He nodded. Reached over and squeezed my hand.
"I'll be right here. However long it takes."
I leaned across the console and kissed him. Then I got out of the truck and walked toward the cabin.
***
Cal was in the kitchen when I came through the door. He looked up from the sandwich he was making, stooping when he saw my face.
"Daisy?" He set down the knife. "What's wrong?"
I stood in the doorway, my heart pounding, all the words I'd rehearsed tangling in my throat.
"I know," I said. "About Knox. About what you did."
Cal went still. For a long moment, neither of us moved.
"He told you." It wasn't a question.
"Yes." I stepped into the kitchen, keeping the island between us. "He told me everything. The ultimatum. The threats. The choice you forced him to make."
Cal's jaw tightened. He turned away, bracing his hands on the counter, staring out the window at nothing.
"I was protecting you."
"From what?" My voice cracked. "From being happy? From being with someone who loved me?"
"From throwing your life away." He turned back to face me, and I saw the old conviction in his eyes. The certainty that he'd done the right thing. "You were twenty years old, Daisy. You had your whole future ahead of you. And Knox Parker was a dead end. A kid with a record and no prospects, who would have dragged you down into his mess."
"That wasn't your decision to make."
"Someone had to make it." His voice was hard and unapologetic. "Your mother was sick. Your father was useless. I was the only one looking out for you, and I saw where thatrelationship was heading. You would have stayed for him. Given up school, given up everything, to be with a boy who couldn't give you anything but trouble."
"You don't know that."
"I do know that." He stepped closer, and I saw the pain beneath his certainty. The love that had driven him to make an impossible choice. "Because I know you. You're loyal to a fault. You would have sacrificed everything for him, and he knew it. That's why he walked away. Because I made him see what staying would cost you."
"He walked away because you threatened him." Tears burned my eyes. "You held his future over his head and gave him an impossible choice. That's not protection, Cal. That's control."
"It's the same thing." His voice dropped. "When you love someone, you do whatever it takes to keep them safe. Even if they hate you for it."
I knew those words. I heard the echo of Knox in them. The same twisted logic that had driven him to walk away.
"You were both wrong," I said quietly. "Both of you. Making choices for me and deciding what was best without asking what I wanted."
"What you wanted would have ruined your life."
"You don't know that." I wiped my eyes, anger rising through the hurt. "You made an assumption based on who Knox was at twenty-one. A kid with a chip on his shoulder and nothing to lose. But that's not who he is anymore. He's spent eight years becoming someone different. Someone better. And he did it because he wanted to be worthy of me, even though he never thought he'd get another chance."
Cal was quiet for a long moment.
"I've seen the change in him. Over the years. I know he's not the same kid."
"Then why didn't you tell me?" I demanded. "When I came back, when you saw me broken from a relationship with a man whodidactually did ruin my life, why didn't you say something?"
Cal flinched. "What are you talking about?"
"Garrett." The name tasted bitter in my mouth. "The man you approved of. The safe choice. The one with the degree and the good job and the five-year plan. He spent four years making me feel worthless. Criticizing my body. Isolating me from my friends. Cheating on me while telling me I was paranoid for asking questions."