Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Silas
The house is too damn quiet.
Not the peaceful kind of quiet, either. Not the early morning, coffee brewing, sun through the kitchen window kind.
No, this is the awkward, heavy, everyone is thinking too loud quiet.
The kind of quiet that settles after an explosion.
The kind that says you really messed up, buddy, even if technically, I didn’t do anything wrong.
Or maybe I did. I don’t know.
Hard to tell when no one is talking to me.
I stand in the hallway between the kitchen and the living room, coffee mug in hand, staring at three closed doors.
Delaney’s door: closed.
Caleb’s door: closed.
Boone’s office door: also closed.
Fantastic.
Two nights ago was… well, it was a lot of things. Incredible, yes. Hot enough to fry brain cells, absolutely. A long time coming? Probably. And for about fifteen minutes afterward I’d felt… calm. Peaceful, even. Something had finally clicked into place.
Then everyone scattered, fast as feral cats in a thunderstorm.
Delaney didn’t meet anyone’s eyes this morning. Barely said good morning. She’d tied her hair in a messy knot that looked more a shield than a hairstyle and disappeared into her room before I could charm even a single smile out of her.
Boone might as well have slept in a war zone. Deep lines around his eyes. Shoulders coiled tight. Teacher meeting mood. Single dad under pressure mood. Don’t talk to me, Silas mood.
And Caleb?
Caleb glared at me. Grumpy, broody, muttering into his coffee.
I run a hand through my hair and exhale loudly into the silence.
“Great. Cool. Awesome. Love this for us.”
The problem is… I don’t do quiet.
Quiet feels punishing.
Growing up, silence meant things were about to go bad. Dad storming through the house after a business deal fell through. Mom packing her bags in complete silence before leaving for a “retreat” that lasted three months. The quiet after a fight. The quiet before another one.
She moved away when I was ten.
That day, she was wearing a silk blouse and sunglasses inside, phone wedged between shoulder and cheek, telling someone in the city she’d be “back and forth” for a while.
She kissed my forehead, and then the car took her away to a new life full of champagne flutes and charity galas and people who didn’t smell of hay.
Silence after that hurt worse than yelling ever had.
So I learned fast: if you keep people laughing, they don’t leave. Or at least, when they do, you get to pretend it doesn’t bother you.
I’ve spent my whole damn adult life filling silence. With jokes. With noise. With flirting. With parties and events and big ideas.
But this?
This heavy, miserable, tension-ridden quiet?
I can’t fix that with a joke.
I’ve tried.
Boone didn’t laugh at my “Welcome to the Ranch Scandal Tour” bit.
Caleb didn’t crack a smile when I offered to sage the house.
Delaney didn’t react at all when I told her Pickle had unfriended Dottie on Facebook.
Nothing.
Nada.
Crickets.
Which means I need to stop joking and actually do something.
Someone has to pull us out of this spiral. And if there’s one thing I’m good at, besides aimless havoc, handsome mischief, and a questionable ability to parallel park, it’s throwing a Hail Mary.
I set down my coffee, grab my phone, and scroll past the new notification badges on Facebook… nope, not touching those with a ten-foot cattle prod.
My thumb hesitates over the contact I’m looking for.
Mom.
Julia Grant. Socialite, charity darling, woman whose outfits got more coverage than most political scandals. She was born a Westbrook, married into money, then married into more money. Reinvented herself so many times I lost track.
To me, she’s just… Mom. The woman who left, and also the woman I call when everything is going sideways.
Fierce. Loud. Sharp. Dramatic. Kind in all the ways she hides from everyone else. The only person who can walk into a room and rearrange its emotional temperature without touching a damn thing.
If anyone can get this house out of its funk, it’s her.
I hit call before I can overthink it.
She answers on the second ring, sounding already halfway through a latte and a schedule she didn’t write but somehow controls anyway.
“Silas Grant, if you’re calling me before ten a.m., someone better be dead or pregnant.”
I smile despite everything. “Morning, Ma.”
Pause. The rustle of something silk against the phone. “Oh no. You sound serious. Why do you sound serious? What happened? Who got arrested? Was it you? Tell me it wasn’t you. I do not have a courtroom outfit picked for this week.”
“No one’s in jail.”
“Yet?”
“Mom.”
She exhales, long and put upon. “Fine. Then is someone pregnant?”
I huff. “No pregnancies. No arrests. Calm your pearls.”
“I don’t wear pearls anymore,” she sniffs. “They read too conservative on camera. Are you watching my segments? You should be watching my segments. I give excellent life advice.”
“Yeah, well, I’m calling because I need some of that allegedly excellent life advice in person.”
That gets her.
There’s a tiny shift in her tone, a softening around the edges.
“Sweetheart,” she says, and the word slides under my ribs as it always does. “What’s wrong?”
My throat tightens stupidly even though I’m a grown man and entirely too handsome to get emotional at nine a.m.
I wander back into the kitchen and lean against the counter, looking at the cold coffee.
“It’s a mess here,” I admit. “Like… everything’s sideways. There is some town gossip…”
“Oh, that small town of yours,” she tuts. “So dramatic about everything.”
“Well, this time it’s about Delaney.”
There’s a sharp inhale, the kind she used to do right before dropping a bomb at a dinner party.
“Delaney?”
“Yes.”
“Who is Delaney?”
I blink. “…The chef.”
“What chef?”
“Our chef.”
“You have a chef?”
“Yes, Mom, I’m sure I texted you about this?”
“No, you have not. If you had a chef, I would remember. Is she a professional chef? A home chef? A food blogger chef? Does she bake? Does she sauté? Does she cook in cast iron, or does she disrespect her pans like your Uncle Raymond did?”
“She… uses cast iron?”
“Oh, thank goodness, she’s civilized. But you didn’t answer my question.”
“I literally answered seven questions.”
“No. The important one. Who is she to you?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Here we go.
“She’s… she works here.”
“Mm hmm. And?”
“And she’s… Delaney.”
“I am going to reach through this phone and shake you,” she says pleasantly. “Is she young? Old? Medium? Cute? Breathtaking? Emotionally expensive? Expensive expensive? Allergic to seafood? I need a profile, darling. I can’t help you without a file.”
“She’s not allergic to seafood,” I mutter, because that is apparently the detail my brain grabs.
“Oh, marvelous, she can come to oyster night. Continue.”
I rub my forehead. “She’s smart. Talented. Kind. She makes dinosaur pancakes for Boone’s kid. And she’s been through… something. A lot of somethings.”
“I see… so, what did you do?”
“Why do you assume I did something?”
“Because you’re my son,” she says dryly. “This sort of thing follows you around like a very loyal golden retriever.”
“Rude.”
“Accurate.”
“Anyway, apparently, when Delaney was in the city, there was a scandal—”
“Scandal?” my mother interrupts sharply. “What scandal?”
I wince. “It’s not… well, it is, technically, but it’s not what they’re saying. The town dug up some old gossip about her time in New York.”
“New York?” she repeats, immediately more alert. “In the restaurant world?”
“Yeah.”
“What restaurant world?”
“The… Michelin one.”
There is a beat of utter silence so intense I pull the phone back from my ear to make sure she hasn’t died.
Then…
“Silas, are you telling me this woman worked in a Michelin-level kitchen, and you didn’t tell me?”
I blink. “That’s your takeaway?”
“Yes! Do you understand the stamina, the grit, the insanity required to survive one of those kitchens? Those chefs eat diamonds for breakfast and scream at the moon for dessert.”
I rub my forehead. “Mom… focus.”
“I am focused. I’m trying to ascertain the caliber of woman my son is apparently in emotional distress over.” A pause, then more sharply: “Who did she work under?”
“A guy named Marcus Hale.”
She gasps so loudly I nearly choke. “Marcus Hale?”
“Oh no,” I mutter. “Here we go.”
“That silver fox egomaniac? The one who refuses to plate anything that isn’t monochromatic? The man who once threw a risotto at a cameraman because the grain ‘lacked spiritual tension’?! That Marcus?”
“Yes,” I groan into the phone. “That Marcus.”
“Oh, sweetheart…” My mother exhales as if she just heard about a natural disaster. “Of course there was a scandal.”
“That is not helping.”
“Oh, please, Marcus is a walking lawsuit. A brilliant chef, yes, visionary palate, impeccable technique, but emotionally? He has the compassion of a tax audit."
I clutch the counter because that might be the most accurate description of Marcus I’ve ever heard.
She continues, “And you’re telling me this Delaney worked under him long enough to become tabloid fodder?”
“Yes.”
“That poor girl,” she says immediately, full of unfiltered sympathy.
I blink. “Really?”
“Oh, absolutely. Anyone who gets too close to Marcus Hale ends up bruised. The man is a Michelin-starred hurricane. His first ex-wife once told Vogue that being married to him felt like ‘living inside a pressure cooker set to explode.’ I sent her flowers.”
“Mom, I'm—”
“Spiraling,” she finishes.
“Okay, Ma, let’s not roast me before breakfast.”
She laughs softly, and I can practically see her tipping her head back, dark hair swinging, expensive earrings catching the light. “I roast you because I love you. Otherwise, you’d float away like one of those awful biodegradable balloons.”
“Remind me again how you made a living telling people how to host charity brunches, and somehow this is your brand of comfort?”
“Because people trust the woman who says what everyone else is thinking,” she says. “Now. Are you eating anything or just stress drinking coffee again?”
I glance guiltily at the mug. “Define ‘eating.’”
“Silas.”
“I had a cookie.”
“A cookie is not breakfast. Your poor heart. And your skin. Have you been moisturizing?”
“Oh my goodness.”
“I’m serious. Stress shows up first in your face, and you’re far too pretty to waste.”
I scrub my hand over said pretty face. “Can we circle back to the part where my emotional support chef is being torn apart online?”
Her teasing tone drops a notch. “You’re right.
You’re asking for help, which means it’s bad.
” A rustle. Drawers opening, the faint clang of metal.
She’s moving through her kitchen; I can picture it.
White marble, ridiculous lighting, three different types of imported salt.
“Alright. I’ll pack a bag. How long should I stay? ”
My shoulders loosen. “Just a few days?”
“Longer if needed,” she says immediately. “My calendar is flexible this week. I was supposed to go to that dreadful art gala, but this sounds much more interesting.”
“Please don’t describe my emotional apocalypse as ‘interesting.’”
“Oh, honey,” she purrs, unapologetic. “Insanity, scandal, beautiful people in crisis? This is my natural habitat.”
I can’t help it. I laugh. A short, ragged sound, but it’s real.
“Thanks,” I say, quieter.
“Don’t thank me yet. Once I get there, I’m going to fix this. Which means you are going to have to talk about your feelings.”
I wince. “Can we not?”
“No.”
“Great.”
“You knew what you were getting when you called me,” she reminds me. “You don’t summon the hurricane and then complain about the wind.”
“I was kind of hoping for a gentle breeze.”
“Nothing about me is gentle. Put on coffee before I arrive,” she adds. “Not that weak stuff Boone makes. The good kind.”
I glance at the half-finished pot. “On it.”
“And something with actual protein. Eggs. Bacon. You remember bacon? It’s that thing you used to devour before you decided anxiety was a food group.”
“Wow, you’ve been saving that one.”
“I wrote it down in my notes app,” she admits, completely unashamed. “Under ‘Things To Say When Silas Calls In Crisis.’”
“Of course you did.”
There’s another pause, softer this time.
“And Silas?”
“Yeah?”
“Tell Delaney I’m excited to meet the woman who finally made you sound like a real adult for once.”
Heat prickles at the back of my neck. “‘I’m not saying that.”
“Well, then I will.”
I swallow around the lump in my throat.
“Drive safe,” I say, because I don’t know what else to do with all the things I’m not saying.
She snorts. “Please. I’ll let the car service worry about that. See you soon, sweetheart. Try not to set anything on fire before I get there. Emotionally or literally.”
“No promises.”
“Thought so.”
The call ends with a soft chime.
I stare at the screen for a long moment, her name still glowing there. My thumb hovers over it. I might call her back and say, never mind, don’t bother, I’ll just juggle flaming chainsaws of emotional damage on my own.
Instead, I lock the phone and set it on the counter.