Halfway home, my phone buzzed.
Mason.
How'd it go?
I pulled over and stared at the screen.
She asked why I didn't show up that night.
A pause. Then,What did you tell her?
Nothing. Same as always.
Another pause.
Maybe it's time to change that.
I stared at the words. Read them again.
Mason didn't understand. If I told Daisy the truth, I'd be throwing Cal under the bus. Destroying the relationship she had with the only family she had left. Making her choose between believing me or believing the man who'd raised her.
I couldn't do that to her. Not again.
I put the phone down and drove home.
The cabin was dark and cold when I got there. I didn't bother with lights and just sat on the couch in the dark, staring at nothing, replaying her face when I'd said some things weren't meant to be.
She'd flinched like I'd hit her.
Because I had. With words instead of fists, but the damage was the same.
I had three or four weeks of seeing her every day, wanting her and lying to her. Three or four weeks of building something with my hands while everything else fell apart.
I dropped my head into my hands and stayed there until the sun came up.
Chapter 6: Daisy
The storm rolled in Thursday night. I'd watched it build all day, dark clouds stacking over the mountains. By the time I got home from the clinic, the wind was whipping through the trees and the sky had turned the color of a bruise.
Cal met me at the door with his jacket on.
"Got called in. Multiple accidents on Skyline Road. Might be gone all night."
"Be careful."
"Always am." He paused at the door, looking back at me. "There's flashlights in the kitchen drawer if the power goes. And Daisy?"
"Yeah?"
"Lock the doors."
He left before I could ask why that felt like more than standard uncle advice.
The cabin felt bigger with him gone. Emptier. I made myself dinner and ate it standing at the counter as I watched lightning split the sky over the mountains. The thunder came seconds later, close enough to rattle the windows.
I loved storms. Always had. There was something cleansing about them, the way they stripped everything down to essentials. Rain and wind and raw power, and you either found shelter or you didn't.
One moment the cabin was bright and warm. The next, darkness. Complete and absolute, broken only by the flicker of lightning outside.