Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Bennett
“Daddy, there you are.” Wren stands at the opening of the tree-lined path with Poppy at her side. “Why were you in there?” She leans around me, and I sidestep to make sure she won’t see Delaney if she’s still visible.
“Just had to look for something I thought I dropped.” I pat her shoulder to get her to turn around and head back to the party.
“What was it?”
“Just something for the party. You need to go have fun.”
Poppy eyes me over Wren’s head. I have a million questions for her—but I have a feeling she’ll give me the cold shoulder and tell me, as she always does, that if I want answers about Delaney, I need to ask Delaney herself. But Poppy doesn’t know our full story. No one does.
“Emmett said he’d dance with me.” Wren runs off, and I watch her approach Emmett, who’s standing with Briar and their baby, Colter.
“I’ll answer one question,” Poppy says, both of us looking straight ahead at Wren.
“Why is Delaney back here?”
I’m not sure it’s the right question, but I can’t wrap my head around why she’d return home.
“You’ve heard the rumors. Her husband.”
“Yeah, but—”
She steps ahead of me and turns around, walking backward with a knowing smile. “That was your one question.”
She laughs, and I shake my head at her.
“Poppy…”
“Sorry. You should’ve thought harder about what to ask.” She stops and waits for me to catch up.
“Don’t be a brat.”
She sticks out her tongue.
“Careful there. Someone might take that as an invitation,” Nash says, walking up the drive.
“If only.” Poppy laughs and waits for him. “Where’s your big belt buckle?”
He chuckles and falls into step with her. “It was Levi’s night to win, unfortunately.”
“Next time.” She punches him in the stomach, and he slings his arm around her shoulders.
They walk toward the string lights and the sound of music, and all I want to do is turn around and go back into those woods to find Delaney.
I begin to follow Poppy and Nash, but Emmett steps out in front of me. I search the dance floor until I spot Wren spinning around with Briar as she holds Colter.
“How you holding up?” he asks.
I push my hand through my hair. “You heard?”
“Everyone heard. All of Willowbrook is practically here. So, she’s back, huh?”
I love my cousin like a brother. I’m closer to Emmett than anyone—but I haven’t been completely truthful with him. There’s one secret I’ve kept locked away for seven-plus years. A secret only Delaney and I share.
“It’s crazy. I mean, she was married to a drug trafficker.” Emmett shakes his head.
The top button of his shirt is undone, jacket already abandoned.
“Did you know she was back? I saw her mom not that long ago in town.”
He shakes his head. “I think it’s only been a week or so. If I’d known, I would’ve told you.”
I nod because I know he would’ve. Emmett always has my back.
“You seem really affected. Someone said you were rude to her.” He arches an eyebrow, appearing confused.
This is where it would be easier if Emmett knew the truth, but I can’t do that to Kristie’s memory. “Just surprised to see her, I guess.”
“It’s been what… fourteen years? You had Kristie. And she clearly fell in love with someone else.”
My stomach twists when I think of that asshole she married.
I couldn’t even bring myself to finish reading the story about his arrest. I’d Googled it once—after Brooks told me—but I closed the page pretty quickly.
I didn’t want to see pictures of the man who replaced me.
The man she chose to marry and live happily ever after with shortly after we were through for good.
It was selfish and petty, maybe, but it made me sick.
So anytime someone brought up Delaney and her husband, I tuned out or walked away.
“You know it’s bad if she had to come home. She’s living with her parents.”
My head snaps in his direction. “She is?”
“God, Danson, did you not read anything about her husband?”
“Not really, no.”
“Her daughter is Wren’s friend, I think. I’m not sure, but that new girl in school she keeps talking about? Pretty sure that’s her.”
I rack my brain and remember Wren talking about a new girl she and Kayla adopted into their group, but the last name didn’t sound familiar, so I never made the connection.
There’s no way I would’ve guessed that girl was Delaney’s daughter.
Especially one in Wren’s grade. Obviously, Delaney and her husband wasted no time in starting a family.
The two of us walk toward the festivities.
“If her daughter’s already in school, then she’s been here a while, and no one knew?”
Emmett shrugs, stopping at the bar where Jude and Ben are arguing about the softball lineup for our team. Ben’s questioning why Jude keeps fucking around with it.
“I guess she’s been hiding out,” he says, signaling the bartender for two beers.
I hate the fact she’s hiding as if she has something to be ashamed of. She doesn’t. That piece of shit she married does. He’s the one who wrecked her life. I can’t imagine Delaney ever willingly getting involved in something like that.
And now, I’ve got a thousand questions.
Was she pressured into that life?
Was she afraid?
Did that asshole hurt her or her daughter?
A jealous rage simmers inside me.
Emmett nudges my shoulder with a beer, and I realize I’ve missed half the conversation.
“I guess we know who the next victim is,” Ben jokes, and all three of the Noughton brothers click the necks of their bottles together, elbows leaning on the bar, watching me.
“What are you talking about?” I sip my beer, wishing it was something stronger—wishing I could take a few shots and forget the fact that Delaney is back to sharing the same town with me.
“It just seems fitting, no?” Ben says.
He was a senior when we were sophomores. I’m sure he doesn’t really remember how it was between us.
“What does?”
They all raise their eyebrows at me, looking smug and amused.
“That your first love just showed up in town,” Ben says.
“Who said she was my first love?” But the pit in my stomach aches because the lie tastes wrong the second it leaves my mouth.
Everyone assumes Kristie was it for me. The one. The woman who held my heart so tightly that there’s nothing left to give anyone else. But the truth? Delaney had it long before Kristie ever came along.
And even after all this time, I still feel that pull to her. Like every seven years, she comes back into my orbit and wrecks me all over again.
“Delusional,” Jude says with a shake of his head.
“Cynic,” Ben adds.
“Just a straight-up destiny denier. Sad, really.” Emmett tips back his beer.
“You guys don’t know what you’re talking about.” I turn away from them, looking toward the dance floor where Wren twirls around with Nash and Poppy, ribbons spinning from her crown of flowers.
“What about you building your house? Ready to leave the nest yet?” Jude asks.
I roll my eyes. Another topic I don’t have the bandwidth for tonight.
“Leave Danson alone. He’s got a cushy thing going on over there,” Emmett says before sipping his beer, his gaze following mine.
“What’s going on with them?” I ask, nodding toward Nash and Poppy. Anything to shift attention off me.
“Heard Levi Richards won at the rodeo today, which just takes us full circle right back to Delaney.” Ben laughs.
“I’m out.” I walk away from my cousins and down the path toward the dance floor, finishing my beer and dropping the bottle in the recycling.
I ignore the familiar tug that’s been pulling my mind back to Delaney for years. Because seven years ago, another girl came into my life, and she owns my heart.
Wren is everything. She comes first. Starting anything with Delaney would be reckless and selfish and probably end up hurting Wren if the truth came out.
I tap Wren on the shoulder. “Dance with your dad?”
Her face lights up, and for a second, I catch a flicker of Kristie in her smile. It hits like it always does—like a punch to the gut. A reminder of the past, of the promises I need to keep.
But I’d never trade what I have now. Being Wren’s dad is one thing I’ll never regret. It’s the most important role I’ll ever have.