Chapter Fourteen
Flint sat alone on the front porch long after Wyatt and Clara's wagon disappeared down the road.
Evening had settled gently over Cheyenne. Wind stirred the cottonwoods beyond the yard, carrying the scent of damp earth and the promise of more rain before morning. Somewhere down the street, a dog barked once before silence reclaimed the neighborhood.
Normally, Flint appreciated quiet. After years spent around cattle, freight wagons, saloons, and men who talked too much, silence usually felt earned.
Tonight, though, it only gave his thoughts room to wander.
Wyatt's question still echoed in his head. Why didn't you come home?
The answer should have been simple. Instead, it felt tangled up in years of mistakes he couldn't neatly explain.
After Daisy left, home had stopped feeling like home.
Every pasture, every fence line, every familiar trail on the Callahan ranch seemed to carry some reminder of her.
He’d convinced himself he only needed time away.
Then time turned into months, months became years, and somewhere along the way it became easier to keep riding forward than to turn around and face everything he'd abandoned.
None of those explanations sounded any better now than they had around Nathan's kitchen table.
Flint leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees as he stared into the darkening yard.
What bothered him most wasn't Wyatt's anger. Wyatt had every right to be angry. It was the disappointment that lingered beneath it.
For the first time in years, Flint had been forced to see what his disappearance had cost the people who'd raised him. The thought sat heavily in his chest.
The screen door creaked behind him.
He didn't bother turning around. Daisy's footsteps had become familiar enough that he recognized them immediately.
She crossed the porch at her usual pace, careful but confident, moving through the space with the certainty of someone who knew every board beneath her feet.
People often mistook that caution for hesitation.
Flint never had. Daisy approached the world deliberately, not fearfully, and there was a difference.
He stood automatically.
"Careful," he said. "The third board's still sticking."
A smile entered her voice. "I know."
"You haven't been out here since the rain."
"I still know."
His mouth twitched.
Daisy found the chair beside him and rested a hand on the armrest. Flint reached out as though he might steady her.
She paused midway through sitting. “You’re hovering.”
"I'm helping."
Daisy lowered herself smoothly into the chair. "You sound exactly like Nathan."
Flint grimaced as he sat back down. "That may be the cruelest thing anyone's ever said to me."
A quiet laugh escaped her. Then Daisy folded her hands in her lap and said, "I owe you an apology."
Flint glanced toward her. "For Clara?"
"I should have told you I wrote to her." Her voice softened enough that he understood before she finished. "I didn't realize how long it had been."
Flint looked out across the yard.
"When Wyatt came here today..." Daisy sighed. "I didn't know, Flint."
Flint stared out toward the darkening yard. "Most people didn't."
"Why?"
He considered giving her the easier answer. Lying had become second nature over the past few years. It was often simpler than explaining the truth.
Instead, he rubbed a thumb across a rough patch in the porch railing. "After you left, staying got difficult."
Daisy waited.
"I tried for a while. Samuel found work for me. Ruth kept finding excuses to drag me to supper. Wyatt refused to let me mope in peace. They were good to me."
Daisy didn't hesitate. "They love you."
The certainty in her voice tightened something in his chest. He looked away toward the road. "Maybe."
A disapproving sound escaped her. "Maybe?"
Flint smiled faintly. "All right. Fine. They love me."
"There. Was that so difficult?"
"It was awful. I hope you're satisfied."
Daisy laughed, and the sound warmed somewhere beneath his ribs. Flint didn't much like how much he enjoyed hearing it.
He rubbed the back of his neck. "After a while, I started taking jobs farther from the ranch. Freight runs. Cattle drives. Escort work. Anything that kept me moving."
"And eventually Amos."
The path sounded straightforward when reduced to a few sentences. In reality, it had happened so gradually that he hadn't fully realized how far he'd drifted until he was already there.
He left out the lonelier parts. The nights he had spent sleeping in barns because returning to the ranch felt worse than sleeping rough.
The growing conviction that Samuel and Ruth had already done enough for him.
The shame of feeling like an orphan pretending he belonged among people who deserved better than him.
Beside him, Daisy shifted slightly in her chair. "I keep wondering if things would've been different."
Flint knew immediately what she meant, and the answer came before he could soften it. "No."
Daisy turned toward him. "Flint—"
"You left," he said more gently. "That hurt. I'd be lying if I said it didn't. But what happened afterward wasn't because of you. I made my own choices, Daisy. Some good. Plenty bad. Amos Grady wasn't your mistake."
Daisy let out a harsh, pained sound.
"For a while, anger was easier than anything else." He let out a short breath. "Then I got lonely. After that, I started making increasingly poor decisions."
A reluctant smile tugged at Daisy's mouth. "Only after that?"
"Well, there might've been some poor decisions before that, too. I just prefer to think of them as youthful enthusiasm."
She laughed. "You were twenty-eight when Amos hired you."
"Like I said. Youthful."
The conversation drifted away from heavier subjects after that. Neither seemed eager to return to guilt or old wounds, so they settled into easier territory instead.
Clara's remarkable ability to insert herself into situations that had absolutely nothing to do with her.
Wyatt's talent for turning a five-minute story into a half-hour ordeal.
Nathan's unwavering belief that every problem in existence could be solved through a combination of stubbornness, hot tea, and bed rest.
"That's unfair," Daisy protested.
Flint smirked. "Your brother once prescribed bed rest because I sneezed."
"You had a fever."
"I had dust."
Daisy’s smile widened. "Nathan will be delighted to hear your professional medical opinion."
The conversation wandered wherever it pleased after that, following no particular path.
Time seemed to slip by unnoticed. The sky deepened from blue to indigo, and one by one the stars appeared overhead.
Daisy relaxed back into her chair, and Flint realized he'd stopped watching the road and started paying attention only to her voice.
Neither of them mentioned it.
The evening air turned cooler. Daisy rubbed her hands together once, a small movement most people probably wouldn't have noticed.
Flint did. "We should head inside."
She sighed dramatically. "You're becoming as bad as Nathan."
"That's twice you've said that."
"You keep giving me reasons."
"I'll spend the rest of the week recovering from the insult." There was laughter beneath his words.
"Perhaps Nathan can prescribe bed rest."
Flint groaned and, still smiling, pushed himself to his feet to hold the screen door open.
Daisy followed him inside with the easy confidence of someone who knew the porch steps by heart. The doorway was less forgiving. Old houses had a way of developing small hazards that seemed designed specifically to test a person's patience.
Her toe clipped the raised threshold. The stumble happened so quickly that Flint barely had time to think. One moment, she was stepping through the doorway. The next, her balance shifted.
"Daisy."
He caught her before she could fall. One arm wrapped around her waist while the other steadied her shoulders. The force of her momentum carried her against him, leaving barely an inch of space between them.
Neither of them moved.
The house seemed unusually quiet around them. Flint could feel Daisy's hands resting against his chest and the warmth of her body against his. Her breathing was uneven from the stumble, and he was painfully aware that his own wasn't much steadier.
"You all right?" he asked.
His attempt at casualness failed completely. "Yes."
The answer was little more than a whisper. Still, neither of them stepped back.
Flint knew he should release her. The sensible part of him recognized that immediately.
Instead, he found himself looking down at her, noticing details he had spent years trying not to remember: the familiar curve of her mouth, the loose strand of golden hair that had escaped its pins, the softness in her expression whenever she forgot to guard it.
Three years had passed, yet standing this close made it feel as though no time had passed at all.
Slowly, Daisy lifted one hand.
Her fingertips brushed his jaw, and Flint went completely still.
The touch was light enough that she could have pulled away at any moment. There was uncertainty in it, but not fear. It felt more like recognition, as though she were reminding herself that he was truly here and not simply another memory she had carried for too long.
His pulse thudded heavily in his ears.
Daisy's fingers traced upward, following the line of a healing bruise near his cheekbone. The gesture held no trace of pity, and somehow that made it harder to endure. There was only tenderness in her touch, a quiet affection she seemed unaware she was revealing.
Flint swallowed.
For one reckless moment, he imagined turning his head and pressing a kiss against her palm. The temptation arrived so suddenly that it stole his breath.
Then Daisy lowered her hand.
The spell between them didn't vanish entirely, but the moment shifted just enough for reality to find its way back in.
"We should go inside," she whispered.
Flint swallowed and nodded. "Yeah."
Reluctantly, he loosened his hold on her. Daisy stepped back first, putting a small but necessary distance between them. Neither seemed quite willing to look directly at the other.
She turned and headed down the hallway toward her room.
Flint remained where he was.
He listened to her footsteps retreat across the house until the sound disappeared completely behind a closing door. Only then did he let out a slow breath.
The house fell into its usual nighttime quiet around him. A floorboard groaned somewhere overhead. Wind brushed softly against the windows. From outside came the distant rustle of leaves shifting in the darkness.
Eventually, he forced himself to move.
The parlor sofa had become familiar over the past several weeks, but tonight it felt less like a place to sleep and more like a punishment.
He lay down anyway.
Sleep never came.
Every time he closed his eyes, he found himself remembering the feel of Daisy's hand against his face.
The touch had been so gentle, so natural, that it haunted him far more than a kiss might have.
Flint had convinced himself the danger lay in wanting her again.
Tonight, he realized the greater danger was believing she might want him too.
The possibility should have filled him with hope.
Instead, it filled him with dread.
Because for the first time since arriving at Nathan's house, Flint wasn't afraid Daisy might reject him.
He was afraid she wouldn't.
And if she truly opened her heart to him again, he had no idea what he could possibly offer in return. A man hunted by Amos Grady. A man carrying years of bad decisions and regrets. A man who still wasn't certain he deserved the family he'd been given the first time.
Long after the house had gone silent, Flint remained awake, staring into the darkness and wanting something he was increasingly afraid to lose.