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)
“You could’ve gotten hurt worse,” I say quietly.
His mouth softens. “I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not comforting.”
A short breath of laughter leaves him, low and surprised. “It used to be.”
It used to be easier to laugh with him. It used to be easy to be anything with him.
I tape gauze carefully, my fingers brushing over the hard ridge of tendon in his forearm.
His wrist flexes under my touch. His gaze drops to my hands. Then back to my face.
The air thickens.
I hate that I notice. I hate that my body notices faster than my brain can build a fence around the reaction.
“This whole thing is supposed to be pretend,” I say.
“I know.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I’m sitting here bleeding politely while you boss me around in a bathroom.”
I press a final strip of tape down harder than necessary.
He exhales like I hit a sensitive spot. The sound is quiet. The look he gives me is not. He shifts slightly, and his knee brushes mine. A tiny contact.
My breath stutters like the traitor it is. I step back to give myself space. The sink is behind me. The counter bites into my hips.
Nash stands. Slowly. Like he’s not sure if the movement is allowed. Like he’s not sure if I’m allowed. “Laney,” he says, softer than the night outside.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not trying to—”
“Not this.” I lift my hands, palm out. “Not yet.”
His brow furrows. “Yet?”
The word comes out before I can swallow it.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It might be.”
I stare at him.
He takes a step closer. Not aggressive. Not cornering. Just closing a gap we’ve been pretending doesn’t exist. His hand lifts like he wants to tuck my hair again—and stops an inch short, the restraint so deliberate it hurts to watch. “I’m trying to do this right,” he says. “The mission. The ranch.”
“Then do it right,” I whisper.
His eyes flick to my mouth.
I can feel the almost kiss like lightning building over a field—pressure and heat and that split second before the sky decides.
My heart bangs.
His breath shifts.
We lean—
A knock hits the door.
“Delaney?” Mama calls, brisk with emergency. “Your daddy needs help getting the cattle into the paddock. They’re riled up from all this commotion.”
I close my eyes like I’m bargaining with the universe.
Nash’s jaw tightens. He steps back immediately.
I hate how grateful I am for his control.
“I’ll go,” he says quietly.
Mama opens the door a crack and stops short when she sees how close we were.
Her expression says oh.
Her expression also says not under my roof without a ring.
Nash slides past her like a man who knows how to exit a room without making it a scene. “Be right there, Mr. Coleman.” He’s gone before my pulse can settle.
Mama leans against the frame, crossing her arms. “Bathroom bandaging is a time-honored Texas courting ritual,” she says.
“Mama.”
“I’m kidding.” She is not kidding. “Are you okay?”
I watch Nash through the window as he jogs toward the paddock, rolling up his sleeves, already taking the lead like the ranch is a language he never forgot.
I don’t remember deciding to speak the truth. It just falls out. “I think I might be falling for him.”
Mama’s face softens in a way that makes my throat ache. She steps closer and brushes a hand over my cheek like I’m still eleven and fresh out of the creek. “Sweetheart,” she says gently, “did you ever even get up from the last time you fell for him?”
I blink. My eyes burn. I laugh once, watery and helpless. Because the answer is right there in my chest, carved deep as that old dock post:
N + D—come home.
Outside, the cattle funnel into the paddock with a chorus of snorts and stomps. Nash moves among them calm and commanding, a quiet gravity that steadies the chaos.
I wipe my eyes and square my shoulders.
Maybe I never got up.
Maybe I’ve just been standing very still for years, waiting for the right kind of brave.
And now he’s here.
Different.
So am I.
The ranch is fighting. The town is watching. And my heart?
My heart is about to test every fence I ever built to keep him out.
SIX
NASH
I walk the perimeter twice because once isn’t enough when someone’s trying to bleed a ranch to death a cut at a time.
The night is cool by Texas standards—meaning the air only feels like a warm hand instead of a furnace. The stars are sharp. The horses are restless. The south line hums in my head like an unfinished sentence.
I check the gates, touch every latch, scan the fence posts with a light that doesn’t announce itself. Whoever did this is bold. Familiar. Confident enough to come back after we made noise in town.
Which means they’re either stupid… or they think they’re untouchable. That thought lodges under my skin.
When I finally step inside, the house has gone quiet in the way old homes do when they’re holding their breath. Mr. and Mrs. Coleman have turned in. Delaney’s bedroom door is closed across the hallway, a small rectangle of safety I’m not going to take for granted.