Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Boone
My phone starts buzzing before the sun’s even up. Not the alarm. Sadie usually beats that by ten minutes anyway. This is the other kind of buzzing. The kind that means trouble.
I swipe at the nightstand until my hand finds the phone. The bright screen blinds me.
Coyote Glen Community Spirit (No Drama) – 27 new tags
84 comments on a post you’re mentioned in.
Arlo Westbrook commented: Yikes, buddy.
What the hell?
I hate that damn Facebook group. If it were a person, I’d ban it from the town… or at the very least, the ranch.
I tap the first notification, and the second the post loads, I know exactly whose work this is.
Dottie.
She’s uploaded an article about Delaney. She’s in her chef whites, smiling enthusiastically.
Then, headline after headline scrolls by.
Comments swarm.
Did she REALLY stalk her old boss?
There’s no way she broke up a MARRIAGE?
Should’ve checked her references.
My jaw locks so tight it aches.
When I first hired her, I knew she’d left something behind. I assumed burnout. Long hours, a brutal kitchen, maybe a toxic boss… Lord knows chefs chew through stress like they’re trying to prove something to the devil. Wanting a quieter life made sense.
Not this.
Not the kind of allegations that twist your stomach and make old wounds start whispering again.
I drag a hand down my face.
Stalking?
An affair?
No.
Doesn’t track.
Not with the woman who tucks Sadie’s hair behind her ear with soft hands.
Not with the woman who apologizes when she bumps into the damn counter.
Not with the woman who flinches when someone raises their voice, even if it isn’t at her.
Delaney is steady. Quiet. Scared sometimes, yeah, but she’s got a backbone. She works hard, keeps her promises, and shows up when it matters.
She’s not the type to blow up a kitchen.
She’s not the type to stalk anyone.
She’s not the type to…
I stop myself before the next thought finishes forming.
Because the truth is, I don’t know what type she used to be.
And I hate that.
I hate that part of me still remembers how it feels to think you knew someone.
To trust them.
To believe them.
I hate that some rusted-out instinct in me sees the word affair and immediately lights up.
Marissa’s voice flickers through my head:
“You’re imagining things, Boone.”
I was.
And I wasn’t.
I never found out whether my suspicions were true. In the end, it didn’t matter—Marissa left anyway, without caring about the mess she left behind.
I shut the phone off again.
It doesn’t help.
Because now I’m not just angry at Dottie.
I’m angry at myself for letting the past get its claws into me.
For letting doubt fog things up.
For letting the first punch I throw be at myself.
Delaney isn’t Marissa.
But part of me, some stupid, bruised part that I never fully scraped out, reacts as if she could be.
“Daddy?”
Her voice saves me.
Sadie’s in the doorway, hair sticking six different ways, blinking fast as a sleepy little owl.
I sit up straighter. “Hey, darling.”
She crawls into my lap before I can blink, warm and small and calming.
“You look grumpy,” she observes, poking my cheek with ruthless accuracy.
“I’m fine,” I lie, because if I start telling the truth right now, I won’t know where to stop.
She hums. Noncommittal. Kid can see through me.
“Can Delaney braid my hair today?” she asks, yawning into my shirt.
A muscle jumps in my jaw.
Shit, I need to act normally. Be a dad.
“Yeah. We’ll ask her.”
Sadie grins.
The drive should feel normal.
Sadie chatters the whole way. About her art project, about Micah’s new shoes, about how she hopes today’s snack isn’t “the sad applesauce.” Her voice is bright, a lifeline I hold onto with both hands.
But my grip on the wheel is too tight.
My shoulders locked.
Every laugh she gives me is a tiny mercy I don’t deserve.
We pull into the drop-off lane. Kids spill out of minivans. Confetti in every direction. Loud, insane, oblivious to the way the world can tilt overnight.
“Bye, Daddy!” Sadie blows me a kiss, already halfway out the door, backpack bouncing.
“See you later, Sadie,” I say, but I sound far off, as if the voice belongs to someone else.
She disappears into the building.
I’m about to pull away, already planning how to keep my face straight when I walk into the ranch, when movement catches my eye.
Principal Jenks steps out of the doorway, but not with her casual “Good morning, Mr. Taylor” wave.
No, this is the other one.
The serious one. The “We need to talk” wave.
My stomach drops.
Here is the fallout. The goddamn Facebook post already seeped into the school. Someone complained. Someone made assumptions about Sadie. About me. About Delaney.
Of course they did.
I put the truck in park, jaw tight enough to crack a tooth, and follow her inside.
Her office is warm, tidy, full of framed quotes about kindness that suddenly seem to be threats.
I sit, fold my hands, and brace myself for the hit.
“Alright,” I mutter. “Let’s hear it.”
“This is about Sadie.”
Huh? Not Facebook? Not gossip? What the hell?
My whole body tightens.
“I wanted to inform you about an incident.” Principal Jenks sounds calm and professional—the tone people use when they’re about to drop a bomb. “Micah overheard Eli Spence making some unkind remarks.”
Of course it’s Eli. Carol’s son couldn’t hurt a fly physically, but verbally? Kid learned from the best.
“What kind of things?”
Jenks hesitates.
Never a good sign.
“He told Sadie she ‘wasn’t wanted,’ and that ‘if she was, her mom would’ve stayed.’ And he said it loud enough that other kids heard.”
My grip on the chair goes white-knuckled. I don’t even realize I stood until I feel the edge of the desk dig into my hip.
“He said that to her?” The words scrape out of my throat.
“She didn’t report it,” Jenks adds gently. “Micah did. He defended her.”
Good kid. I’ll buy him a horse someday. Or a puppy. Something.
“I’m going to speak to Carol about this…”
“I don’t think that’s the best idea.”
I whip my gaze to Principal Jenks so fast my neck cracks.
“Excuse me?”
She doesn’t flinch. She’s known me since I was twelve and punching lockers to prove they couldn't punch back.
“I understand your instinct,” she says carefully, threading her fingers together on the desk. “But approaching Carol directly is… volatile. She tends to escalate conflict, not resolve it.”
That’s the nicest possible way to say Carol Spence is a gasoline puddle with a matchbook purse.
“I don’t care about her reaction,” I grit out. “I care about my daughter.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m telling you to let me handle this.” Her voice softens just a notch. “You going after Carol is what she wants. It gives her attention. It gives her righteousness. It gives her an audience.”
I bare my teeth in something that isn’t a smile. “I’m not giving her a goddamn thing. I’m making sure she understands my kid is off limits.”
“I agree,” Jenks says. “But there’s a difference between protecting Sadie… and creating a spectacle Sadie will have to deal with afterward.”
Because kids talk. Parents talk. And Carol weaponizes both.
I drag a hand over my face. The room feels too small, the walls are closing in on a pressure valve I’ve been dealing with since the day Marissa left.
“She’s six,” I say quietly. “She’s six, and he told her she wasn’t wanted.”
My voice cracks on the last word. I hate that. Hate it more than the buzzing in my pocket or the headlines still crawling under my skin.
“Boone,” Jenks says, leaning forward now. “I will address Eli’s behavior. Personally. I’ve already called him in this morning. And his mother.” She pauses. “Though I expect the conversation with Carol will be… lengthier.”
My jaw ticks. “She’ll blame Sadie.”
“She’ll try,” Jenks corrects. “But I won’t let her.”
I force myself to breathe. Once. Twice. The kind of inhale they tell you to take at the doctor’s office, but never works.
“So Sadie doesn’t know you are informing me about this?”
Jenks shakes her head. “No. Micah was the one who reported it. Sadie didn’t want to upset you.”
My kid didn’t want to upset me, and that hurts worse than anything Eli said.
“Okay,” I whisper. “Okay. Thank you for telling me.”
She nods, kind but firm. “I’ll keep you updated. And Boone…?” She waits until I meet her eyes. “Sadie is loved. She’s supported. And she’s exceptionally resilient. This won’t break her.”
I swallow hard. “Yeah,” I say. “But I damn sure won’t let it repeat.”
When I step outside the office, the hall looks blurry around the edges.
Not from tears, those would require the part of me that still cracks open easily.
No, this blur comes from the pressure behind my eyes, the one that says you should have been there, even though I can’t follow her into every classroom.
I get back in the truck and sit there staring at the steering wheel, waiting for the answer to raising a daughter in a world that sometimes feels designed to cut her knees out from under her.
It doesn’t offer one.
It just sits there. Same as me.
The phone buzzes again.
Another notification.
Another tag.
Another message from a world that wants its teeth in Delaney and is now sinking them into anything within reach.
Including me.
Including Sadie.
My hands tighten around the leather until the tendons in my wrists burn.
I can’t go after Carol. I can’t destroy Dottie’s modem. I can’t stop the town from talking, not right now.
But I can control one thing.
I put the truck in drive.
I can make damn sure Sadie never doubts she’s wanted.
Not for a second.
Not for a breath.
Not in this life or any other.
And as for Delaney…
My stomach knots.
I don’t know how to talk to her today.
Not with the old ghosts rattling their chains.
Not with my nerves shot and my chest cracking open in places I thought I’d boarded up years ago.
But I have to see her.
I have to face all of it.
Even if I’m not sure what the hell happens next.