Chapter 3
Delaney
It’s also full of locals who clock every newcomer like it’s a competitive sport.
The bell jingles when I push through—bright and welcoming, even if the stares aren’t. I lift my chin and paste on a smile because I’m meeting my sister for lunch.
Nothing to see here.
Kitty’s already in a booth near the back, and the sight of her makes my ribs squeeze tight. She’s radiant—the kind of glow that comes from being loved well and sleeping soundly and not worrying about whether the electricity will get shut off before payday.
It’s a radiance I couldn’t give her, despite the years of making sure she ate before I did, slept in the better bed, and wore the warmer coat. Ten years of being the wall between her and every edge the world tried to throw at us.
“Laney!” She waves as if I might not have seen her, as if I haven’t been spotting her in crowds since she was eleven years old and I was suddenly, terrifyingly responsible for keeping her alive.
I slide into the booth across from her. A mug of black coffee is already waiting because Kitty knows I take my caffeine: strong, with no frills. “Thank you for ordering for me.”
My sister grins, and God, she looks so happy. “How’s Stoneridge? How’s the job? How’s—”
“Breathe, Kit.” I wrap my hands around the mug, letting the heat seep into my fingers.
She sighs. “I know, but I don’t see you as much now I’m living at the cabin with Tom. I miss your face.”
“I miss your face too.” I reach across to squeeze her hand. “But Stoneridge is good. The job is good. Everything is good.”
Kitty frowns. “You said ‘good’ three times in that weird flat voice. That’s your tell.”
“I don’t have a tell.”
“You have seven tells, and that was number four. Masking.”
I lift my mug in a small salute. “Congratulations. You’ve pierced my armor. Should I just surrender now?”
Her mouth twitches. “Sarcasm. That’s number one.”
“I prefer to think of it as damage control,” I say lightly.
She laughs, the sound easy and familiar. “Uh-huh.”
I take a sip of my coffee. “So. What’s new with you?”
She leans forward, elbows on the table, chin in her hands. “Tom’s teaching me to ride. Properly, not just hanging on.”
I smile. “Look at you. Ranch wife in training.”
She has a husband who adores her, a home, and a future that doesn’t rely on counting pennies and chanting prayers to get the car to start.
I willingly sacrificed years of my life for the happiness emanating from every part of her. And I’d do it all over again. I’d do anything for my little sister.
So why do I feel like I’m standing outside a window, watching a party I wasn’t invited to?
The bell over the door jingles, and in sweep four women I recognize instantly. The town’s unofficial surveillance committee. Chronic meddlers with a PhD in other people’s business and a firm policy of ignoring their own.
They flock to a booth by the window, chattering like crows with fresh gossip, a good three booths away and blissfully unaware of Kitty and me tucked away in our shadowy corner.
“Speaking of training...” Kitty's eyes get that look. The one that means she’s about to poke something I don’t want poked. “How are things going with Daniel?”
I blow hard enough to slosh coffee over the side of the cup. “He’s very... organized.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” She smirks, the little traitor. “Tom reckons Daniel’s been distracted lately. Extra grouchy.”
“Daniel’s always in a mood,” I say wryly. “The man has two settings: controlled and more controlled.”
The truth is, I’ve been distracted too. By Daniel’s forearms flexing as he hauls feed. The way his jeans mold to his muscular thighs. And how he looks at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention.
“So, tell me about the garden,” I say, steering the conversation toward safer waters. “You mentioned you were planting tomatoes?”
Kitty launches into a detailed description of soil pH and companion planting, and I let her voice wash over me. This is good. This is normal. This is what sisters do—they talk about tomatoes and pretend the world isn’t complicated.
The bell over the door jingles again. This time, the pressure in the diner shifts. It’s subtle—a change in the quality of the silence, the way conversations stutter and restart.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I don’t look up. I’m listening to Kitty. I’m being a good sister.
Don’t look. Don’t you dare look.
I look.
Daniel Sutton fills the doorway like he was built to block out the sun. He nods once—acknowledgment, nothing more—and heads for the counter. Probably here for ranch errands. Picking up supplies. Reasons that have nothing to do with me.
I force my attention back to Kitty. “So, the tomatoes. You were saying about the cages?”
“I was saying about the mulch, actually, but nice try.” She smirks. “You should see your face right now.”
“My face is neutral.”
“Your face is pink.”
“It’s warm in here.”
“It’s sixty-eight degrees, Laney.”
I blister my mouth with another sip of hot coffee.
I’m not watching him order. I’m not noticing the way he leans one hip against the counter, or how his forearms flex when he reaches for his wallet. I’m listening to Kitty talk about mulch.
Mulch is fascinating.
Mulch is far more interesting than the way Daniel Sutton’s jeans fit his firm ass.
“The mulch,” I say firmly. “Tell me about the mulch.”
Kitty opens her mouth to respond, but a voice from the booth by the window cuts through first.
“…honestly, it’s embarrassing. Those mail-order bride situations.” A woman’s voice, carrying the way voices do when they want to be heard. “Desperate doesn’t even cover it.”
My spine goes rigid.
Kitty’s eyes flash.
“The younger one landed on her feet,” another voice chimes in. “Married a Sutton. But the older Phillips girl...”
I know what’s coming. I’ve heard variations of it for weeks now. The whispers that stop when I walk into the feed store. The looks at the gas station. The way conversations shift when I enter a room.
“Couldn’t land a cowboy even when she was delivered to one like a mail-order package.
” Laughter, brittle and mean. “And now she’s working for the Suttons at Stoneridge?
Bet she’s hoping to trade up to the older brother.
Probably figures if she can’t get picked, she’ll just..
. linger until one of them settles for her. ”
More laughter.
I stare at my coffee cup. The surface trembles slightly—my hands, not the table.
I’ve heard worse. I’ve survived worse. This is just noise. Small-town people with small-town minds who’ve never had to fight for anything.
But it lands anyway. Right in the bruise I’ve been pretending isn’t there.
Rejected. Unwanted. Someone to settle for.
Kitty half-rises from the booth, ready to throw down with women twice her age. “I’m going to—”
“Don’t.” I catch her wrist, gentle but firm. “It’s not worth it. Small-town entertainment. I’m sure they say worse about the weather.”
“It’s not okay. They can’t just—”
“They can. They are. And making a scene won’t change their minds—it’ll only give them more to talk about.” I force a smile that feels like cracked glass. “Tell me more about the tomatoes. Please.”
Kitty sinks back into her seat, but her jaw is set in that stubborn way that means she’s not letting this go.
“You deserve to be chosen, Laney.” Her voice is low, fierce. “Not settled for. Not rejected. Chosen.”
The word hits somewhere I’ve kept locked up for years.
“I have a job, a place to stay. And you’re happy.” I sip my coffee. Swallow the ache. “That’s enough.”
“Is it?”
I don’t answer. Because the honest answer is no, the safe answer is yes, and I’m too tired to figure out which one I’m supposed to give.
The gossip table starts up again. Louder now.
“Shame, really. She’s not ugly. Just... desperate. You can always tell the ones who’ll take whatever scraps they can get.”
I keep my eyes on my coffee. On the dark surface reflecting the fluorescent lights. On anything except the faces of women who’ve decided I’m entertainment.
Goosebumps erupt on my arms as the air pressure changes again. I look toward the counter, where Daniel is still standing.
He’s looking at the table of gossiping women. Tension locks his muscular frame—shoulders squared, spine rigid, hands flat on the counter like he’s holding himself in place.
And his face…
I’ve never seen that expression before. Cold fury is carved into every line and brackets his mouth.
He turns slowly, and his eyes find mine. My stomach drops three floors as his intense gray gaze clashes with mine.
The gossips follow his gaze, and their eyes widen in horror as they see me tucked in the corner with Kitty.
Then he’s walking—no, prowling—toward me. Three strides across the diner, his boots heavy on the linoleum, his eyes never leaving mine.
Everything else falls away. All I see is him. Coming for me. As if I’m the only person in the diner. The only person in the world.
He reaches our booth. Doesn’t slow down.
He cups my face—calloused palms, careful grip—and before I can process, before I can think, before I can do anything except exist in this moment—
His mouth is on mine.
Not gentle. Not asking. Claiming.
I should push him away. I should be furious that he’s doing this here, now, in front of everyone who just called me desperate and unwanted. I should—
His tongue flicks across my lips, and my brain whites out.
He tastes like black coffee and something darker underneath—want, maybe. Need. His thumbs stroke my cheekbones as if I’m precious, breakable, worth being careful with. But his mouth devours mine like I’m necessary. Like I’m air and he’s been drowning.
He leans over me, one hand braced on the booth now. I smell leather and soap and something underneath that’s uniquely him. My whole body pulls toward his like gravity shifted and he’s the new center of everything.
Tilting my head, he deepens the kiss. A soft, needy, mortifying sound escapes me. He swallows it. Takes it. Makes it his.
Somehow, my hands are twisted in his shirt. I don’t care. I can’t think. Heat pools low in my belly and spreads through my thighs, sparking my entire body to life like a live wire. I want to climb him. I want to crawl inside this moment and never leave.
When he pulls back, his breathing is ragged. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide. His voice comes out rough enough to sand wood.
“Anyone else got opinions about my woman?” He doesn’t look away from me. Doesn’t need to. The words carry across the silent diner like a thunderclap. “Or are we done here?”
Dead silence.
Forks drop. Coffee cups freeze in mid-air. Kitty’s eyes are as wide as saucers.
The “mean girls” have gone pale.
“I need to get back to work,” I force through swollen lips, tearing my eyes from his to look at Kitty. “I’ll text you later.”
My eyes spit fire as I return my gaze to the man who just wrecked me with one kiss. “A word outside, please.”
I don’t wait to see if he follows. I don’t look at the mean girls as I leave the diner.
The August sun beats down on my shoulders, and gravel crunches under my boots as I stalk across the parking lot.
“Your woman?” I spin to face him as I reach my car, the words ripping out of me. “I’m not—you can’t just—”
“I know.” His voice is rough, and his hands are clenched at his sides as if he’s physically holding himself back from reaching for me again.
I wait for the apology. The backtrack.
“I’m not sorry.”
I stare at him. “You should be.”
“I know,” he repeats.
He steps toward me, then stops. Tendons stand out in his neck. “But I’d do it again. I’d do it every damn day if it meant they’d stop looking at you like that. Talking about you like that.”
My chest aches at the rawness of his voice. “That’s not your call to make.”
“No. It’s not.”
But he doesn’t take it back. Doesn’t apologize. Just stands there, letting me see exactly how much he meant it.
My throat burns. “You made a spectacle of me with that kiss.”
He flinches. Finally. Some reaction that says he knows he crossed a line.
“Delaney—”
“Don’t.” I hold up a hand. “Just... don’t.”
I turn to the driver’s door, my keys in my hand—when did I grab my keys? My fingers shake so badly that it takes two tries to unlock the door.
I can feel him watching me. Feel the weight of his gaze pressing against my spine, my shoulders, the back of my neck.
I get in. Start the engine. Pull out of the parking lot.
I don’t look back.
I press my fingers to my still-tingling lips without meaning to, touching where his mouth was. Where he claimed me in front of God and the mean girls and my baby sister.
My woman.
I should be furious. I am furious.
He had no right to march across that diner like some kind of avenging cowboy. No right to put his hands on my face like I belonged to him. No right to kiss me like I was worth fighting for. Like I was worth making a scene over. Like I mattered.
The thought catches in my throat and lodges there.
For ten years, I’ve been the one who fights. The one who protects. The one who stands between Kitty and every threat. No one has ever fought for me.
Until today. Until Daniel Sutton heard strangers call me desperate and unwanted and decided that was unacceptable. Until he crossed the diner in three strides and kissed me like the whole town could go to hell.
That was dangerous.
Because part of me wanted to be claimed. Part of me wanted to be chosen, wanted to hear someone say mine and mean it. I’ve spent years silencing that part, years starving it and pretending it doesn’t exist.
I pull into Havenridge’s drive and park, then sit there with the engine off and my hands trembling on the wheel.
My woman.
The words echo in my head again.
Under the fury, another emotion blooms. One that liked his hands on my face. Liked being chosen instead of settled for. And loved mattering to someone so much they’d burn down social convention to make a point.
My phone buzzes. Kitty.
Are you okay? That was... WOW. Call me when you can. Also, I think Daniel Sutton might actually be in love with you??? Tom is going to lose his mind.
I don’t call her. I don’t know what I’d say.
I can’t stop thinking about the way he tasted. He called me his, and I liked it. I’m terrified.
I press my fingers to my lips again. They’re still warm, still buzzing.
Still his.
Damn it.