Chapter 7
Daniel
Her whole life fits in two boxes.
I stand in the guest room at Havenridge, watching Delaney fold a worn sweater into a cardboard box that’s already half-full, and the math of it hits me like a fist to the chest.
Two boxes. That’s it. That’s everything she owns.
My room at Stoneridge has boots lined up in the closet, my grandfather’s watch on the dresser, a photo of my mom in a silver frame I polish every Sunday. Things that matter. Things that say this is who I am, this is where I come from, this is what I’m building toward.
She doesn’t have that. Ten years of pouring everything into her sister, and she has two cardboard boxes to show for it.
“You’re staring,” Delaney says without looking up. She folds a T-shirt with military precision—corners tucked, edges aligned. Efficient. Like everything she does.
“Just thinking.”
“Dangerous habit.” She sets the shirt in the box and reaches for another. “You might hurt yourself.”
Kitty laughs from the doorway, where she’s been hovering with a roll of packing tape and watery eyes. “She’s been like this all morning. Extra prickly.”
“I’m not prickly. I’m efficient.” Delaney’s jaw tightens. “The faster we do this, the faster it’s done.”
Her hands hesitate over a small jewelry box—cheap wood, chipped at the corners. She opens it, and I catch a glimpse of a thin tarnished chain with a charm attached before she snaps it shut and tucks it into the box with more care than anything else.
Her mother’s, maybe. The only thing she kept.
“That’s the last of it,” she says, straightening. “Told you it wouldn’t take long.”
Kitty’s face crumples. “Laney—”
“Don’t.” Delaney holds up a hand, but her voice softens. “Don’t make this a thing. I’m moving fifteen minutes away. You’ll see me constantly. I’ll probably still steal your coffee.”
“It’s not the same.”
“No.” Delaney crosses to her sister and pulls her into a hug. “It’s not. But it’s good. This is good.”
I look away, giving them the moment. My eyes land on the boxes again.
I want to fill her life with things that matter. Starting now.
The drive to Stoneridge takes twelve minutes. Delaney spends eleven of them staring out the window, one hand pressed flat against the box in her lap like she’s afraid it’ll disappear.
“You okay?”
“Fine.”
“Laney.”
She exhales. “It’s stupid. I’ve moved a hundred times. Apartments, sublets, that one month we slept in the car. This shouldn’t feel different.”
“But it does.”
“Yeah.” She turns to look at me. Her eyes are guarded, but underneath—underneath is something that looks almost like hope. “It does.”
I reach over and cover her hand with mine. She doesn’t pull away. Her fingers are cold, and I rub my thumb across her knuckles until they warm.
“Different can be good,” I say.
“So I keep hearing.”
We pull up at Stoneridge, and I park nose-out like always. Force of habit. She notices—she notices everything—but doesn’t comment.
I’m out of the truck and around to her side before she can open her door. She rolls her eyes but lets me help her down, and I use the excuse to keep her hand in mine for an extra second. Her palm fits against mine as if it was made to be there.
Mine, something in me growls. She’s mine and she’s here and—
“I can carry my own stuff,” she says when I reach for the boxes.
“I know. Let me anyway.”
“Daniel—”
“Humor me, Laney. Please.”
She huffs, but she hands over one box. Keeps the other—the one with the jewelry box—tucked against her chest.
Fair enough. Some things you carry yourself.
We make it halfway across the yard before Major Pecker appears.
He stops right in front of Delaney’s boots. He tilts his head, studies her for a second, then lets out a single, low cluck.
Delaney stills, the box balanced in her arms. “Hey,” she murmurs.
He leans in to brush his side against her ankle. Quick and deliberate. A claim, not a cuddle.
Then, as if that’s the limit of his social battery, he straightens, ruffles his feathers, and turns away, vanishing around the corner of the barn.
I blink. “That was… disturbing.”
Delaney exhales, a small smile tugging at her mouth. “Yeah. We’ve bonded. He’s a rooster of few words.”
“You got the Major Pecker’s seal of approval,” Miss Maggie says from where she’s waiting on the porch.
Delaney shrugs. “Or he knows I’ll turn him into soup.”
Miss Maggie’s cackle echoes across the yard.
I bite back a grin and fail. “Even the damn rooster knows.”
“Knows what?” Delaney asks.
That you belong here. That you’re supposed to be mine.
“I was starting to think you’d gotten lost between here and Havenridge,” Miss Maggie says before I can reply.
“Twelve-minute drive,” Delaney says. “Hard to get lost.”
“You’d be surprised what these Sutton boys can manage.” Miss Maggie’s eyes are sharp, assessing, but warm. “Come on, then. Let’s get you settled. I’ve got coffee on and cinnamon rolls in the oven. If you don’t eat at least two, I’ll be personally offended.”
Delaney’s lips twitch. “I wouldn’t want to offend.”
“Smart girl.” Miss Maggie holds the screen door open to let Delaney into the kitchen. “Don’t screw this up," she mutters for my ears only as I pass.
“Working on it.”
The kitchen smells like home—coffee and cinnamon and something savory simmering on the back burner.
Delaney pauses in the middle of the room, as if she hasn’t stood here countless times before.
The worn wooden table, scarred by generations of Suttons. Cast-iron pans hanging above the stove. The window over the sink, framing the south pasture like a familiar photograph.
“Seems… warmer,” she says quietly, like she’s confessing something she didn’t mean to notice.
Miss Maggie beams. “That’s what happens when you see things with fresh eyes. Now sit. Eat. Then we’ll get you settled into your room.”
Delaney’s room sits at the end of the upstairs hallway. Twenty feet from mine.
I counted. Multiple times. Like a damn fool.
The wood floors creak beneath our boots, worn smooth by generations. Family photos line the walls: men in uniforms, kids on horses, Mom with a wide smile.
Her room is simple—quilt on the bed, the pinks and lavenders still vibrant, wooden dresser that’s been in the family for three generations, window that faces east toward the pastures.
Morning light will wake her up gently. I made sure of that when I picked this room over the one closer to the stairs.
She steps inside, and I watch her catalog the space. The small heater in the corner—nights get cold up here, even in late summer. The stack of books on the nightstand I added.
Delaney trails her hand over the quilt. “This is beautiful.”
“It belonged to my mother.”
“Daniel—”
“We stored it away after—when we lost her.” I clear my throat. “House full of boys. No place for something soft like this.”
I glance at the bed, then back to Delaney. “But she would’ve wanted it here. Wanted you to have it.”
Delaney’s throat bobs as she swallows hard.
“You—” She stops. Swallows.
That complicated expression crosses her face again, the one I’m starting to recognize. The one that says she doesn’t know what to do with being cared for.
“Thank you,” she manages.
“Welcome home, Laney.”
The word hangs between us. Home. Neither of us looks away.
Her eyes go bright. Too bright. She blinks hard and turns toward the window, and I let her have the moment. Let her pretend I don’t see.
“I should unpack,” she says. “Get settled.”
“Yeah.” I turn toward the door, even though every instinct screams at me to cross the room and pull her against me.
I’m almost out the door when she speaks again.
“Daniel?”
I turn.
She’s still facing the window, but her hand rests on the basket of tea. “Thank you. For... all of it.”
“Anytime, Laney. I mean that.”
I close the door behind me and stand in the hallway for a long moment, hand pressed flat against the wood.
She’s here. She’s actually here.
Don’t screw this up.
That night, I don’t sleep.
I lie in bed staring at the ceiling, hyperaware of every sound in the house. The settling of old wood. The wind against the windows. And underneath it all, the knowledge that she’s only feet away.
The line shack keeps replaying in my head. Her hands on my face, pulling me back from the dark. The taste of her mouth. The sounds she made when I touched her—soft, desperate, mine.
I’m hard just thinking about it. Have been half-hard since she walked into my kitchen earlier in those worn jeans that hug her ass like a prayer.
Do this right. Do this properly.
Around 2 AM, I give up. Throw back the covers and pad downstairs in sweats and bare feet, heading for the kitchen. Water. Maybe some of Miss Maggie’s leftover cornbread. Something to occupy my hands and my mind before I do something stupid like walk down that hallway and knock on her door.
I round the corner and stop dead.
She’s already there.
Delaney stands at the counter in nothing but an oversized T-shirt—not mine, but close enough that my brain short-circuits anyway.
The hem hits mid-thigh, and her legs go on forever, bare and pale in the moonlight streaming through the window.
Her hair falls loose and wild around her shoulders.
The cotton’s thin enough that I can see the shadow of her nipples, and I have to look away before I do something stupid.
Too late. Already did something stupid. I’m standing here in nothing but sweats with a hard-on I couldn’t hide if I tried.
We both freeze.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I manage. My voice comes out wrecked.
“No.” She doesn’t meet my eyes. Looks at the counter, the floor, anywhere but at me. “You?”
“No.”
The kitchen shrinks around us. The air between us could catch fire. Twenty feet separates our rooms upstairs, and somehow that’s both too far and not nearly far enough.
Her gaze drops to my chest. Tracks down over my stomach. Lower.
She notices. Of course she notices.
Her breath catches, and the sound goes straight to my cock.
“This is going to be hard,” I say. The double meaning hangs there, obvious, and I don’t take it back.
Now she looks at me. Eyes dark in the dim light. “What is?”
“Having you this close and not touching you.”
“Who said you can’t touch me?”
Everything in me locks down. Combat-ready, except the enemy is a woman in a threadbare T-shirt and I’m losing this fight.
“I did.” The words scrape out of my throat. “Until I do this right. Properly.”
She shifts her weight, and the movement makes the shirt ride up another inch. “Even after...”
She doesn’t finish. Doesn’t have to. The line shack hangs between us—her taste on my tongue, her hands in my hair, the way she came apart against my mouth.
“Especially after,” I agree. “Your terms. Your timeline. Your choice, Delaney.”
Neither of us moves toward the other. Neither of us moves away.
The moonlight catches the curve of her shoulder where the shirt has slipped. I track the line of her collarbone, the hollow of her throat, the way her pulse jumps visibly beneath her skin. I want to put my mouth there. Want to feel her heartbeat against my tongue.
“You’re staring,” she whispers.
“Can’t help it”—I grip the doorframe to keep myself anchored—“when you’re standing in my kitchen looking like that.”
Her expression softens, as if she recognizes and appreciates the control I’m exerting.
“Goodnight, Laney. Get some sleep.”
It takes everything I have—every ounce of Ranger discipline, every shred of self-control—to walk toward the stairs instead of toward her.
“Daniel—”
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
I'm halfway up the stairs when I hear her soft exhale. Frustration. Definitely frustration.
Good. At least I’m not suffering alone.
I make it to my room, close the door, and lean against it, breathing hard. My hand drops to the front of my sweats without conscious thought, pressing against the ache.
Remember your promise. She deserves better than to be rushed.
This is going to be a long goddamn night.