The town of Durant never changed its mind about the Longmire name. It sat heavy on the street signs, in the way people straightened when they saw Cady walking toward the courthouse, briefcase tucked under her arm like armor. She was back on lawyer business, at least that’s how she framed it. Meetings, filings, a handful of cases that needed attention from someone who knew county lines as well as family ones. She told herself it was work that brought her home. She did not tell herself it was Walt. Or the way grief still lingered around him like dust he couldn’t quite shake off.

Walt thought he understood his daughter. Thought college had scrubbed her clean and law school had finished the job. Thought she’d come back polished, principled, and untouched by the messier parts of living. He watched her from behind his desk, boots planted, hands folded, asking careful questions about her caseload while quietly measuring her for cracks. He didn’t see the tired tightness around her eyes. He didn’t hear the way her voice roughened when she laughed. He certainly didn’t know about the deputy under his command who had been in her life for years now, a fact kept neatly folded and hidden like a document that could ruin everything if filed too soon.

Cady told herself she was fine. She said it to the mirror, to the courthouse clerk, to anyone who looked at her a second too long. It was just a flu. People got sick. The timing was bad, sure, but timing was always bad. She kept working through it, kept her coat buttoned high, kept tissues in every pocket. When Walt asked if she was taking care of herself, she deflected with a question about his eating habits, his sleep, his therapy appointments he pretended were optional. She was here to make sure he was dealing with things appropriately. She refused to notice how the same sentence applied to her.

Night made liars of them both. The house was quiet except for the old sounds it always made, settling and ticking like it remembered better days. Sleep came in shallow stretches, broken apart by heat and chills, by a head so full it felt underwater. Cady’s nose had been useless for days now, and her lungs followed suit, forcing air in sharp, panicked pulls. The coughing came hard and ugly, tearing out of her without warning, the kind that left her gasping like a sickly toddler who didn’t yet know how to breathe right.

The sound cut through the dark, relentless and embarrassing. She pressed a hand over her mouth, eyes watering, already bracing for the lecture she would deny needing. When the coughing finally eased enough for words, she dragged in a breath through her mouth and muttered, “I’m fine. Go back to sleep. It’s just a stupid flu.”