“‘You are too small… can you really leave your seed in me?’ — the giantess mocked the lone rancher… but that man of the West ended up giving her a lesson no one saw coming.”

—Yes, little one?

Nami toyed with the edge of the blanket. She seemed to be gathering her courage.

—Can I call you father?

The question traveled across the room and hung in the air.

Talia, from the doorway, held her breath.

Calder didn’t respond immediately because he felt a brutal lump rise from his stomach to his throat. It had been years since he’d heard that word directed at him in any possible sense. And yet, seeing Nami trembling with nerves, he understood that this girl wasn’t asking his permission to say a word. She was offering him a place in her life.

He stroked her black hair with infinite gentleness.

“You’ve been doing it for days now,” she said, barely smiling. “You said it when you held my hand last night. You said it when you fell asleep holding me. All that was missing was the sound.”

Nami’s eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t cry. Instead, she threw herself into his arms with such absolute force that he almost lost his balance. Calder held her as if he were embracing not just a child, but also the part of himself he thought was dead forever.

Talia watched the scene without moving. The morning light fell on her face, and in that expression there was neither jealousy nor fear. Only a silent, profound peace.

“I knew I would choose you,” he said.

Calder looked up and glanced over Nami’s head.

At that moment he understood something with an almost painful clarity: that cabin was no longer the hideout of a lone man. It was the beginning of a family.

That same day, while Nami was napping, Calder went to the foot of the  bed and took out an old wooden box that had been stored away for years. Inside was a faded photograph of Martha. He looked at it for a long time.