Chapter 36
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Caleb
I don’t usually get stuck in this way.
I’m good with patience. With waiting. With letting things settle before I touch them. Animals respond to that. People usually do too, even if they don’t realize it.
But this feels different.
The days after the cabin fall into a strange rhythm. Not bad. Not tense, exactly. Just… unresolved. A door that never quite closed and never quite opened either.
Sadie’s already home from school by the time the sun starts to dip, backpack abandoned by the door, crayons spread across the counter.
Delaney’s back in the kitchen, humming while she works, laughing with Sadie as if nothing fragile exists in the world.
Boone’s thrown himself into routine with the kind of intensity he uses when he doesn’t want to feel something.
Silas keeps circling the edges, joking a little too loud, watching everything a little too closely.
And me?
I’m sure I missed a step and don’t know when it happened.
I don’t enjoy not knowing where I stand.
It sits under my skin while I work, while I brush down horses, while I fix a loose hinge on the barn door that doesn’t actually need fixing. My hands stay busy. My head doesn’t.
So eventually, I stop pretending I can wait this out.
Silas catches me pacing near the barn, and I can tell the moment he notices because his expression shifts. Concern sliding in under the humor.
“You’re doing the thing,” he says.
I stop short. “What thing?”
“The quiet spiral,” he replies. “Very subtle. Very you.”
I exhale. “I don’t like this.”
“That’s vague,” he says gently. “But I’m listening.”
I drag a hand through my hair. “I don’t know what we’re doing.”
“With Delaney.”
“With all of it,” I correct. “The cabin didn’t fix anything. It just… paused it.”
He nods slowly. “Yeah. I feel that.”
There’s a beat where he clearly wants to say more. He’s weighing whether to make it a joke and deciding not to.
“I like her,” Silas says finally. “I really do.”
That catches me off guard because of how quietly he says it.
“But I don’t know where we stand,” he continues. “And I’m worried that if I ask, I’ll push her away. She’s already carrying so much. I don’t want to be another voice demanding clarity when she’s still trying to breathe.”
My chest eases and tightens all at once.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s exactly it.”
Silas exhales, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’m not confused about how I feel. I’m just… scared of being the reason she shuts down.”
I nod slowly. “Me too.”
The quiet settles between us, heavier now but strangely steadier. Naming it didn’t fix anything, but it made it real.
I hesitate, then say the thing that’s been pressing on my chest all day. “I need to talk to Boone.”
Silas winces. “You sure?”
“No,” I say. “But I’m doing it anyway.”
He gives me a crooked half smile. “Alright. I’ve got your back.”
We find Boone in the office, shoulders hunched over paperwork, Sadie’s drawings pinned crookedly to the wall, reminders of what matters most. He looks up when we come in, already braced.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
I don’t ease into it.
“What are we doing?”
His pen stills. “With what?”
“With Delaney,” I say. “With us.”
The room goes quiet.
Silas leans against the doorframe, saying nothing. Letting me have this.
Boone sets the pen down carefully. Too carefully. “I’m focused on Sadie right now.”
“That’s not an answer,” I say.
His eyes sharpen. “You know Sadie has a lot going on.”
“I’m not trying to start something,” I say evenly. “I just need to know where I stand. Because I don’t.”
Silence stretches.
“I’m still pissed about the lie,” Boone says finally. “And I don’t have the space to sort through everything else.”
“So we just… don’t talk about it?”
He doesn’t answer right away.
“That’s not fair to her,” I add quietly. “Or to us.”
Boone rubs a hand over his face, exhaustion slipping through the cracks. “I didn’t say we ignore it. I said I don’t know.”
I swallow. “Not knowing doesn’t make it go away.”
He looks away.
Silas speaks up then. “For what it’s worth, I like her. I’m not confused about that part. I just don’t know how she feels.”
I nod. “Me neither.”
Boone exhales hard. “Then maybe we stop pushing it.”
“That works for you,” I say. “You’re good at shutting things down.”
Boone stiffens, but he doesn’t argue.
That somehow feels worse.
Silas shifts beside me, clearly wanting to smooth it over, but there’s nothing to smooth. The silence has teeth. Boone’s gaze drifts back to the paperwork. If he looks away long enough, the problem will organize itself.
It won’t.
“I’m not trying to force anything,” I say finally. “I just don’t want to be guessing.”
Boone doesn’t look up. “Then don’t.”
I blink. “That’s not how that works.”
He exhales through his nose, frustration sharp but controlled.
“Caleb, she asked for things to be strictly professional. Then, we had… that night didn’t really solve anything.
We want her, she wants us, but she needs time.
So do we. I don’t have the answers you need right now.
I’ve got a kid dealing with school crap and a town that won’t mind its own business.
I don’t have the luxury of sorting through my feelings on your timeline. ”
I flinch, but I don’t argue.
Because he’s not wrong.
Silas clears his throat. “Nobody’s asking you to drop everything, Boone. We’re just saying the not knowing is getting loud.”
Boone finally looks at him. “Then lower the volume.”
Silas opens his mouth, then closes it. For once, he doesn’t push.
That tells me everything.
I nod once, stiff. “Okay.”
Boone’s shoulders ease a fraction. Clearly, he expected more resistance and is relieved not to get it.
“Okay,” he echoes.
We leave it there.
Outside, the ranch feels too wide, too open. The kind of space that usually settles me now gives my thoughts room to echo. Silas walks with me as far as the porch, then peels off toward the barn, clapping a hand on my shoulder once.
“I meant it,” he says quietly. “I’ve got your back.”
“I know,” I reply.
He hesitates. “And… for what it’s worth? I think you’re doing the right thing.”
“Doesn’t feel like it,” I admit.
He gives me a small, crooked smile. “Yeah. That tracks.”
When he leaves, I stand there longer than I should.
Boone’s words loop in my head.
Lower the volume.
Don’t guess.
Silas’s words loop too.
I like her. I’m scared of pushing her away.
And Delaney…
Delaney is the problem and the answer and the thing I can’t stop circling.
I find her later in the kitchen, as I always do. It’s almost instinct now. She’s moving around the space, music low, Sadie perched at the counter, drawing something colorful and unidentifiable.
Delaney laughs at whatever Sadie says.
My chest tightens.
This is why I hesitate.
She looks… okay. And the thought of being the one who disrupts that makes my stomach twist.
I hover in the doorway longer than I mean to.
She notices anyway.
“Hey,” she says, smiling when she sees me. “You need something?”
The question is simple. And suddenly I don’t know what to do with it.
I think about Silas, afraid that asking will make her shut down.
I think about Boone, burying everything under responsibility and calling it control.
I think about myself, standing here with my hands shoved in my pockets. Proximity alone might be pressure.
“I…” I start, then stop.
Sadie looks between us, curious but content, and I swallow.
“Just checking in,” I say instead.
Delaney studies me. She knows there’s more and is choosing not to reach for it.
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
Sadie frowns at her drawing.
“I forgot the sparkles,” she announces suddenly, scandalized. “They’re in my room.”
Delaney laughs. “That sounds like a serious design flaw.”
“It is,” Sadie says solemnly. Then she hops off the stool, crayons clutched to her chest. “Don’t move! I’ll be super-fast.”
She takes off down the hallway at a run, socked feet thudding against the wood, her voice trailing back. “No peeking!”
The house shifts with her absence.
Delaney turns back to the counter, picks up the knife again, but she doesn’t start cutting. Her shoulders stay relaxed, but there’s awareness there now. The kind that says she knows we’re alone in a way we weren’t a second ago.
“Delaney…”
She looks up immediately.
“Yeah?”
My heart kicks hard once, then settles. I keep my hands where they are, palms open on the edge of the counter.
“I’m not trying to push,” I say carefully. “And I don’t need answers you don’t have.”
Her brow furrows slightly. “Okay…”
“I just need you to know something,” I continue. “Because not saying it feels worse than the risk of saying it.”
She waits. Lets me take the time I need.
“I like you,” I say. Simple. Unembellished. “I care about you. And I don’t know where we’re headed, or what shape this is supposed to take, but I don’t want to keep pretending I don’t feel it.”
Her breath catches. Just a little.
“I’m not asking you to decide anything,” I add quickly. “Or explain yourself. I just… I don’t want silence to turn into distance.”
She sets the knife down gently, being careful not to make noise, and turns fully toward me.
“I was worried this was coming,” she admits softly.
My stomach drops. “Because you don’t—”
“Because I don’t want to hurt you,” she says, cutting in. “Or lose what feels safe right now.”
That word again. Safe.
“I know,” I say. “That’s why I waited.”
Her eyes search my face. “You don’t sound angry.”
“I’m not,” I tell her. “I’m just… trying not to disappear.”
“I don’t have clarity yet,” she says. “I’m still sorting through what’s fear and what’s instinct. And I don’t trust myself to get it right all the time.”
“I don’t need right,” I say. “I just need real.”
She nods slowly. “I can do real.”
Relief moves through me, but before I can respond, we hear footsteps pounding back down the hallway.
“I got them!” Sadie announces triumphantly, skidding into the kitchen and nearly colliding with the counter. Glitter spills everywhere. “They were hiding.”
Delaney laughs, the tension dissolving, and crouches down to Sadie’s level. “Well, we can’t have that.”
I step back automatically, giving them space, watching the way Delaney listens as if Sadie’s entire world fits in her hands.
As I turn to leave the kitchen, Delaney’s voice stops me.
“Caleb?”
I glance back.
She meets my eyes. “Thank you for saying something.”
I nod once. “Anytime.”
It’s not clarity.
But it’s not nothing either.