Chapter 15
DAISY
Felix is already talking as he pulls onto the track. He plucks my hat from my lap, and tosses it into the back seat, not missing a beat.
I know I shouldn’t look back. I do anyway.
The orchard is still lit, the string lights swaying in the apple trees, warm and gold against the dark. Wyatt is standing exactly where I left him. Hat low, hands in his pockets, not moving. Just standing there like a man who has nowhere he needs to be.
And then I see the blue dress.
Shelby. Moving toward him from the direction of the tent.
My chest goes numb as I face forward and inhale slowly through my nose.
Felix talks the entire drive. About the flight.
About the rental car, which is an Audi, because of course it’s an Audi.
About the traffic out of Bozeman, and the GPS losing signal on the county road, and how he almost hit a deer, which he describes with the exaggerated outrage of a man who has never encountered wildlife outside of a David Attenborough documentary.
I nod in the right places. Make the right sounds.
My body is in the passenger seat of a rental car that smells like new leather and airport coffee, but the rest of me is still standing in an orchard with string lights in the branches and a man’s hand on my face and the whole world narrowed down to the sound of my name in his mouth.
I press my fingers to my cheek. The skin is cool now. His hand isn’t there anymore.
But I can still feel it.
“Babe?”
I blink. Felix’s glancing at me from the driver’s seat with that half-smile he does when he thinks I’m being spacey. “You okay? You’ve been quiet since we left.”
“Sorry. Long night.” My voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. Someone who didn’t just have her entire world rearranged by a whisper in the dark. “The fundraiser was a lot.”
“Yeah, I could tell. That whole tent thing looked pretty intense.” He reaches over and squeezes my knee. “Who was the cowboy?”
My stomach drops, and I turn toward the window before my face can give me away.
“What?”
“The guy. In the orchard. Tall, hat, looked like he’d been carved out of a mountain.” Felix shrugs one shoulder. “You two seemed pretty deep in conversation.”
He says it lightly. Of course he does. Because it hasn’t occurred to Felix that a man like Wyatt Hartley could be worth taking seriously.
“That’s Wyatt. He owns the ranch I’m writing about.” The words come out steady in the same careful, civil voice I’ve been using since the break-up. “He was just checking on me after the auction.”
“Nice of him.” Felix turns back to the road. Satisfied. Subject closed.
And there it is. The same patient dismissal he gave me over risotto three weeks ago, when I told him we were done and his response was to hold my hand as he reminded me that he still has power over me.
He only sees a woman he can still manage. He doesn’t see who I really am.
Not my work, not my ambition, not the things that are truly important to me. He sees the woman who showed up to his galas and laughed at his stories and fit neatly into the life he’d already planned. Everything else—everything that makes me me—he just waited for it to pass.
He’s still waiting.
At least the car’s nice. Very comfortable leather for an emotional crisis.
The attempt at humor falls flat. Even inside my own head, it falls flat.
* * *
The cabin is dark when we pull up. Felix kills the engine and the silence rushes in, sudden and enormous, filling the car like a flash flood.
He turns to me with a look that says three weeks of patience, a plane ticket and a rental Audi, and now he’d like to know what his investment is buying him. The same way he approaches everything. Effort in, result out.
“Finally.” He unbuckles his seatbelt and leans across the console. “Are you ready to be sensible about this yet, babe?”
I put my hand on his chest, stopping him from closing the distance.
“Felix. We need to talk.”
He sits back in his seat, his smile faltering. Just at the corners, a slight rearrangement of his features as his brain recalibrates.
“That’s never a good sentence.”
“No,” I quietly confirm. “It’s not.”
When I slip out of the car, I open the back door and lift my hat off the back seat. Felix follows me inside the cabin.
I turn on the lamp by the bed, dropping my hat on the bedpost. Felix slides his hands into his pockets as he takes the place in. His eyes land on the brass bed frame, the patchwork quilt, the small desk covered in my notes and laptop and the stack of county records I’ve been combing through.
He doesn’t see any of it. He’s waiting for an opening.
“This is… cozy.” He shrugs.
The numbness from the car is wearing off and in its place a sharp clarity descends.
“How did you find me, Felix? At the orchard.”
“Find My Friends, babe.” He states it without hesitation, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.
“You shared your location with me months ago. Just checked when I landed in Bozeman to see where you were. Saw you were at some orchard instead of the ranch, so I drove straight there. Figured I’d surprise you. ”
A location share I forgot to revoke three weeks ago. Or didn’t, because every interaction with Felix since then has been about not lighting the fuse.
He didn’t need to call. He knew where I was and in his mind, those are the same thing. Three weeks of managing this man for the sake of my career, and I’m coming to realize the price is higher than I’m willing to pay.
“Felix. Sit down.”
But he doesn’t sit. Instead, he leans against the counter and folds his arms. “Okay.” His voice drips with patience. “Talk to me, Daisy.”
“You shouldn’t have flown out.”
His lip kicks up on one side. “I came because you sounded like you needed me.”
“No.” I shake my head. “I specifically told you not to come.”
He tilts his head. “You said no because you were trying to be strong. That’s how I knew it was the right call.”
“I broke up with you three weeks ago, Felix.” The words come out flat.
He exhales. “We took a step back, babe. You needed space.” Then he gestures around the cabin, disbelief etched across his face. “I gave you space. I thought you’d be grateful.”
I don’t even attempt to stop my jaw from unhinging at his utter audacity.
“Babe, look at me.” He steps closer, his voice coaxing. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You wrap up this piece, come back home, and we’ll forget all about this little rough patch, okay?”
I blink once, twice, then, “No.”
His smile dims as he recoils slightly. “What do you—”
“I’m not wrapping up. And I’m not forgetting any of it.
” My voice is stronger now, and I stand my full five feet tall as I continue, “Three weeks ago, I told you we were done. That we could still be friends, and you smiled at me before your reply ensured that I could never be friends with someone like you.”
Felix’s voice cools. “Be careful what you say next, Daisy. You don’t want me telling Dad you’ve gone off the rails out here. Never know who he might tell.”
I throw my hands in the air. “And there it is. An unveiled threat at last.”
“It’s not a threat.” He stares down at me, lifting a dark eyebrow. “It’s a reality.”
Pressing my lips together, I give him my back and reach for my hat off the bedpost.
“Here’s what’s going to happen now, Felix. You’re going to fly home in the morning. There won’t be anything said to your father, or to Glen, about anything relating to me. Ever.”
He huffs a laugh. “Yeah? Or what?”
I pivot to face him, grabbing the files from the desk as I do.
“Or I’ll write a different article. One about a marketing director who tracks his ex through her phone.
About a bully who leveraged twenty years of Saturday golf to keep a leash on a woman who didn’t want him. And I won’t be shy about naming names.”
His forehead is puckered, eyes narrowed to slits, and all pretense has evaporated now when he grits, “You wouldn’t.”
Slowly, I slide all the files into my backpack, and place it at my feet before scooping up my laptop to face him again.
“You have a name in Denver, Felix.” I fold my laptop against my chest and stare down my nose at him. “I have a byline. And the connections to use it. You’d do well not to mistake kindness for weakness moving forward.”
Felix holds up his index finger as his mouth opens, then closes. I slide my laptop into my backpack, toss it over one shoulder, and walk past him, my hat dangling from my right hand, without another glance. “I’ll give you the cabin tonight, because I was raised right.”
Then I close the door behind me.
* * *
The main house is dark when I climb the porch steps. No light in any window, no truck out back. I sit on the top step with my things at my feet, mascara smudged and my hat in my lap, and I wait.
Resting my forehead on my knees, I try to figure out what comes next. The night stretches on until eventually, headlights sweep up the drive. June jumps down out of the truck after killing the engine, sees me on the steps, and crosses to the porch without a word.
“Tea?” She plucks my bag from the ground, and I follow.
“Please.”
We move inside the house, June flicking on lights as we go until we reach the kitchen.
She gestures for me to take a seat at the island, and sets my bag on the other end.
I drop my hat on top of the bag as I watch her move around the kitchen with quiet efficiency.
She doesn’t ask what happened. She just makes tea, sets it in front of me and slides into the chair opposite mine.
We sit in silence for a while. The kitchen clock ticks. The old house settles around us with its familiar creaks and sighs, and the chamomile is warm between my hands, and for a minute I just breathe.
“Is the spare room available?” I ask finally, my voice smaller than I want it to be.
June wraps both hands around her mug. “I don’t have any of the rooms made up, honey.” She takes a sip. “Wyatt’s room is free, though. He’s staying out tonight.”
Staying out.
The words land softly, but my chest aches all the same. Staying out.
Of course he is.
“I can’t sleep in Wyatt’s room.” The protest comes out reflexively. “That’s… No. The couch is fine.”
“The couch is decades old and has a spring that’ll put a hole in your kidney.” June stands, and her tone shifts into the one that I’ve learned means the discussion is over. “Sheets are clean. He’s not using it. You need sleep.”
I open my mouth to argue.
“Daisy.” Her voice is gentle, but there’s iron underneath. “It’s a bed. That’s all it is.”
She’s right. It’s a bed. In a room. In a house where I am a guest.
It’s fine. I’m fine.
I follow June up the stairs, my hat clenched in my hand as my bag bumps against my hip with each step. The hallway is dark and quiet, the kind of deep rural silence that you forget exists when you live in a city. June stops at a door near the end of the hall and pushes it open.
“We’ll talk in the morning if you want.” She squeezes my arm. “Or not. Whatever you need.”
Then she’s gone, her wool socks silent on the hardwood, and I’m standing alone in the doorway of Wyatt Hartley’s bedroom.
It’s a simple room.
Clean. Spare. A bed with a dark quilt, a nightstand with a reading lamp and a battered copy of something by Louis L’Amour.
A wooden dresser with a belt coiled on top.
Boots lined up by the closet door. A window that looks out over the valley, the curtains half-open, the moonlight painting a pale stripe across the floorboards.
No clutter. No excess. Everything in its place, everything functional. It is so completely, thoroughly Wyatt that my throat aches.
I step inside and close the door behind me. Then I look down at my dress with a heavy sigh. My pajamas are in the cabin. With Felix.
Because of course they are.
A flannel hangs on the hook on the back of the door. It’s Wyatt’s blue-and-gray check, well-worn and soft from a hundred washes. He was wearing it the day I arrived, sleeves rolled to his elbows.
I slip it off the hook before I can talk myself out of it, lean against the door, and press it to my chest for a moment, simply breathing. His room smells just like him, warmth and cedar.
Deciding to change quickly, I pull my dress over my head and toss it on the dresser before tugging the flannel on. It falls past my thighs, the sleeves hanging well beyond my fingertips. The collar is loose enough to slip over one shoulder, drowning me completely.
I don’t care. It’s warm and soft and it smells like him and I hate myself a little bit for how much comfort that brings me right now.
I crawl into his bed to find the sheets cool and the pillow smelling like cedar. When I pull the quilt up to my chin, I crack. I press my face into the pillow and let out a breath that turns into a sob I wasn’t expecting.
Don’t. Don’t you dare. You are fine. You are a grown woman who owned her shit and you are fine.
But I’m not fine.
I’m lying in Wyatt Hartley’s bed wearing his shirt, and he’s out there somewhere—with Shelby, probably—because I got into a car with another man and made it look like none of it mattered.
He didn’t come home.
The thought circles and lands, heavy as a stone. He texted June to say he was staying out. On a Friday night. After the fundraiser.
And through the rear window of Felix’s rental car, I saw Shelby Reynolds walking toward him in that blue dress.
I didn’t wait to see what happened next. I faced forward.
Because I already knew.
Of course he went back inside with her. Why wouldn’t he? I walked away. I left him standing there and handed him every reason to believe I didn’t mean a single second of it.
And Wyatt Hartley is not the kind of man who stands in the dark waiting for a woman he thinks is taken.
I roll onto my side and pull the quilt tighter, but the spiral keeps turning.
Don’t call me that if you don’t mean it.
I said that. In the dark, with his hand on my face and his breath warm against my skin, I asked him not to take it back. And I’ll never know what he would have said, because Felix’s headlights came through the trees before either of us could find out.
My eyes burn. I press my face harder into the pillow, into the cedar and soap and him, and the dry voice in my head goes very, very quiet.
Seemingly, it doesn’t have a punchline for this.
I pull the collar of his shirt up over my nose and breathe in.
Wyatt Hartley didn’t say a single word in that orchard that told me how he felt. And I walked away without asking. And now I’m lying in his bed in his shirt with absolutely no way of knowing.
What a journalist I am. Noticing things is literally my job.
Somehow, I missed everything.