Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Silas
I’ve already had two cups of coffee and one very stern talking to… from myself.
It went:
Silas, you idiot, maybe don’t maul the sunshiney new chef on the couch where your six-year-old honorary niece wants to build Lego kingdoms.
Did it help?
Not particularly.
The living room is quiet in that hushed, post-dawn way. Boone took Sadie to school already, Caleb’s still on doctor-ordered bed rest, or Delaney ordered, which is scarier, and the house feels too big around me.
I’m half sprawled in the armchair, phone in hand, pretending to read emails while mostly replaying last night.
Green dress. Soft little sounds. The way she’d shaken apart in my hands and then bolted as if the ranch was on fire.
The floorboard outside the doorway creaks.
Showtime.
I school my face into something casual, non-threatening, not at all saying I spent half the night thinking about your thighs, and glance up.
She hovers in the entryway, hair in a messy bun now, makeup gone, back in leggings and an oversized tee with some worn-out band logo. She looks softer. More real. Bare-faced and wide-eyed and very, very determined.
“Hey,” I say. “Morning, honeybee.”
She flinches at the nickname, then rolls her lips together, trying to find courage inside them.
“Can we talk?”
Ah.
There it is.
The “we need to talk” that never means anything good.
“Always,” I say, patting the couch cushion beside me. “Come on. I promise not to bite. Unless asked nicely.”
She gives me a look that’s half exasperated, half flustered, and stays standing, arms crossed tight over her chest.
Okay. Not sitting. That’s fine. That’s normal. People stand all the time.
She clears her throat. “About last night—”
“Ten out of ten,” I say. “Would recommend.”
“Silas.” Her tone sharpens, which, unfairly, only makes her cuter. “I’m serious.”
“I know.” I tip my head, let some of the teasing drain out. “I can be serious. Occasionally. Under supervision.”
She huffs out a breath that might be a laugh if she weren’t so clearly braced for impact. “It was… that was… I shouldn’t have let that happen.”
Not “I didn’t want it.”
Just shouldn’t. Important distinction.
“Okay,” I say slowly, setting my phone on the side table. “You want to call it a mistake?”
Her gaze flicks away. “I… don’t know.”
She sounds frustrated with herself, which I enjoy even less than the distance.
“Delaney.” I lean forward, elbows on my knees. “If you tell me you regret it, I’ll back off. Full stop. No jokes, no flirting, nothing that makes you uncomfortable. That’s not the kind of man I am.”
Her eyes jump back to mine at that, hazel dark and big and a little panicked.
“It’s not that,” she blurts. “I mean, I don’t… I don’t regret… you.” Her cheeks flush a pretty pink. “It’s just… everything.”
I wait. She fumbles for words.
“I’m your employee,” she says. “And Boone’s. And I live here. And my absolute disaster of a past with my old boss and…” She cuts herself off, dragging in a breath. “I can’t do messy again. I can’t.”
She stares at the floor, shoulders tight, waiting for judgment.
Messy.
I know that word. I’ve lived that word. Hell, I’ve been that word for half this town.
I lean back, let out a slow breath.
“Okay. First of all, I might be messy. But I’m at least… eighty percent less terrible than your old boss, right?” I hold up two fingers. “Official statistics.”
A reluctant smile tugs at her mouth. “That’s not how statistics work.”
“Agree to disagree.” I drop the joke, let my voice soften. “Second… I get it. You don’t want to feel trapped. Or like you’ve walked into another situation where you lose everything if one thing goes wrong.”
Her throat works. “Exactly.”
“So this is you calling it off?” I ask gently. “Between us?”
She nods, but it’s hesitant, not decisive.
“I think it has to be. We can’t…” Her hands flutter in the air, searching for a word less incendiary than what we did on that couch. “We can’t do that again.”
“Can’t,” I echo. “Right.”
She blows out a breath, shoulders sagging. Clearly, she expected a fight. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to… lead you on.”
Damn, there’s that phrase.
I stand up, giving her plenty of time to bolt if she wants to. She stays rooted to the spot as I take a couple of steps closer, careful not to crowd her.
“Hey.” I tip my head, try to catch her gaze. “You didn’t lead me on.”
She snorts softly. “I literally climbed into your lap.”
“And I literally asked you every step of the way,” I counter. “You wanted it. I wanted it. Two adults making a choice for one night does not equal ‘you tricked me, you temptress.’”
Her lips twitch. “Temptress?”
“What? It’s a classic.” I shrug. “Point is, you don’t owe me anything you don’t want to give. Not more kisses, not more… handsy couch time, and definitely not guilt you don’t deserve.”
She bites the inside of her cheek, eyes searching my face, looking for a trap. “You’re… taking this very well.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” I say lightly. “My ego is weeping softly in the corner, but he’ll recover.”
She laughs for real, a little startled sound that makes my chest feel too tight.
“Silas.”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you,” she says quietly. “For not being… weird about it.”
I grin. “Oh, I’m absolutely weird. Just not in the ‘I’m owed your body’ way.”
She rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling now, tension easing around her mouth.
“Okay,” she says, straightening a little. “So we’re… friends. Just friends. Professional.”
“Friends,” I agree. “Super professional. Very HR approved.”
Her gaze flicks to my mouth for half a second, traitorous thing that it is. Then to my chest, where my Henley is only half buttoned because I am, tragically, myself.
My grin widens. “Unless you’re going to get distracted by my… overwhelming professionalism.”
Color rushes back into her cheeks. “You’re doing this on purpose.”
“Doing what?”
“Being charming,” she accuses. “It’s confusing.”
I press a hand to my heart. “Delaney Rivers, I’ll have you know this is my natural habitat. I was born like this. The nurses probably rolled their eyes in the delivery room.”
She snorts again, trying not to, and that sound is going to live rent-free in my brain for days.
“Okay.” She backs up a step. She needs the distance to think straight. “Friends. Professional. No more… couch stuff.”
“Got it,” I say. “Last night stays in last night. Unless you need reassurance that you were phenomenal, in which case, my door is always open for compliments.”
“Silas,” she groans, but she’s half laughing, half hiding her face in her hands.
I walk past her toward the kitchen, deliberately casual, and pull open the fridge. “You eaten yet?”
“Um… no.” She sounds thrown by the pivot. “I was going to make some toast and grab coffee, then start on the prep for—”
“Sit,” I say, pointing at the table. “Doctor’s orders.”
“You’re not a doctor.”
“I am a man whose friend fainted in a barn because no one forced him to sit down and eat something while he had the plague,” I point out. “You’ve been running yourself ragged looking after all of us. Let me return the favor without making it a whole thing.”
She hesitates, then slides into a chair. “You really don’t have to—”
“I want to,” I say simply.
That shuts her up faster than any joke.
I whip together scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee. Delaney watches me, chin propped on her hand, eyes tracking my every move.
“You’re good at that.”
“Don’t sound so surprised,” I reply. “I lived on this ranch with Boone and Caleb through our twenties. You think either of them knew how to cook more than grilled cheese and panic pasta before you got here?”
She smiles into her mug. “Panic pasta?”
“Two ingredients,” I say solemnly. “Noodles and despair.”
She laughs again, softer this time, and I slide her plate in front of her, intentionally brushing my fingers over the table instead of her hand. Boundaries. We have them now. And I’m not going to be the first one to stomp all over them.
She digs in. I guess she didn’t realize she was hungry until food appeared.
About three bites in, Boone strides in from outside, boots thudding, hat low over his brow.
He stops short when he sees her, sitting there in a T-shirt from some long-ago festival, curls escaping her bun, eyes sleepy and content.
The man straight-up glitches.
“Morning,” he says gruffly.
“Hey,” she says, and I swear the air shifts.
His gaze skims over Delaney, cataloging details, remaining for half a beat too long on the bruise colored smudges under her eyes.
“You sleep?” he asks.
“Some,” she says. “I’m okay.”
“Hmm.”
It’s basically a Boone monologue.
His gaze flicks to me next. Suspicion. Disapproval. A little bit of “if you corrupt my chef, I will throw you in the horse trough.”
Relax, big guy. Too late on the corruption front.
“We were just talking about the schedule,” I lie smoothly. “And I was forcing her to let me cook for once. You know, before she stages a coup.”
One of his eyebrows twitches. He doesn’t believe me, but doesn’t have proof.
Caleb shuffles in a minute later, wrapped in a hoodie, hair sticking up as if he lost a fight with a pillow. He looks better, less gray around the edges, but still worn.
His eyes land on Delaney. Instantly, his whole face softens.
“Hey,” he says roughly, raspy from sleep. “Did you… eat?”
“She’s eating now,” I say without looking up from the pan. “Doctor Silas has it under control.”
“You’re not—”
“I know,” I cut in. “We’ve been over this.”
Delaney watches the two of them, shoulders curling in, bracing for impact. But it’s not fight or flight I see in her face.
It’s want.
The way her gaze hangs on Boone’s forearms as he shrugs off his jacket. The way her smile tilts a little when Caleb takes the seat opposite her, careful not to jostle her. The way something warm and frightened flickers in her eyes when they both ask, at almost the same time, “You okay?”
Yeah.
She’s not just drawn to me.
That tracks.