Chapter Twenty-Six
Flint couldn’t get Daisy’s laughter out of his head.
Three days had passed since the ride, and still the memory followed him through every hour he tried to fill with work, through every chore he took on behind Nathan’s barn, through every late night when the house settled into quiet and left him with too much room to remember her hand closing around the reins while she trusted him enough to let the horse run.
He remembered the sound more than the sight of her face, because the sound had carried everything she’d spent years trying to bury.
Joy had broken out of her before fear could stop it.
That was what kept troubling him.
Daisy had smiled over the past weeks. She’d teased him over spilled candle wax, scolded him for moving firewood before Nathan cleared him for the labor, and laughed under her breath whenever he managed to offend one of her carefully labeled jars by putting it two inches from where it belonged.
Yet the sound she’d made during the ride had been different. Brighter. Freer. It had made him want a future with a hunger he had no right to carry.
That was the danger.
A man could live through hunger and cold if he kept his feet moving, and Flint knew that because he’d built whole years out of motion, one job leading to another, one wrong turn carrying him farther from the Callahan ranch, one hard lesson teaching him that a man who wanted little had less to lose.
Somewhere along the way, she'd become woven into the ordinary rhythm of his days.
He found himself listening for her footsteps in the morning before he was fully awake.
He knew exactly how much sugar she took in her coffee and where she preferred every stack of labels to sit before sealing a jar.
More troubling still, his thoughts had begun drifting toward things unrelated to survival.
Repairs Nathan had been meaning to make before winter.
The stretch of the back fence that needed reinforcing.
Small concerns that belonged to people planning to remain where they were
It made him imagine staying.
And that was dangerous.
Because men who started imagining a future usually stopped paying enough attention to the present.
By dusk, that wanting had become a restlessness beneath his skin, so Flint left the back step and walked the edge of Nathan’s property while the last light faded over the road.
The house stood behind him with lamplight burning in the kitchen window.
Somewhere inside, Daisy would be moving through her evening routine by memory and sound, her hand brushing the worktable, her fingers finding the shelf pegs Nathan had carved for her, her world held together by order because the world itself had taken sight from her without asking permission.
She had made herself safe here, and Flint had brought danger to her door.
The thought had followed him all afternoon, growing sharper each time he noticed another detail he didn’t like. Fresh marks near the lower fence rail. Hoofprints beside the narrow turn in the road. A rider passing too slowly near noon, then vanishing when Flint stepped outside.
Any one of those things might have meant nothing.
Together, they felt like a hand closing around the house.
A wagon rumbled in from town, its wheels groaning over the ruts while the driver lifted one hand in greeting.
Flint recognized Haskell's youngest boy by his crooked hat and the dreadful whistle he seemed determined to punish the county with.
The wagon rolled past without so much as a glance toward the house, and Flint let it go.
As it disappeared around the bend, another rider approached from the opposite direction.
Flint rested a forearm on the fence rail and watched.
Nothing about the man stood out. His coat was plain, his hat pulled low, and he rode with the easy confidence of someone who belonged on any road in Wyoming.
That, more than anything else, made Flint wary.
Ordinary travelers looked ordinary because they had nothing to hide.
Amos Grady's men looked ordinary because Amos paid them well enough to learn the trick.
The rider drew nearer, his attention apparently fixed on the road ahead. Then, almost imperceptibly, his horse eased its pace as they reached the stretch nearest Nathan's property.
Most people wouldn't have noticed.
Flint did.
Years spent riding for Amos had taught him exactly what a few extra seconds could buy a man. Time to judge distances. Time to count horses. Time to note entrances, exits, and who might be home.
The rider never turned his head toward the house, but Flint caught the slight drift of his gaze as it passed over the kitchen window, the barn, and the narrow path leading around back to Daisy's workshop.
A cold unease settled low in his stomach.
The man wasn't admiring the scenery.
He was studying the property.
Flint remembered doing the same work for Amos, though he’d dressed it up with better excuses then.
He’d ridden past homes while pretending interest in the road ahead, learning which windows stayed open, which doors held strong locks, which women worked alone after supper, and which men kept weapons close enough to matter.
Amos had always preferred information before violence. A man who knew where to strike rarely needed to strike twice.
The rider continued down the road at the same easy pace, gradually disappearing behind the cottonwoods as evening settled over the property.
Flint remained where he was, one arm resting against the fence rail, listening to the fading rhythm of hoofbeats and trying to decide whether his unease was justified or whether recent weeks had simply made him suspicious of everything.
Then Daisy screamed.
The sound ripped across the evening so violently that Flint's entire body reacted before his mind caught up. Every uneasy feeling he'd been carrying since the rider appeared on the road surged back at once, and the pieces fell together with sickening clarity.
The rider slowing near the property. The wagon drawing his attention in the opposite direction. The persistent sense that he was missing part of the picture.
While he'd been standing at the fence watching the road, somebody had approached the house from another direction entirely.
A cold wave of dread swept through him.
Her name tore from his throat as he pushed away from the fence and ran, his boots striking the ground hard enough to jar his healing ribs.
He barely felt the pain. The only thing that mattered was reaching the house as quickly as possible, because the terror in her voice carried none of the irritation or surprise that sometimes accompanied an accident.
That had been unbridled fear.
Pain ripped through his ribs as he vaulted the fence and crossed the yard, but he barely felt it. His boots struck hard ground, then grass, then the packed dirt near the back of the house. The workshop door stood partly open.
Another crash sounded inside.
Flint drew his revolver before he reached the stoop. “Daisy, are you there?”
Her answer came from inside, thin with fear. “Here!”
Flint hit the doorway hard enough to rattle the frame.
The workshop looked as though a storm had torn through it. A shelf hung crooked from the wall. Candle tins had scattered across the floor. A jar of lavender oil had shattered near the worktable, its scent sharp and sweet beneath the heavier smell of wax and lye.
And Daisy stood trapped against the far side of the worktable.
A man stood near Daisy.
The stranger turned as Flint burst through the doorway, but there was no flash of panic in his expression. Instead, he looked at Flint with the calm satisfaction of a man whose work was already finished.
The workshop lay in ruins around him. Shelves had been overturned, candle tins scattered across the floor, and the sharp scent of spilled lavender oil hung in the air. Daisy stood backed against the worktable, one hand gripping a heavy brass candle mold, her face pale but defiant.
For one terrible heartbeat, nobody moved.
The stranger's gaze flicked briefly toward Daisy before returning to Flint.
"So," he said with quiet amusement, "you do run faster for her."
The words hit Flint like a blow.
Before he could answer, the man stepped backward toward the open door.
Flint raised the weapon.
"Don't." The stranger only smiled. "I've seen what I came to see."
Then, with a sudden shove, he sent a narrow shelf crashing into the worktable.
Glass shattered, tins scattered across the floor; Daisy cried out as instinct drove her to shield herself from the falling clutter.
Flint's attention snapped to her for the briefest instant.
It was all the stranger needed.
He slipped through the doorway and vanished into the gathering dusk.
Flint fired as he reached the threshold, the report exploding through the workshop, but the shot struck only the splintering doorframe as the man disappeared outside.
By the time Flint burst onto the stoop, the intruder was already swinging into the saddle of a horse concealed near the cottonwoods.
Another rider emerged from the trees to join him. The scout. So that was it. The wagon had drawn Flint's attention one way, the scout another, while the real work happened behind the house.
Flint fired again, aiming low.
Dirt sprayed beneath the horse's hooves.
The rider ducked instinctively, laughed, a short, ugly sound that carried across the yard, and spurred the horse forward.
Within seconds, both men disappeared into the deepening shadows of the cottonwoods.
Flint took a step after them before pain tore through his ribs, forcing him to stop.
Only then did he turn back toward the workshop.
Toward Daisy.