Chapter 18 Caleb
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Caleb
By the time the sun drags itself over the ridge, I already know I’m in trouble.
Not the usual kind—loose fence wire, a colicky gelding, a feed shipment delayed.
No.
This is the kind of trouble that sits heavy in your bones before your eyes even open.
My joints ache. My head throbs. My breath feels thick, sticky, like trying to wade through mud. And my stomach… well. It isn’t thrilled with me either.
But horses don’t feed themselves, and the ranch doesn’t stop moving because one man feels he swallowed a beehive.
So I swing my legs out of bed.
And immediately regret it.
The room tilts hard to the left, then to the right. I’m on a boat in a storm. I stop moving and brace a hand against the nightstand. Sweat beads down the back of my neck despite the cold morning.
“Not today,” I mutter to absolutely no one.
Maybe it’s exhaustion. Maybe allergies. Maybe Karma is finally sending me the bill for every time I’ve told Boone he looks hellish.
I pull on jeans and a flannel, both heavier than they should be, and make my way down the hall slow enough that even the floorboards seem impatient. The kitchen smells of coffee and cinnamon. Someone baked early, and by someone, I mean Delaney.
Great.
Exactly the person I want to look half dead in front of.
She’s already gone, though. Her coat is missing from the hook, and a few prep bowls are on the counter waiting for later. Boone and Sadie ate and left for school. Silas’s coffee mug is in the sink, which means he left ten minutes late and will swear his alarm “betrayed him.”
I shrug on my jacket and head outside. The cold hits me like a slap. My eyes water immediately.
The barn is waiting. The horses know my footsteps, and I can hear the restless shifting before I even open the doors.
“Alright,” I whisper, rubbing a palm over my face. “Let’s get this done.”
I start with Moose, the big idiot who nudges my shoulder the second I pass his stall.
“You’re fine,” I grumble, filling his hay and water. “Wish I felt half as good.”
He tosses his head and bumps me again in what might be affection or an attempt to knock me over. Hard to tell.
My vision blurs around the edges as I move down the row. Sweat sticks my shirt to my spine. My hands shake when I reach for the grain scoop.
This isn’t good. Even I can admit that. And I don’t enjoy admitting anything that implies I can’t do my job.
Halfway through the morning rounds, my legs decide they’ve had enough of this whole “being legs” thing and start pulling that unreliable, rubbery nonsense.
“Come on,” I tell them. “Just a little longer.”
They do not, in fact, last a little longer.
By the time I get to Tansy’s stall, I’m leaning on the wall just to stay upright. My breath sounds wrong, shallow and uneven, and the barn lights seem too bright, buzzing loud enough to make my teeth ache.
Tansy nuzzles my shoulder gently.
“I know,” I manage. “I’m trying.”
I bend to check her hooves… wrong move. The world flips upside down without warning. One second, I’m crouched. The next, the floor is rushing up at me fast.
Then everything goes black.
I wake to shouting.
Well… not shouting. Voices. Urgent ones. Familiar ones.
“Caleb… Caleb, hey… hey, buddy…”
“Get his head up. No, not like that, use your arm. Damn, Silas…”
My eyelids feel glued shut, but I manage to crack them open. The first thing I see is the rafters. The second is Boone’s face, pale and thunderous, hovered directly over mine. Silas is next to him, kneeling in the straw, shirt half untucked as if he sprinted straight from whatever he was doing.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Silas says, tight with forced humor.
My throat feels raw as sandpaper. “Wha—”
“You passed out,” Boone says flatly.
Which, okay, I gathered.
He presses the back of his hand to my forehead. His palm feels cold. Too cold. Or maybe I’m too hot.
“Damn, Caleb,” he mutters. “You’re burning up.”
“I’m fine.”
Both of them give me the same look. The incredulous one. The one that says, If you weren’t half dead, we’d hit you.
“Can you sit?” Boone asks.
“I can,” I say. “Should I? Probably not.”
Silas snorts. “Still sarcastic. That’s a good sign.”
They haul me up between them. Boone supporting my back, Silas bracing my other side as if we’re staging some very dramatic barn waltz.
My vision swims. My stomach rolls.
“Easy,” Boone says. “Just breathe.”
They walk me toward the tack room. Or drag me. Hard to say. The world keeps pulsing in and out around the edges.
I’m vaguely aware of Silas pulling his phone out. “I’m calling Delaney.”
“No,” I croak.
Boone frowns at me. “Why the hell not?”
Because she’s Delaney.
Because she hasn’t looked at me quite the same since I pushed that conversation too far.
Because the last thing I want is for her to see me this way. Weak and pathetic and shaking hard.
“I don’t need…” My knees buckle mid-sentence. Boone catches me before gravity does.
Silas is already dialing.
Traitor.
Within minutes, the tack room door swings open and Delaney rushes in, hair windblown, cheeks flushed from the cold. She looks… beautiful. Too beautiful for my fever-addled brain.
“What happened?” she demands, dropping to her knees beside me.
“He fainted,” Silas says.
“He’s got a fever,” Boone adds.
“He’s also an idiot,” Silas finishes helpfully.
I glare at him. It lacks force due to the whole I’m dying thing.
Delaney presses her hand to my forehead and inhales sharply. “You’re burning.”
“That’s what I said,” Boone mutters.
I try to sit straighter, to salvage whatever dignity I have left, but the room tilts violently, and Delaney steadies my shoulders.
“Don’t move,” she orders.
Her voice leaves no room for argument.
I shut up.
She looks up at the guys. “Get him into the house. I’ll start a bath and grab medicine.”
“I don’t need—”
She cuts me a look so sharp it could slice through steel. “Caleb. Hush.”
Boone bites back a smirk. Silas outright grins.
“Come on, cowboy,” Silas says, grabbing one of my arms. “Time for the big, strong men to carry you like a Victorian maiden.”
“Silas,” Boone growls.
“What? Tell me he doesn’t have maiden energy right now.”
I try to punch him. My fist gets about four inches before my body decides that’s enough work for one day.
They get me upright again, barely, and begin the slow, humiliating journey toward the house. My boots drag through the dirt. The sunlight stabs my eyes. My entire body is vibrating.
I lose track of time. One minute I’m in the barn. The next, I’m sinking onto the couch while Delaney kneels in front of me with a glass of water and two pills.
“Take these,” she says gently.
I obey. Mostly because she’s looking at me with worry so tight it scrapes against my chest.
“You scared us,” she murmurs.
I shake my head, instantly regretting the movement. “Didn’t mean to.”
“Yeah, people rarely mean to collapse in barns,” Silas says from the kitchen. “It’s more of a spontaneous activity.”
Delaney shoots him a warning glare. He lifts both hands. “Supporting role revoked. Got it.”
She turns back to me. “How long have you been feeling sick?”
“A day.”
“Caleb.”
“Or two.”
“Caleb.”
“Fine,” I mutter. “Three.”
She sighs, but it’s soft. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
Because I’m supposed to be reliable. Because this ranch runs smoother when I’m doing my part. Because I’ve already been enough of a mess lately without adding sick to the list.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” I say before I can stop myself.
Her expression fractures. “You… think you’d bother me?”
“That’s not… I just meant—”
“Caleb.” She leans in closer. “You don’t bother me.”
My insides loosen. Too suddenly.
I close my eyes.
A cool hand slides along my forehead, into my hair. She brushes her fingers there slowly, soothingly. My muscles go boneless.
“You need rest,” she whispers.
“Can’t,” I mumble.
“Why?”
“Work.”
She actually laughs, a soft, disbelieving sound. “You can’t even stand.”
“I stood earlier.”
“And then fell.”
“Details.”
She whispers, “Stubborn mule,” under her breath.
I blink at her, trying to force my brain to cooperate. “Delaney… about—”
She immediately presses a finger to my lips.
“No,” she says firmly. “Not now.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“Caleb.” Her hand shifts, thumb brushing my cheek. The touch is so gentle, my ribs pull tight around it. “You were trying to care. I just… wasn’t ready to be seen.”
“I made it worse.”
“No.” Her voice softens even more. “You didn’t.”
I want to believe her.
I want to memorize the way she’s looking at me. Warm and worried and close enough to breathe in.
“I care,” I whisper before my fogged brain thinks better of it.
Her eyes flicker, a tenderness flashing there before she masks it.
“I know,” she murmurs.
My eyelids grow heavier. My body tilts sideways. She catches my head before it hits the armrest and eases me down, tucking a blanket around my shoulders with careful, capable hands.
“Sleep,” she says.
I try to protest.
Nothing comes out.
Her palm strokes my hair once more, feather light.
“You’re safe,” she whispers. “I’ve got you.”
And just like that, the fight leaves my body.
I sink into the couch, into the warmth, into the scent of her near me.
Into the feeling I’ve been trying so damn hard not to name.
I fall asleep with her fingers still tangled in my hair.