23. Delilah
— ? —
Delilah
We’re walking toward the house to check the security footage when Mr. Velez comes running.
His boots kick up dust with every stride, his face flushed beneath the brim of his hat.
I’ve known this man for years - seen him calm a spooked stallion with nothing but his voice, seen him handle emergencies with the steady competence of someone who’s weathered every storm the ranch can throw. I’ve never seen him run like this.
My stomach drops before he even speaks.
“Mr. Montoya! Mrs. Delilah!”
He stops in front of us, chest heaving, and I can see the worry carved into every line of his face.
“What happened?”
“It’s Storm.” The words come out between breaths. “He hasn’t been eating for days. Barely sleeping. I think - I think he’s sick.”
Storm.
The cameras are forgotten. Everything is forgotten. I’m moving before I make the conscious decision to move, my leg protesting with every step but I don’t care, I can’t care, because Storm-
Lucas keeps pace beside me. Neither of us speaks. There’s nothing to say.
The stable doors are open when we arrive, late afternoon light slanting through in golden bars. I smell it before I see him - that familiar scent of horse and hay and leather that’s meant home for as long as I can remember.
Then I see him.
Storm stands in his stall, head low, coat dull. The powerful animal who once charged at strangers, who threw every rider except me, who carried me to championship after championship - he barely lifts his eyes when we approach.
My heart cracks.
“Hey, beautiful.” I move slowly, carefully, the way I did all those years ago in his paddock. No sudden movements. No demands. Just presence. “What’s wrong?”
He whickers softly. A shadow of his former self.
I slip into the stall, my hand finding his neck. His coat is rough beneath my palm - not the gleaming black silk I’m used to. His ribs are more prominent than they should be. His breathing is shallow, labored.
“When did this start?” Lucas asks from behind me.
“About a week ago.” Mr. Velez runs a hand through his hair, the gesture heavy with guilt. “Right around when Mrs. Delilah moved out.”
Lucas and I exchange a glance.
A week ago. When I left the main house. When I walked away from our bed, our life, everything we’d built together.
Storm knew. Of course he knew. Horses feel everything we try to hide.
“He knows,” I murmur, stroking his muzzle. “He knows something’s wrong.”
We stay.
There’s no discussion about it, no negotiation.
We simply stay. Lucas disappears to the tack room and returns with medicine - the good stuff, the expensive supplements we keep for emergencies.
I settle into the straw beside Storm’s stall, my back against the wooden slats, talking to him in the low steady voice that used to calm him during thunderstorms.
“Remember when we won in El Paso?” I keep my tone soft, rhythmic. “The crowd was so loud you almost bolted. But you didn’t. You trusted me. You’ve always trusted me.”
His ear flicks toward my voice. A small movement, but it’s something.
Lucas works beside me, measuring doses, checking water levels. We move around each other with the ease of long partnership - handing off supplies without asking, anticipating what the other needs before they need it. It feels almost like it used to. Before everything went wrong.
I don’t know how long we’ve been there when the sky begins to darken.
Not the soft darkening of sunset. Something heavier. More ominous.
Mr. Velez peers out the stable door, his face tightening. “Dust storm. Coming fast.”
I push myself up - my leg screams at me, but I ignore it - and look. The horizon has turned brown, a wall of dust and debris rolling toward us like something alive. The wind is already picking up, gusts tugging at my hair, at my clothes.
“I need to go secure the equipment shed,” Mr. Velez says. “The doors have been loose since last month. And someone needs to get the truck under cover before the windows get sandblasted.”
“Go,” Lucas says immediately. “We’ve got Storm.”
“You sure?” Mr. Velez hesitates, looking between us. Something flickers in his eyes - concern, or maybe something more knowing. “I can come back after-”
“The shed’s a long run from here, and that storm’s moving fast.” Lucas is already rolling up his sleeves. “Get the equipment secured. We’ll hunker down here.”
Mr. Velez’s gaze moves from Lucas to me and back again. I can see the calculation happening - two people trapped together for hours, maybe all night, with everything that’s happened between them.
“The storm could last hours,” he says carefully. “Maybe all night.”
“We know.” I don’t look at Lucas. Can’t look at him. “Go, Mr. Velez. We’ll be fine.”
He nods slowly. Grabs his hat from its peg. At the threshold, he pauses, the wind already whipping at his jacket.
“Take care of each other,” he says.
Then he’s gone, disappearing into the swirling dust.
Lucas pulls the stable doors closed behind him, and the wind cuts off - muffled now, a roar instead of a scream. We’re trapped. The two of us, Storm, and the endless howl of the dust.
I sink back down beside Storm’s stall. My leg throbs gratefully at the rest. Storm shifts, still unsettled, and I murmur to him again, promises and memories and nonsense words that don’t mean anything except I’m here, I’m here, I’m not leaving.
Lucas appears beside me with a blanket from the tack room. He drapes it over my shoulders without a word.
“Thanks,” I manage.
He nods. Sits down against the wall across from me.
The dust screams against the walls. Debris clatters on the roof. But the stable holds - solid, old, built to weather exactly this kind of storm.
“He’s calmer with you here,” Lucas says quietly.
“He’s calmer with us here.” The correction comes out before I can stop it. “He always knew when we were fighting. Remember that time after the Austin show? When we argued about the trailer route?”
Lucas almost smiles. Not quite, but close. “He wouldn’t eat for two days. I thought he was dying. Turns out he was just… protesting.”
“He’s sensitive.” I stroke Storm’s nose through the stall bars. “More than people give him credit for.”
Silence falls between us, but it’s different now. Less loaded. More like the silences we used to share - comfortable, easy, two people who know each other well enough not to need words.
I watch him in the dim light of the stable. The way the shadows play across his face, his jaw, his throat. He’s taken off his jacket, his shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, and I can see the muscles in his forearms flex as he shifts position.
Stop it. Stop noticing.
But I can’t help it. I’ve been married to this man for seven years. I know every inch of him - the scar on his left hand from a fence post, the way his hair curls when it gets too long, the particular angle of his collarbone.
He catches me looking. I don’t look away.
“What?” he asks.
“Nothing.”
“Delilah-”
“I said nothing.”
The wind screams louder. Something crashes outside - a branch, maybe, or loose equipment. Storm whinnies nervously, and I turn my attention back to him, grateful for the distraction.
Hours pass. Or minutes. Time loses meaning in a storm like this.
At some point, I drift off - exhaustion finally catching up with me, the sleepless nights in the cottage taking their toll. My head falls against the wall, then slides sideways, and I’m asleep before I can stop myself.
I wake up screaming.
The nightmare - falling, Stella’s scream, the ground rushing up to meet me - lingers even as consciousness returns. I’m gasping, shaking, my heart hammering against my ribs. The stable is dark, the emergency lights casting everything in dim orange, and for a moment I don’t know where I am.
Then his arms are around me.
“It’s okay.” Lucas’s voice in my ear, rough with sleep, warm with concern. “I’m here.”
I should pull away. Should remember all the reasons this is a mistake, all the ways he’s hurt me, all the things that are still broken between us.
But his hand is in my hair. His chest is solid against my back. And for one weak moment, I let myself be held.
“It’s okay,” he says again. Softer now. “You’re safe. It was just a dream.”
“Stella,” I manage. “I keep - every time I close my eyes-”
“I know. I know.”
He holds me while I shake. Doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t try to fix anything. Just holds me, his breathing slow and steady, an anchor in the dark.
Eventually, the trembling stops. My heart rate slows. But I don’t move away from him.
I should. I know I should.
Instead, I turn. Look up at him.
His face is close. So close. I can see every detail - the dark of his eyes, the stubble on his jaw, the way his lips are slightly parted.
I kiss him.
I don’t decide to do it. It just happens - one moment we’re breathing the same air, and the next my mouth is on his.
He freezes. Two seconds that feel like forever, two seconds where I think oh God what did I do and prepare for him to push me away.
Then he kisses me back.
His hand cups my jaw. The other pulls me closer, into him, onto him. I make a sound I don’t recognize - half gasp, half moan - and his tongue slides against mine.
This is the first time in so long. The first time we’ve kissed like we mean it. Like we’re not just going through the motions of a dying marriage.
My fingers fist in his shirt. His breath goes ragged against my mouth. I can feel his heart hammering as hard as mine, can feel the heat of him through his clothes, through the blanket still tangled around my shoulders.
I want-
I want him. Despite everything. Because of everything. I want his hands on me, his mouth on me, I want to forget everything that’s happened and lose myself in him the way I used to-
Then he pulls away.
“We shouldn’t.” His forehead rests against mine. Voice wrecked. Breathing hard. “You just had a nightmare. You’re vulnerable.”
The words land like cold water.
I swallow. My lips still tingle. Every nerve in my body is screaming at me to close the distance, to take what I want, to worry about consequences later.
“You’re right. We shouldn’t.” I open my eyes, meet his. “But not because of that.”
Silence. The wind. Dust against the walls.
He exhales - a long, shaky breath that sounds like regret and relief tangled together.
“Keep sleeping.” His thumb brushes my cheek once, a whisper of contact, then falls away. “We can’t get out of here tonight. Everything’s covered in dust.”
I should move. Put space between us. Rebuild the walls I’ve been building for weeks.
Instead, I settle against his shoulder. His arm stays around me - loose now, careful, nothing presumptuous.
“This doesn’t change anything,” I murmur.
“I know.”
“I’m still angry at you.”
“You should be.”
“The papers are still on my table.”
His arm tightens around me. Just for a second. Then releases.
“I know,” he says again. “Sleep, Delilah.”
I fall asleep knowing I shouldn’t. Knowing morning will come, and I’ll have to pretend this never happened. Knowing the kiss will hang between us, unfinished, unexplained, dangerous.
But I fall asleep anyway.
And I don’t dream about falling.