Chapter 13 #2
When he turns back to me, we’re closer than I realized.
Too close.
The pantry is small. Two people in here makes it feel even smaller. The space between us is shrinking down to inches. I can see the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, the line of his throat, the way his next breath lifts his chest.
He smells of soap and hay. Cedar. Sun. This house.
His gaze catches mine. Holds.
The atmosphere hums between us, low and electric.
My brain helpfully supplies: This is a terrible idea.
My body does not care.
“I’m sorry I picked it up without asking,” he says. “The jar. I didn’t know what it was.”
I lick my lips, suddenly aware of my own heartbeat in my mouth. “I… overreacted.”
“You didn’t. You were protecting something that mattered to you.”
His eyes flick down to my mouth.
It’s the tiniest movement. A split-second glance. Anyone else might miss it. But I feel it like a touch.
Heat floods my cheeks.
“I know what it’s like to have people treat your whole life like it’s theirs to inspect. I don’t want to be one of them.”
The words slide under my skin and sink deep.
And now I can’t stop looking at his mouth.
It’s a good mouth. Firm, serious. I know it smiles, rarely, but when it does, it hits hard as the first warm day after winter.
Stop.
I shift my weight, but instead of easing the tension, it just makes me more aware of how close we are. My shoulder almost brushes his chest when I breathe. If I reach out, I could touch the front of his shirt, feel the heat of him through the cotton, feel the hard plane of muscle underneath.
I don’t reach out.
Barely.
His hand flexes at his side, fingers curling, fighting the same instinct.
“Boone,” I whisper, not even sure what I’m trying to say.
“Yeah?” he murmurs.
“You’re my boss,” I choke the words out. “This is… complicated.”
His jaw works.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “It is.”
He doesn’t move away.
Neither do I.
Everything feels charged, the split second before a storm breaks. Every nerve in my body is suddenly tuned to him. His breath, the subtle rise and fall of his chest, the way his eyes keep dropping to my mouth and dragging back up.
I’m aware of my own body in a way I haven’t been in months. The flutter in my stomach, the tight pull low in my belly, the way my skin feels too hot and too sensitive everywhere at once.
This is Boone, I think wildly. Sadie’s dad. The man who hired you. The man who trusts you with his kid. The man who runs this ranch you’re supposed to make a new life on.
He is off limits.
Off.
Limits.
But he’s standing inches from me in a tiny pantry, looking at me like I’m fragile and fierce and worth holding onto, and the part of me that’s been starving for that look doesn’t give a damn about limits.
His hand lifts just a little. Like he might touch my arm. My cheek. My hair. He hesitates, fingers hovering in the space between us.
“Delaney,” he says again, and this time it’s rougher, scraped over gravel. “I—”
“Daddy!”
We jerk apart as if we’ve been slapped.
I stumble back into a shelf. A box of cereal rattles, nearly topples. Boone moves fast, planting a palm on the edge to steady it, the other hand braced briefly against my hip to keep me from falling.
That brief contact, his palm hot and big through the thin fabric of my shirt, the solid muscle of his forearm pinning me gently in place, sends a bolt of heat through me so intense I forget how to inhale.
Then his hands vanish. He steps out of the pantry like it’s on fire, shoulders squared, expression snapping back into something more neutral.
I press myself to the shelves, heart thundering.
“Daddy, where are you?” Sadie calls again from the hall, feet thumping against the floor. “Moose stepped on my sock, and now it’s crunchy!”
Boone scrubs a hand over his face once, then steps fully into the doorway. “In here, Sadie.”
I take a couple of quick, shaky breaths and follow, trying to arrange my features so they don’t scream I was about to make a Very Questionable Choice With Your Father.
Sadie barrels into the kitchen in mismatched pajamas, hair wild, one sock indeed suspiciously stiff. She stops in front of Boone, holding up her foot like it’s a crime scene.
“I had a dream Pickle stole my shoes,” she announces solemnly. “And now Moose murdered my sock.”
Boone looks down at her foot like it’s the most serious thing he’s dealt with all week. “That does sound like premeditated sock violence.”
“The animals are rising up.”
Sadie finally notices me and lights up. “Miss Delaney! Moose is a villain.”
“I always suspected,” I tell her. “He has shifty eyes.”
She giggles and hops closer to me, then stops, nose wrinkling. “You smell of cinnamon.”
I glance at Boone, grateful for something normal to latch onto.
“Cinnamon sugar test batch,” I hiss quickly. “For tomorrow. I was… taste testing.”
Boone does not look at me.
At all.
He keeps his attention locked on Sadie like she’s the only person in the room. His ears, though, are a little pink.
“Come on, kiddo,” he declares, scooping her up. “Let’s deal with the sock massacre.”
She wraps her arms around his neck, already launching into a detailed analysis of her dream. “Pickle wanted my shoes so he could go to school and learn math. He said he needs to know numbers so he can count bones and meat and how many times he barks.”
“That tracks.”
He heads down the hallway, Sadie chattering happily on his shoulder.
He doesn’t look back.
The second they disappear around the corner, I sag against the counter, the cool edge digging into my spine. My knees feel suspiciously wobbly. I press a hand flat over my heart. It’s still racing.
The kitchen is quiet again.
The jar of fortunes sits where I left it, one slip still crumpled in my palm.
Keep going. You haven’t even begun to live yet.
I stare at the pantry door, where Boone stood so close I could feel his breath on my lips.
This is impossible.
This is forbidden.
This is the exact kind of mess I swore I would never walk into again.
And yet…