Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 43512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
I hate my brain.
I hate my heart.
I especially hate the part of me that still knows his body language like an old song.
“You always did work mad,” he says.
“I’m not mad.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m focused.”
He hums a quiet laugh. “You’re still bad at lying.”
I plant my shovel harder than necessary.
“Careful,” he murmurs. “You’re going to dig to the center of Texas.”
“Maybe I’ll find your common sense down there.”
“Probably buried under your pride.”
I whip a glare at him—and catch the flicker in his eyes that looks like heat restrained by discipline.
We both go still.
There are moments when the past is just a story. And then there are moments when it shows up in the flesh, in the sun, with a belt buckle and a heartbeat, and you realize you never really outran it.
Nash steps closer to adjust the post. His forearm brushes mine. A simple contact. Innocent. The electricity between us is not. He pauses, jaw ticking once like he’s arguing with something internal.
I should step back.
I don’t.
“Delaney,” he says quietly.
“Don’t,” I whisper, and I’m not sure if I mean don’t touch me, don’t look at me like that, or don’t make me remember how hoping for you felt.
His hand comes up anyway—not to my face, not to my waist. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear with a gentleness that feels like a confession.
“May need to practice,” he says, voice rough. “If we’re selling this.”
My breath stutters. I give him a look that’s equal parts warning and surrender. “Practice makes problems,” I say.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “But it also makes it believable.”
Across the yard, one of the ranch hands whistles softly.
Somebody laughs.
The audience is here, whether I like it or not.
I take a step back and force a smile that looks real if you don’t know me well. “Then let’s be believable,” I say.
He studies me for a beat like he can see the tremor under my shininess. “Copy that, sweetheart.”
The word shouldn’t do what it does to me. It should be harmless.
Instead it lands like a warm hand in a cold storm.
We return to work with the kind of careful distance that fools everyone except the two people standing in it.
And while the sun sinks a fraction toward late afternoon, I realize something that makes my stomach go tight.
Saving this ranch is simple compared to surviving this slow, inevitable proximity to Nash Hawthorne.
Because the fence isn’t the only thing that’s going to snap if we keep pulling this hard.
FOUR
NASH
By sundown, Valor Springs has us married with matching porch swings and a joint Costco membership.
I know because Crewe texts me a screenshot of the town Facebook group with the caption: BRO, YOU MOVED FAST.
Mack responds with a GIF of a man fainting.
Sin sends a single skull emoji.
Bank’s message is worse: If you break her heart again, I’ll buy this town and pave your truck.
I stare at my phone with a slow, long blink and decide my brothers are a national security risk.
Delaney sits across the dinner table from me looking like my favorite kind of problem: quiet, guarded, and pretending she doesn’t notice the way her mother keeps smiling into her mashed potatoes like she’s already picking out wedding cake flavors.
Mr. Coleman talks fencing and feed and the weather like we didn’t just detonate the local rumor mill. Mrs. Coleman tells me to eat more brisket like she’s feeding me into compliance. Delaney spears a green bean with unnecessary violence.
This whole arrangement is supposed to be simple.
Lean into it. Sell it. Make me a normal reason to be around her all the time.
Normal is not a word I’ve worn comfortably since the war.
After dinner, Delaney escapes first.
I don’t give her long enough to think she won.
The back porch light throws a soft yellow pool onto the steps; everything beyond it is Texas dark—thick, alive, full of cricket song and the occasional restless shuffle of horses in the paddock. The air smells like mesquite and cooling earth. A breeze tugs at the brim of my hat and I let it. I’ve been hiding under it since I pulled into this ranch.
Delaney stands at the fence line with her arms folded tight, staring out at the pasture like the grass might offer counsel.
“Hey,” I say.
She doesn’t move. “If you’re here to tell me my mom is planning a joint holiday card, I already know.”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it. It feels rusty. “I’d like your mother to not frame me for a crime I didn’t commit.”
“You committed it.” She finally turns a little. “You kissed my temple in public. That was the match. The town is the fireworks.”
“That was tactical.”
“That was reckless.”
“Both can be true.”
She huffs a breath that makes me want to step closer just to hear it again.
I do anyway.
I stop a safe distance away—close enough to talk, far enough not to make this a cage. “I need to apologize,” I say.