Chapter 4 #2
I close my office door behind me and lean back against it for a second. Letting the quiet settle in a way the hallway never allows, and it should be enough. This space, this routine, this version of me that knows exactly how to handle other people’s problems without letting them take root.
But he doesn’t stay out of my head.
Jace.
Even thinking his name feels like opening a door I’d rather keep shut, but it’s already there, already working its way through everything I’m trying to focus on. The more I try to push it aside, the clearer it gets.
I press my fingers lightly against my temple, exhaling slowly. Those are the parts that make this harder than it should be. The parts that don’t match the version of him I held onto for five years. The one that made it easier to stay away, easier to justify doing this on my own.
Reckless men don’t soften like that.
They don’t crouch down and make themselves smaller so a kid doesn’t feel overwhelmed.
They don’t let a little girl wrap herself around them without pulling back.
They don’t look at her like she matters before they even understand what she is to them.
And that’s the problem.
Maybe he’s not that man anymore…
I don’t know who he is.
I push away from the door and move to my desk, setting my bag down and flipping open my planner. I force myself into something concrete, something structured, but even as I scan the names and times, my mind drifts right back to the ranch.
To the way he said he wasn’t going anywhere.
To the way it didn’t sound like a line.
I don’t trust that.
Not yet.
Words are easy in a moment like that, when everything is new and unexpected and charged with emotion. I’ve seen what happens when that fades, when real life settles in and things get complicated.
People leave.
People change their minds.
People decide it’s too much.
My grip tightens slightly on the edge of the desk, grounding myself in the solid feel of it. “Not happening,” I mutter under my breath, more to myself than anything. I can’t afford to build anything on what I saw yesterday, no matter how real it felt in the moment.
Hadley deserves consistency, not potential.
She deserves something that holds.
And I’m not risking that on a man whose life revolves around eight seconds on the back of a bull, no matter how steady he looked standing in that yard.
The thought settles in, firm and familiar, something I can stand on, and I let it, even as something quieter underneath it refuses to fully go away.
I can’t shake the way she looked at him.
Or the way he looked at her.
And that’s the part that keeps slipping through the cracks, the part that makes this harder than I want it to be.
If he means it…
Then everything I’ve built to keep her safe is about to be tested.
And I don’t know if I’m ready for that.
By the time I pick Hadley up that afternoon, she’s already halfway through a story before I’ve even signed her out, her words tumbling over each other like she’s been saving them all day and finally found the right place to let them go.
“He has a horse,” she tells me as soon as she reaches me, grabbing my hand and tugging me toward the door like we’re late for something important.
“A big one, not a pony, but I think I could ride it if he helped me, and he said someday might be soon, and he has brothers and they’re all uncles, and one of them makes bad food. ”
I blink down at her, trying to keep up. “That’s… a lot of information.”
She nods like that’s exactly the point. “I didn’t get to tell you all of it yet.”
“Clearly,” I say, pushing open the door and guiding her out into the late afternoon sun. My grip is steady even as my mind catches on one part of that sentence and refuses to let go.
Someday might be soon.
I don’t react to it, not outwardly. I’m not about to turn this into something it isn’t in front of her, but it settles in anyway. Right next to everything else I’m still trying to sort through.
“And he said I could watch them eat cookies,” she continues, not missing a beat, swinging our joined hands as we walk. “But I already had one, so I told him I’d make sure they didn’t eat all of them without me, and he said that was a good job.”
“Did he?” I ask, keeping my tone light even though there’s a part of me that notices every single thing she’s choosing to repeat.
She nods enthusiastically. “He said I was good at it.”
“Guarding cookies?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, completely serious. “It’s important.”
I huff out a small laugh despite myself. “I can see that.”
We reach the car, and I help her climb in. Buckling her seatbelt while she keeps talking. Her voice softer now but no less focused.
“And he knows about horses and fences and he wasn’t mad when I called him Daddy,” she adds, like she’s checking something off a list she’s been building in her head.
My hands still for a fraction of a second at that, the word hitting differently coming from her now that we’re not at the ranch. That moment where everything felt too big to fully process.
“He didn’t look mad?” I ask carefully.
She shakes her head. “No. He looked like he was thinking.”
That lands in a way I don’t expect.
Thinking.
I close her door of the car gently and walk around to the driver’s side, giving myself those few seconds to pull everything back into place before I get in.
“Did you like him?” I ask once we’re both settled, keeping my voice even, neutral, like the answer doesn’t matter more than anything else right now.
Hadley doesn’t hesitate. “Yeah,” she says simply. “He’s mine.”
I glance over at her, at the certainty in her expression, the same certainty she had when she walked right up to him. Something in my chest tightens in a way that feels a lot like pressure building where I don’t want it to.
“He’s not just yours,” I say gently, choosing my words with care. “He’s his own person. We’re still figuring things out.”
She considers that for a second, then shrugs in a way that tells me she’s already decided her version makes more sense. “Okay,” she says, which isn’t agreement so much as acknowledgment. She then leans back in her seat like the conversation is settled on her end.
I start the car and pull out of the lot, the quiet that follows feeling heavier than it should. She’s said more in five minutes than I’ve been able to sort through in a day.
“He said he wasn’t going anywhere,” she adds after a minute, her voice softer now, like she’s sharing something important.
My grip tightens slightly on the steering wheel, and I keep my eyes on the road. “People say a lot of things,” I reply, not harsh, just honest. I need that line to stay clear for both of us.
“He didn’t sound like that,” she says, just as quiet, but with that same certainty that makes it hard to dismiss.
I let out a slow breath. Arguing with her isn’t the point, and shutting her down won’t change what she felt standing there with him.
“Maybe,” I allow it. It seems the only answer that doesn’t box us into something we can’t take back.
She seems satisfied with that, turning her attention to the window as the town passes by, and for a few minutes the car settles into a comfortable kind of quiet.
But my mind doesn’t follow it.
Every word she just said, every small detail she chose to hold onto, keeps circling back to the same place.
Not what he said.
Not what I think.
But what she believes.
And that’s the part that matters most.
If she’s already attached…
Then I don’t get the luxury of being wrong about him.
By the time we get home, I’ve already decided what I need to do, even if I don’t like it.
Distance.
Not shutting him out completely, not yet. That wouldn’t be fair to Hadley and it wouldn’t be fair to the situation I started, but space, boundaries, something that keeps this from moving faster than I can keep up with.
“Go wash up, honey,” I tell her as we step inside, keeping my tone light, steady, like everything is exactly as it should be. “Dinner in a bit.”
She nods, already halfway to the bathroom before I finish the sentence. Her mind clearly still somewhere between horses and cookies and the man she’s already decided belongs to her.
I set my keys down and lean against the counter for a second, letting the quiet of the house settle in around me again, but it doesn’t feel the same as it did before. And now there’s something else threaded through it, something I can’t quite ignore.
Him.
The way he looked at her.
The way he said he wasn’t going anywhere.
My mom steps into the kitchen behind. I jump slightly, "you scared me."
I noticed, she says. "You seem deep in thought."
I push away from the counter and move toward the sink, rinsing my hands even though they don’t need it, just to have something to do, something that feels normal. If I stand still too long, I’m going to start questioning decisions I can’t afford to second-guess now.
“We take it slow,” I murmur under my breath, but my mom hears me. Like saying it out loud will lock it into place. “We keep things simple. No rushing, no assumptions.”
"That’s the only way this works." My mom's says with her words of advice.
For her.
"And for you."
I dry my hands and glance toward the hallway where Hadley disappeared, then back toward the window over the sink, the late afternoon light stretching long across the yard outside, everything calm, quiet, exactly the way I need it to be right now. My mom beside me like she is holding me up.
Something catches my attention, just at the edge of my vision, and I pause, my gaze shifting slightly to focus.
A truck.
Parked across the street.
It’s not close enough to be obvious, not pulled right up to the house, but far enough that it shouldn’t be sitting there without a reason, angled just enough that I can’t make out the driver clearly through the windshield.
My breath stills for a second, every instinct I have sharpening all at once.
Maybe it’s nothing.
Small town.
People stop.
People wait.
But something about it doesn’t feel right.
The way it’s been sitting there.
The way it hasn’t moved since I noticed it.
The way I can’t quite shake the feeling that it was already there when we pulled in.
I straighten slowly, my hand bracing lightly against the counter as I keep my gaze on it, trying to decide if I’m overreacting or if this is something I need to pay attention to.
Mom looks out the window. "I don't recognize that truck, it's probably nothing."
I drift away from thinking about it. My thoughts take over again.
Yesterday was supposed to be about one thing.
Introducing Hadley to her father.
But as I stand there watching that truck, something cold settles low in my stomach, a quiet warning I don’t ignore.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned…
It’s that nothing ever stays simple for long.
And whatever this is…
It’s not random.