Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Delaney
I wake up tired in a way sleep doesn’t fix.
Not the bone-deep exhaustion of a double shift or the pleasant ache after a long day on my feet. This is heavier. Quieter. As if someone turned the volume down on me and forgot to turn it back up again.
I go through the motions.
That’s what the days have become. Me moving through the ranch like a ghost who still knows how to cook.
I get up before dawn, because my body doesn’t know how not to. I shower. I dress. I braid my hair the same way every morning because it requires no thought. I make coffee that tastes of nothing. I open the kitchen windows to let the cold air in and tell myself it’s good for me.
I prep. I cook. I clean.
I smile when spoken to.
I don’t look at my phone unless I have to.
The Facebook group still exists. The gossip still simmers. But it’s lost its sharp edge, not because it stopped, but because I stopped letting myself feel it. I scroll past messages from friends with careful fingers. I ignore anything with my name in it. I tell myself I’ll deal with it later.
Later has become a flexible concept.
The only time I feel real is with Sadie.
Sadie, who doesn’t know or care about scandals or captions or comment sections. Sadie, who wants dinosaur pancakes and extra syrup and insists on helping stir even when she spills flour everywhere. Sadie, who wraps her arms around my waist and tells me I smell of cookies and sunshine.
With her, the fog lifts a little.
I laugh more easily. I kneel on the floor without thinking about how exposed it makes me feel. I let myself be soft.
Everyone else seems to sense the change.
Boone is careful in a way that feels worse than anger. He checks in, asks how I’m doing, but never pushes. His eyes follow me sometimes, dark and intense. He’s measuring distance he doesn’t know how to cross.
Caleb… Caleb gives me space.
The good kind. The kind that says I’m here without asking you to perform for me. He brings me water when I forget to drink it. Leaves notes about feed schedules and lets his shoulder brush mine in passing, like an anchor point I can choose to lean on or not.
Silas is the hardest.
He’s still Silas. Still warm, still smiling, still throwing jokes into the quiet, but there’s restraint there now. A carefulness I’ve never seen in him before. He doesn’t flirt. Doesn’t crowd. Doesn’t fill the silence the way he used to.
It’s like he’s waiting.
I don’t know for what.
By the end of the week, I feel scraped raw. Like I’ve been holding my breath for days without realizing it.
That’s when the car pulls up.
I’m in the kitchen mid-morning, elbows deep in dough, palms dusted white, when the sound reaches me through the open window. Tires on gravel. An engine that doesn’t rattle or complain the way Boone’s truck does. Not Caleb’s either. No familiar cough, no diesel growl.
This one is smoother.
Quieter.
Too quiet.
My shoulders tense before my brain catches up. For a split second, my heart stutters, sharp and panicked, already bracing for impact.
Who is that?
My first, stupid thought is reporter. Or someone from town, emboldened by Facebook courage. Someone who decided today was the day to come see the scandal up close. I picture a phone lifted. A voice asking for comment. My name spoken with curiosity instead of kindness.
I angle my body just enough to see out the window. Dark paint. Clean lines. The kind of car that belongs in a city garage, not parked in front of a ranch house that smells of hay and cinnamon rolls.
The engine cuts.
My pulse doesn’t.
I wipe my hands on my apron too fast, leaving streaks of flour behind.
Sadie looks up from the table, where she’s coloring a horse with six legs and zero concern for anatomy. “Is that a fancy person car?”
I force my face into a neutral expression. “I think it might be.”
Then, the front door opens before I can talk myself down.
“Well,” a woman calls out, bright and amused, “if this is what breakfast smells like around here, I understand why everyone refuses to leave.”
The sound hits me like a memory.
Warm. Confident. Familiar in a way that makes my chest tighten.
I freeze.
Because I know that voice.
I’ve only heard it once, drifting down the hallway while Silas was on the phone.
Julia Grant.
Silas’s mom.
She steps into the kitchen with confidence. Tall, elegant without trying, dark hair swept back, oversized sunglasses pushed up into it like an afterthought. A scarf looped loosely at her neck, decorative rather than necessary. She looks dressed for enjoyment, not practicality, and somehow it works.
Her gaze finds me immediately.
And then she smiles, and my insides loosen despite my best efforts.
“You must be Delaney.”
I wipe my hands on my apron again, slower this time. “I am. Hi.”
She crosses the room in three confident steps and takes my hands before I can decide how I feel about it, squeezing them warmly.
“I’m Julia. Silas’s mother.” She pauses, eyes flicking to the counter. “And judging by the smell in here, I finally understand why my son sounds so smug on the phone lately.”
I blink. “Smug?”
“Oh, insufferably smug,” she says cheerfully. “He told me you make bread from scratch and then waited… waited, Delaney, for me to react. Like he personally discovered you.”
Sadie abandons her markers and scoots her chair back. “Auntie Jules!”
Julia laughs, delighted, and immediately crouches to Sadie’s level. “There you are. Still perfect. Still making better art than your uncles ever did.”
“That’s a horse,” Sadie informs her seriously.
Julia studies the page. “Naturally. With excellent legs.”
Sadie beams.
Julia straightens again, turning back to me.
“I hope he warned you,” she says conspiratorially. “You’re working with three men who were all, at various points, convinced they were the smartest person in every room.”
I snort before I can stop myself.
“Oh, good,” she says, pleased. “You’ve already noticed.”
She gestures vaguely toward the rest of the house.
“Boone used to line up his toy trucks by size and refused to let anyone move them. Caleb once didn’t speak to me for an entire afternoon because I called his favorite horse ‘cute.’ And Silas…
” She sighs fondly. “Silas tried to organize a talent show at eight years old and charged admission.”
Sadie gasps. “Did he win?”
Julia leans down. “He absolutely lost. But he hosted the after-party.”
I laugh then. A real one. It surprises me enough that I have to cover it with a cough.
Julia notices.
“Well,” she says gently, squeezing my hand once more, “it’s very nice to finally meet the woman who has all of them walking a little straighter.”
Silas appears in the doorway, watching the scene with relief written all over his face. At least he knew she was coming because this is a complete shock to me!
“You made it,” he says.
“Barely,” Julia replies. “The traffic in the way was terrible.”
He grins. Then his eyes flick to me.
“Hey,” he says softly.
“Hey.”
The word hangs between us, heavier than it should be. Tension presses at my ribs, tight and charged and unfinished.
Julia notices. Of course she does.
But instead of commenting, she claps her hands together, brisk and cheerful, breaking the moment clean in half.
“Alright,” she announces. “Before anyone gets too serious, I am starving. I haven’t been back on this ranch in years, and I distinctly remember there being very strong opinions about lunch.”
Sadie giggles.
“Actually,” Julia turns to her. “Tour first, then food. I want to see what’s changed… and what hasn’t.”
I glance at Silas, confused, my chest tightening with the sense that I’ve missed a step.
He rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah. About that…”
He looks at me fully now, humor draining from his face.
“Delaney,” he says. “Can we talk for a minute?”
My stomach flips.
“Sure,” I say automatically, even though my pulse has already started racing.
Julia arches a brow. “Come on, Sadie. Let’s see if any of these horses remember me.”
“They remember everyone,” Sadie informs her solemnly, already sliding off her chair.
Julia laughs and offers her hand. “Then I suppose I should apologize in advance.”
They head outside, Julia chatting easily about how Boone once tried to name a horse after a wrestler and how Caleb refused to ride anything that “looked smug.”
The door closes behind them.
The kitchen suddenly feels too big.
Silas exhales hard. “Okay. I definitely didn’t plan that part well.”
My heart starts to pound. “Silas… what’s going on?”
He steps closer, careful, hands open at his sides like he doesn’t want to spook me.
“I booked a couple nights away,” he says.
The words don’t register at first.
“You… what?”
“A cabin,” he says quickly. “Out of town. Quiet. Just a few days.”
My pulse roars. “Silas—”
“For all of us,” he adds, immediately. “You, me, Boone, Caleb.”
That stops me cold.
“All of us?” I echo.
He nods. “Boone and Caleb already talked to the ranch hands. Everything here is covered. Julia offered to stay and watch Sadie. She wanted the time, and Boone trusts her.”
My chest tightens at that. At the care threaded through the plan.
“To… what?” I ask quietly.
“To talk,” he says simply. “Really talk. No work. No distractions. No pretending everything’s fine when it isn’t.”
The word lands harder than anything else.
Talk.
Not escape. Not distraction. Not heat or jokes or deflection.
My instinct is to back away. To protect the fragile equilibrium I’ve built by not asking for anything.
But Silas looks different right now. Serious. Not trying to charm his way out of discomfort.
“I’m not trying to corner you,” he says softly. “If you say no, that’s it. I just… I don’t want to keep orbiting this thing as if it’ll resolve itself.”
My throat tightens.
“Why now?” I whisper.
“Because you’ve been fading,” he says gently. “And because whatever this is between all of us, it deserves honesty. Even if it’s messy.”
I think of the fog. The silence. The way I’ve been holding myself together with duct tape and routine.
“Where?” I ask.
“A cabin about two hours out,” he says. “No service. Fireplace. Space to breathe.”
No service.
The idea makes my stomach flip.
And somehow steadies me.
“I don’t know if I’m ready,” I admit.
“That’s okay,” he says. “None of us are. We’ll figure it out together.”
I glance out the window, where Julia and Sadie are laughing in the pasture, utterly unconcerned with the emotional landmine I’m standing on.
Trust feels dangerous.
But staying frozen feels worse.
“Okay,” I hear myself say.
Silas’s breath stutters. “Okay?”
“Okay,” I repeat. “I’ll go.”
Relief softens his face.
“Pack a bag,” he says quietly. “We’ll leave after lunch.”