“I run an international antiques business. Daisy applied for a position at my shop in response to a posting—she was the only applicant who caught my attention.” True enough. Not a lie, but far from the truth. Because no one here knew the truth. Not Daisy. Not her mother. Not Chase. And it had to stay that way.
I gave Claire a polite smile. She returned it, too warmly. For a flicker of a second, I wondered if she already knew what I wasn’t saying—or if she simply sensed that with me, safety was never more than an illusion.
“Daisy brings a lot to the table,” I added. “Curiosity. Instinct. Knowledge. Courage.”
The last came out sounding almost like a warning. I felt Daisy’s eyes on me. I hadn’t wanted to say any of this. But I did. Word by reluctant word. And I wondered when the hell I’d lost control.
Daisy, Claire, and I strolled across the wide fields of the ranch. The sun stood high, gilding the landscape in honeyed light. Insects droned; sheep bleated softly, grazing the lush pastures.
Claire stopped at a tall wooden fence. “These are our horses,” she said proudly, pulling a handful of hay from a nearby stack and feeding it over the rails. I watched her stroke a stallion’s neck, gentle and familiar. Then she pressed two carrots into my palm, nodded at Daisy, and pointed to the hay. Daisy stepped forward, offering the grass. A large brown horse nosed close, eating carefully from her hand.
“I’d forgotten how peaceful it is here. Hello, big guy,” she whispered, stroking the animal’s soft head. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught her glancing at me as I fed the dark stallion his carrots.
“Come over here,” Claire called. “I’ll show you the chickens.”
We walked on to the coop. Claire scooped corn kernels from a barrel into a bowl and scattered them across the dirt. The chickens rushed in, pecking furiously. One darted across her foot.
“Watch it, Henrietta!” she scolded.
Daisy laughed. “Did you just call that chicken Henrietta?”
“That’s Henrietta. The one with the brown streak is Berta. The rooster with the red comb is Alfred. The rest have names too, but I usually get them mixed up.”
Daisy shot me a glance, and I couldn’t stop the small smile tugging at my mouth. We wandered on, past the blooming gardens.
“I planted all the fruit trees myself,” Claire told me. Daisy reached up, plucked two cherries, and slipped one into my mouth before eating the other.
“If there’s time, I’ll bake you a cherry pie tomorrow. Are you staying one or two nights?”
“Just one night, Mom. Tomorrow we’re going to Damian’s brother’s in the mountains.”
“That’s exciting. Then I’ll make the pie for breakfast.”
I stood at the fence, watching Claire and Daisy saddle the horses. The sun had dropped lower now, spilling copper light across the pasture. Chase came over and clapped me on the shoulder.
“You could help me with the campfire, Damian.”
“Yes, of course. Give me a moment.”
Chase nodded and moved toward the fire pit. I hung back. Claire swung onto her horse with practiced grace, and Daisy followed her lead. She moved as though she were born to it—fluid, sure, almost part of the animal itself.
I should have looked away. Should have turned my back and left. But I didn’t. I stayed. And I stared at Daisy. The light caught her hair, scattering gold through her strands. Her laughter carried across the air, light as the summer wind. And I hated how it cut into me.
She shone as if I didn’t exist. Maybe that was good. Maybe that would have been my chance to disappear. Instead, I felt that cursed pull in my chest. Not affection. Not even desire. Something darker. Possession. Hunger. A need that ate at my skin like rust.
I wanted her, not as a woman, not as a partner. I wanted her as mine. And I despised myself for it. I wasn’t made to love someone like her. She was light. I was the crack where darkness seeped through.
The longer I looked at her, the more I realized she didn’t see any of it. She truly believed I could be good. She didn’t understand that I had already broken something inside myself to keep her close. I clenched my jaw. I had no control left. Not over what she woke inside me.
By the time I reached the fire pit, Chase was already there with a bundle of dry branches in his arms. Evening draped itself over the land like a settling shadow. The air carried the scent of earth, wood, and the first bite of cold. Without a word, he handed me the fire starter, and together we stacked the wood. The ritual felt almost ordinary—two men building something that would burn. But inside me, something far less ordinary was catching fire. I no longer knew which side of the abyss I stood on.
“I’m really proud of Daisy,” Chase said at last, as the first small flames licked upward. “Even though she isn’t my biological daughter, I see her as mine.”
I fixed my eyes on the flames as they sharpened into life.
“She’s a remarkable woman.”
Chase let out a long breath. “She is. But it hasn’t always been easy, especially when she was a teenager. I often feared she wouldn’t make it—wouldn’t live anything close to a normal life, let alone finish her studies.”
