The Patron found her past the wide bend in the river in the same spot where she and the Trainer used to fish.
Crouched on her haunches, she wore crude trousers tied at her waist, the fine stitches of her blouse grimy, her hair in a long braid to her waist, strands tousled around her face.
Although she’d grown taller and now had the curves of womanhood, she looked just as she had that season seven years ago. Scanning the trees, he almost expected to find the Trainer, but his daughter was alone.
One thing had changed.
She’d never worn a holster back then, but now had one belted below her waist.
He raised his brows when he saw one of his pistols at her hip. He hadn’t heard the shot when she caught a squirrel, but she was skinning the carcass with one of his daggers. So intent was she on her task she didn’t hear him approach.
Her eyes grew wide when she looked up and her hand slipped, the blade slicing into her wrist.
The Patron leaped off his horse and reached her in two strides. Gripping her arm, he sunk her hand in the water.
The girl resisted, but he held on tight and squeezed her wound to stop the blood flowing into the river.
He brought her hand out of the icy water and pressed his scarf against the side of her wrist, pulling a handkerchief from his breast pocket.
He heard her labored breathing and felt the taut muscles of her arm while tying the bandage around her wrist.
The Patron glanced over, ashamed when he saw the girl pulling as far from him as possible, her eyes narrowed to slits.
It had been years since he last touched her.
“Daughter.”
His voice was hoarse as he ended the silence of seven years.
The girl froze when he addressed her, but the Patron felt her arm give and continued.
“You must know I sent him away because I was trying to protect you.”
Her face clouded over before she scowled and looked away.
“The Horse Trainer.”
“I know who you’re speaking of.”
Her voice startled him.
She’d had the higher pitch of a child the last time the Patron heard her speak. Now her tone was rich and deep, the voice of a woman.
The realization that the silence he gave her was a silence she had returned pierced through him, bringing pain to his heart for the first time in over twenty years.
“I suppose he meant well,” he continued, “but he wasn’t a good influence on you.”
“I beg to differ with you on that.”
“He took you to the Abandoned Valley!”
“No, Papa. I went with him to the Abandoned Valley.”
“Yes. You certainly did.”
The girl looked sharply at him, her expression guarded.
The Patron found no satisfaction in the change, his lips tight as always when he felt his temper rising.
He remembered the reason he came searching for her and reached for the watercolors slung over his shoulder, unrolling them before handing the stack to her.
Her cheeks paled as she flipped through the paintings, but otherwise she was impenetrable. When she met his gaze again, her eyes were empty.
“Why were you going through my things?”
He glanced at the image on top and his hand clenched into a fist.
The Trainer’s features were contorted and heat flared in the Patron’s temples.
“I don’t think that really matters,” he said.
The girl didn’t answer right away, peering at him with one brow cocked.
“I haven’t seen him in years, Papa. Are you now accusing him of seducing a child?”
“That’s not seduction. That’s rape.”
“You’ve lost your mind if you believe that.”
“Then what do you have to say about these?”
His daughter looked to the paintings in her grasp, the corners of her mouth twitching.
“I would say these are fantasy,” she said. “The stuff of dreams.”
She was mocking him.
The Patron heard the scorn in her voice and saw it in her eyes, glaring at him with the look of secrets.
He breathed slowly, determined to keep his calm.
“Do you take me for a fool?” he snapped. “What is your explanation?”
“You must beg my pardon, Papa,” she said, “because I don’t have one.”
Something exploded inside the Patron. Grief and resentment locked in his heart for years catapulted through every fiber of his being. His will was no longer his own.
Watercolors scattered across the ground when the Patron grabbed his daughter and shook her with all his might.
A howl surged through him, desperate to give voice to an agony that was endless. But he wouldn’t let it out, couldn’t let it out. He could only shake this girl who had caused him nothing but anguish.
Somehow, her plaintive cries pierced through his madness until he regained his senses enough to stop.
But the Patron wouldn’t release the girl trembling in his grip and heaving for air. He looked into her eyes and saw the same torment that tore him apart and the same rage.
“Tell me, Papa,” she said, her voice raw. “How many times can a girl fall to her ruin?”
