6. Delilah
— ? —
Delilah
The media van arrives with the morning sun.
I’m stuck on the porch, leg elevated on an ottoman Rosa dragged out for me, watching my empire function without me.
For the past week, Aimie has taken over morning rounds WITH Lucas-“just until you’re better,” she keeps saying, that phrase becoming a refrain I hear in my sleep.
Every day, I watch them walk toward the stables together, their shoulders almost touching, their voices low with conversation I can’t hear.
Today it’s worse. The promotional team for the Houston Rodeo is here, cameras and lights transforming my arena into a film set. I count three equipment trucks, a catering tent, and at least a dozen crew members swarming like ants across the property I helped build from nothing.
The director approaches the porch, clipboard in hand, his eyes sliding over me like I’m part of the furniture.
“Mrs. Montoya! We’re so glad you’re recovering!” His smile is professional and empty. “But we’ll be featuring Miss Lawson in today’s shoot. She’s the new face - young, fresh, marketable. You understand.”
Young. Fresh. Marketable.
I’m thirty-two years old. I’ve won seven regional championships. I helped turn this rodeo from a dream scratched on napkins into a multi-million dollar enterprise.
And I’m being set aside for someone younger and fresher.
“I’d like to be involved somehow,” I say, and I hate how my voice sounds - small, uncertain, asking permission in my own home. “Even if I can’t ride. I could speak to the camera about the history of the program, or-”
“That’s so thoughtful of you.” The director’s smile doesn’t waver, but his eyes are already looking past me, toward the arena where Aimie is warming up on one of our horses.
“But the sponsors were very specific about the direction they want. Fresh energy. New chapter.” He pats my arm - actually pats it, like I’m someone’s elderly grandmother.
“Maybe next season, when you’re back on your feet? ”
I open my mouth to argue, but he’s already walking away, shouting something to his crew about lighting angles.
For a long moment, I just sit there.
The porch has become my prison this past week.
From here, I can see the arena where I used to ride, the stables where my horses live, the fields where Lucas and I walked a thousand times, planning our future.
I can see all of it, but I can’t touch any of it.
Can’t participate. Can’t do anything but watch.
Movement catches my eye - Jimmy Cooper from maintenance walking past with a lighting stand. He’s been with us since almost the beginning, a quiet man who knows every inch of this property. As he passes, Aimie calls out to him.
“Jimmy, can you angle that a little to the left?”
He does it without hesitation. Without even looking at me for confirmation. Like he’s been taking her directions all week.
Maybe he has.
I grab my crutches and stand. My leg screams in protest, but I ignore it. I’m not going to sit here like a discarded prop while someone else directs the reshaping of my life.
The walk to the arena feels endless. Every step jolts through my broken leg, sends fire racing up my thigh. By the time I reach the edge of the set, I’m sweating and breathing hard, but I’m standing.
The director notices me approaching and his smile goes fixed.
“Mrs. Montoya. You really should be resting.”
“I’d like to be included in the shoot.” I say it louder this time. Clearer. The Delilah who tamed Storm, the one who walked into paddocks without flinching - I try to channel her, try to find whatever piece of her is left inside this broken body.
He looks at me the way you’d look at someone’s grandmother who wandered onto a film set. Polite. Pitying.
“We’ve discussed this. The sponsors were very specific-”
“I’m the co-founder of this brand. My face built it. I’ve spent seven years-”
“And it’s a wonderful face.” He pats my arm again, that same condescending gesture. “But right now, the market wants something different. Maybe next season, when you’re back on your feet?”
It’s the exact same words he said before. A script he’s rehearsed for difficult situations.
I open my mouth to argue - to demand, to fight, to do something - when Lucas appears at my elbow.
“Delilah.” His voice is low. The voice he uses when he thinks I’m making a scene. “Can I talk to you for a second?”
His hand closes around my arm, gentle but firm, and he steers me away from the cameras, away from the crew, away from the arena where Aimie is now posing on horseback like she was born for this.
“You need to rest.” His voice is calm, reasonable, and that makes it worse somehow. “This is one photoshoot. It’s not worth hurting yourself over.”
“It’s not one photoshoot, Lucas. It’s my life. It’s everything we built together, and I’m being pushed out of it one piece at a time.”
“You’re not being pushed out. You’re recovering from a serious injury. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” I stare up at him, searching his face for some sign that he understands, that he sees what’s happening. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like I’m being erased. New face. Fresh energy. Those are his words, not mine.”
Lucas sighs. Pinches the bridge of his nose in that way he does when he’s frustrated with me.
“Go inside. Please. Rest. Let me handle the shoot.”
Please. Like it’s a request. Like I have a choice.
I go inside. Because my leg is screaming and my pride has nothing left to stand on.
From the window, I watch the photoshoot continue without me. I watch Aimie pose with different horses, laugh with the crew, move through the arena like she owns it. The director loves her - I can tell by the way he gestures enthusiastically, by the way the crew clusters around her between takes.
Young. Fresh. Marketable.
Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, they move to the promotional segment. Aimie walks toward the camera, hitting her mark perfectly, and starts talking about the Montoya Rodeo with the ease of someone who’s rehearsed extensively.
“This program represents the best of American horsemanship,” she says, and her voice carries through the open window. “Lucas Montoya has built something incredible here, and I’m honored to be part of taking it to the next level.”
Lucas Montoya. Not Lucas and Delilah. Not the Montoyas. Just Lucas.
I turn away from the window.
Rosa finds me in the living room an hour later, staring at nothing.
“Mrs. Delilah.” Her voice is soft. “Can I get you something? Tea? Something to eat?”
“No. Thank you, Rosa.”
She hovers for a moment, clearly wanting to say something. Then she sits down across from me, which she never does. Rosa is proper, formal, keeps careful boundaries between employer and employee. The fact that she’s sitting now tells me something is very wrong.
“I don’t like her,” Rosa says quietly. “That woman. I don’t like the way she looks at this house. Like she’s measuring for curtains.”
A laugh escapes me - broken, bitter.
“Neither do I.”
“Mr. Lucas doesn’t see it. Men never do, when a woman is smart about how she moves.” Rosa’s dark eyes meet mine. “But I see it. And I wanted you to know - you’re not crazy. Whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re noticing, it’s real.”
Tears prick at my eyes. This small validation, this acknowledgment that I’m not imagining things, feels like the first solid ground I’ve found in days.
“Thank you, Rosa.”
She nods once, stands, and returns to her formal distance. “I’ll make tea anyway. You need something warm.”
She’s barely left the room when I hear the front door open. Voices in the entryway - the director, Aimie, Lucas. Laughter. The sound of a successful day wrapping up.
I should stay where I am. Should rest, like everyone keeps telling me. Should wait until the crew leaves and the dust settles.
But I can’t.
I grab my crutches and make my way toward the entryway. The movement attracts attention - Lucas looks up, his expression flickering through annoyance before settling on concern.
“Delilah. I thought you were resting.”
“I wanted to see how it went.”
Aimie turns to face me, and my heart stops.
She’s wearing my jacket.
The turquoise one with the silver threading. The one I wore when I won my first regional championship, ten years ago on a horse named Whisper who died three winters back. The one I’ve kept in perfect condition, hanging in the back of my closet, waiting for Houston.
The one I was supposed to wear when I proved to everyone that I still belonged in the arena.
“Oh, Delilah!” Aimie’s voice is bright, oblivious - or pretending to be. “The shoot went amazingly. The director loved the jacket - said it photographed beautifully. I hope you don’t mind that I borrowed it. Lucas said it was just sitting in your closet.”
Lucas said.
I look at my husband. He has the grace to look slightly uncomfortable, but he doesn’t apologize. Doesn’t explain. Just stands there while another woman wears my championship jacket like it’s a costume piece.
“It’s not just a jacket,” I hear myself say, and my voice sounds strange. Hollow. “I wore that when I won my first regionals. It’s - it meant-”
“Oh, I didn’t know!” Aimie’s hands fly to her chest in an exaggerated gesture of distress. “Lucas just said it would look good on camera. If I’d known it was sentimental-”
“It’s fine.” Lucas cuts me off with a wave of his hand. “It’s just a jacket, and it was sitting in the closet collecting dust. At least now it got some use.”
Just a jacket.
Collecting dust.
I feel something crack inside my chest. Something that’s been holding together through sheer force of will finally gives way.
“You’re right,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake at all. “It’s just a jacket. Excuse me.”
I turn and make my way toward the stairs. Behind me, I hear the director saying his goodbyes, hear Lucas walking him out, hear Aimie’s heels clicking on the hardwood as she moves through my house like she belongs there.
Rosa catches me at the base of the stairs.
“Let me help you, Mrs. Delilah.”
I want to refuse. Want to prove I can do this alone. But my leg is screaming and my eyes are burning and I don’t have any fight left.
“Thank you, Rosa.”
She helps me up the stairs, one agonizing step at a time. When we reach the bedroom, she pauses at the door.
“I’ll bring your tea up here. And some dinner later. You don’t need to go back down tonight.”
“Rosa-”
“You’re not alone in this house, Mrs. Delilah.” Her voice is firm. “Even when it feels like you are. Remember that.”
She leaves me standing in the doorway of my own bedroom, looking at the bed I share with a man I don’t recognize anymore.
That night, after everyone else has gone to sleep, I lie awake staring at the ceiling.
Lucas came to bed an hour ago. He’s asleep now, breathing evenly, his back turned toward me. He didn’t mention the jacket. Didn’t apologize. Didn’t seem to understand why seeing Aimie wear my championship turquoise might have hurt.
Or maybe he understood and just didn’t care.
I think about the woman I was when I met him. Twenty-three and fearless, with calloused hands and championship trophies and a future so bright it hurt to look at. I walked into Storm’s paddock without flinching. I spoke my mind. I didn’t apologize for taking up space.
What happened to her?
When did she become this - this ghost haunting her own life, watching from the sidelines while someone else takes everything she built?
The jacket was just a jacket. Lucas was right about that.
But it was also the last piece of proof that I was ever someone worth remembering.
Tomorrow, I decide. Tomorrow I’m going to fight.
I don’t know how yet. Don’t know what weapons I have left, broken and immobile and losing ground by the hour.
But I’m going to find a way.
Because I refuse to disappear without making some noise first.