building.
He made an offer to buy most of the property, leaving us the house and the orchard.
I didn't hesitate. I honestly think Dad was watching from Heaven and somehow sent Chris to us when we needed saving. "
I swiped more tears away. He pulled me in against his chest again, one hand at the back of my head, and held on.
"You've carried all of this by yourself," he said. "All these years."
I nodded. My face buried in his shoulder and, at last, I cried in the way I hadn't allowed myself to cry in a very long time, from somewhere deep and old that had been waiting longer than I'd known.
He held me through all of it.
When it slowed, I stayed where I was, his hand moving in long, slow passes across my back.
"Now you don't have to," he said. "I'll carry it with you."
His thumb moved carefully across my cheekbones, clearing the trail of tears. He gazed upon me with the expression of a man who had been handed something he understood the full weight of and intended to hold it right.
"You're not carrying one more day of this alone anymore.” He tucked me under his chin, but there was more I needed to say.
"The whole town read about us today. That damn Gossip Gal,” I said.
"I know. Sage filled me in."
"Knox. I need to ask you something and I need you not to make it into a bigger conversation than it has to be right now."
He waited.
"Can we keep this quiet, whatever we're doing, our being together? I know how that sounds, but I’m not ready for the whole town to have an opinion about my life.
What Trevor did, it turned me into someone who doesn't always like being exposed. I prefer my privacy. And with everything going on, not knowing who to trust.” I stopped short.
Tried again. "I trust you. Please, until things settle. Keep us private."
He studied me with the full weight of his attention, which was considerable. "Now you want to set rules after we've already started."
"I know." My voice came out smaller than I intended. "I'm sorry. I told you from the start it wouldn't be fair to you."
"Daisy." His thumb traced along my jaw. "You don't have to be sorry. Just don't make the secrecy permanent. Because I know what this is between us, even if you don't yet, and I'm not going to pretend I don't." He held my eyes. "I'm going to stay and be the man you need."
The man I need?” You already are."
Eventually we ate, though I had no real appetite. Knox cleared the bowls, and cleaned up. While I suddenly had a headache.
"Come on," he said, and carried me upstairs and drew me a bath. The lavender steam rose up while I sat on the edge of the tub and tried to remember how to be a normal person.
He washed my hair like he understood that some things could only be fixed with time. I closed my eyes closed, the tension I'd been carrying in my shoulders finally left.
After, I fell asleep with my head on his chest, the sound of his heartbeat the most reliable thing in my world.
Somewhere in the middle of the night I startled from a bad dream I couldn't remember.
He was still there.
He was always there for me.