Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CADE
By sunset, Delilah has taken over my favorite T-shirt.
She is stretched out on my bed, one leg tangled in the sheets.
Her face is flushed from sleep and from the kind of sex that should probably be illegal around here.
She’s talking nonstop about how she’ll shake up small-town Texas, starting with getting the library to carry books that aren’t just “about either the Alamo or Jesus.” She looks so at home, it’s as if something always pulls her back, no matter how much she claims to hate this place.
I stand in the doorway, arms folded. “You know the minute your old man finds out where you are, he’ll come calling.”
She rolls onto her back, her red-bronze hair messy against my old blue sheets. “He can try. You don’t have to let him in.” I grunt, “Pretty sure he’ll show up with eight guys in suits and a battering ram.” She grins, wild and beautiful. “Then let’s eat breakfast first.”
She stands, pulling on a pair of my sweatpants that bunch at her ankles.
On bare feet, she crosses the room and heads straight for the fridge, opening it to examine the shelves and contents.
I watch, not even pretending to hide how her presence fills my clothes or how her concentrated energy makes even simple chores look captivating.
She finds a carton of eggs, lifts it, and pokes at one. “You eat these?”
“I eat what doesn’t bite back.” I’m being gruff, but she can see through it. She cracks eggs with one hand like it’s a magic trick.
“Your cholesterol is probably a ticking time bomb.”
“Take it up with my genetics.” She laughs, low and private, throwing me a look that’s pure showoff.
We eat together at the old pine table, the one I built and kept after the divorce.
Delilah dumps Tabasco on her eggs, her elbow jutting out with a self-assured movement.
She’s all confidence and humor, nothing like the quiet girl I met during her father’s campaign.
After breakfast, she wanders the house, running her fingertips along surfaces and trailing her hand across my bookshelves, but she circles back to rest near me.
The house seems to hold its breath, waiting to see what will happen next.
I’m staring at her when I hear the crunch of gravel outside.
Instantly, my skin tightens; every fiber goes to Condition Red.
“Stay here,” I tell her, grabbing the .45 from my nightstand.
I tuck it under my waistband and head for the porch.
Out the window, I see three men—beefy, with high-and-tight haircuts, earpieces gleaming—watching my every move with bored, professional disdain.
The first agent steps forward, hand extended as if we’re here to negotiate a hostage release. “Mr. Walker. We’re here to escort Ms. Munro home.”
Delilah, of course, appears at my side in seconds. “Don’t even think about putting hands on me.” Her voice has so much venom that the agent actually steps back.
I insert myself between her and the suits.
“You got a warrant?” I ask, low and steady.
They ignore me and address her: “Miss, your parents are worried sick.” She juts her chin.
“If they cared about my well-being, they’d maybe use my cell instead of sending the local SWAT.
” She reaches into my back pocket, yanks out my phone, and waves it.
“Here it is. I’m alive. Now get the fuck off this property—Cade barely has enough food for two.
” This is so wildly off-script—not the helpless daughter, not the runaway brat, but a fully armed and operational battle-station of a woman. I have to choke back a laugh.
The lead agent recalculates. “We’re under orders to bring you in tonight.
” She gives him a look that could unseat the Supreme Court.
Then, in a dazzling display, she whips up tears from nowhere.
“Are you going to arrest me for trying to have a normal life?” She turns to me, sniffs, “Cade, you promised I could stay.” I don’t even have to fake being furious.
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” I say it with a finality that reaches right to my bones.
We stand in a tense standoff—Delilah and me in the doorway, the three agents on the porch acting like this won’t end badly. Finally, one steps aside and speaks into his mic. “Senator, request you advise.”
From inside the house, Delilah’s voice—bright and brittle—cuts the tension. “Tell my father he can visit if he brings pie. He knows the one I like.”
The agent tips his head, listening to something through his earpiece. “We’re told to stand down. You’ve got until tomorrow morning, Miss.”
They head back to their black Escalade, leaving with clear frustration. I watch until the road is empty, then close the door, my heart pounding.
Delilah is grinning as if she got away with highway robbery. “Did you see their faces? I almost feel bad for them.”
I shake my head, and she gets serious. “I meant it, Cade. I’m not hiding anymore. But I’m done being the family’s campaign mascot.” She looks around the kitchen, then at my rough hands gripping the table. “What happens now?”
I let out a long breath, the adrenaline leaving me cold. “You stay if you want. But my life isn’t…glamorous. Or safe.”
She comes to me. Her hands slide under my shirt, flat on my skin, anchoring me there in the now. “You’re the only thing in my life that feels real,” she says, “and the only man who lets me make my own choices.”
Her words shake me more than any campaign scandal or media storm. I’ve survived wars, PTSD, losing my father, and stampeding cattle, but nothing has scared me like this girl saying she wants to stay.
I reach for her, and she fits against me. Small, stubborn, a torch I could never put out. I rest my chin on her hair and breathe her in, and for a second, nothing hurts.
The next day, at 10:00 a.m. sharp, a red BMW the length of a gunboat pulls up the drive.
Out steps her mother, looking like a Kennedy widow transplanted to the Hill Country.
She’s all pearls and lacquered hair. She stands for a long minute, gazing at the house with a mix of calculation and horror.
Then she squares her shoulders and walks up the porch as if she owns it.
Delilah intercepts her at the door. “Nice of you to visit, Mom. Want some eggs?” Her mother’s face—tight, beautiful, and utterly at war with itself—softens just enough to betray worry.
“Darling, people are saying things. Your father—” She glances at me, the contempt almost artful. “Why are you humiliating us?”
Delilah folds her arms, refusing to shrivel. “Because for the first time, I know what it’s like to wake up and not want to stay under the covers.”
Her mother sets her purse on the counter and surveys the kitchen, which makes her sneeze. “Is that so?”
I move to the far end of the house, putting space between us, but the walls are thin, and I catch every word.
In a calm, certain tone, Delilah tells her mother she’s staying here for the rest of the summer, maybe longer; her father’s campaign can spin it however they want, but if they try to drag her back, she’ll call the Austin American-Statesman and spill everything.
Her mother’s voice is a hiss. “Think of your father’s career.”
Delilah’s voice: “It’s his, not mine. You do realize I get a life too, right?”
There’s a tense silence. Then her mother says, “If you’re expecting money—” “I’ll get a job,” Delilah interrupts, and it’s easy to believe her. Anyone who can outsmart a security team and get from Dallas to the Hill Country in one night isn’t going to just sit around.
Her mother’s voice is softer now. “Is this about Cade?” She pauses, then says, “He’s so much older than you.”
Delilah’s laugh is loud and clear. “He’s exactly as old as I need him to be.”
A chair scrapes, the interview over. Her mother stands, nibbling her lip, and says, “If this is what you want, I won’t stop you. But call your father.”
I walk her out, and she marches across the dirt drive, getting into the red BMW with a look that isn’t defeat or victory, but a kind of peace I can’t describe.
Back inside, Delilah is already making more eggs, her hands shaking a little. She cracks a shell and it breaks apart, but she stays calm.
“Hell of a performance,” I say.
She glances at me, a little pale but proud.
“It wasn’t a performance. I meant everything.
” “You always mean it.” She cracks another egg.
“You think I’m a pain in the ass.” I lean against the doorway, arms folded.
“I think you’re going to burn this place down.
” She laughs, and this time it’s not sharp but hopeful. “Only if you let me.”
We settle into a routine. Delilah sets about decorating the house—painting the kitchen cupboards a soft duck-egg blue, hanging woven throws over the sofa—while she also returns to riding, training every morning for the upcoming showjump next month.
By midday, she’s at the local veterinarian’s office, volunteering to wrangle terrified strays, then working side by side with Dr. Morales to turn a boarded-up barn into a sanctuary for pets abandoned along the country roads.
“Your belief in me,” she says, “gave me the guts to try again.”
Delilah grew up in Valor Springs, but she spent most of her life in DC and Austin.
She doesn’t need to adjust to being a Texan—just to the quiet of ranch life.
There’s a kind of eagerness in how she adapts that surprises me.
The ranch hands treat her like a little sister, teaching her to herd cattle, fix fences, and even beat them at Texas Hold ’Em. She picks up every skill quickly.
At night, she curls into my lap with a book or tucks her cold feet under my legs, and sometimes—when she thinks I’m asleep—she whispers, “I never thought I could love a place this much,” or, “You’re not what I expected, but you’re all I want.” Dangerous words I try to shake off, but can’t.
One late-July afternoon, she comes in from the ring sporting a scraped forearm and a sheepish grin.
She took a tumble off Cricket, she explains, but “you should’ve seen the lift on that jump.
” I dab at the scratch with iodine and call her an idiot; she just laughs, takes my hand, and leads me onto the porch to watch the sun melt behind the ridge.
She rests her head on my shoulder and asks, quietly, “You think I’ll ever master that jump for real?”
I rest my hand on her knee, noticing how small she feels next to me. “You’re the toughest person I know—tougher than three marines and one ex-wife.”
She lets out a breath and leans into me. “I’m scared sometimes that I’ll mess this up.”
I let her words hang in the warm dusk. “We all mess up. But I’ll stay right here.”
She looks up, her blue eyes bright even as the light fades. “I want to stay. With you. For good.”
Her words hit me hard, and I can’t speak. I just nod, and she understands. She climbs onto my lap, wraps her arms around my neck, and kisses me so deeply it loosens something inside me that’s been tight since I was a kid.
I don’t need to ask what comes next. I already know: more mornings scented with coffee and hay dust, afternoons at the barn rescuing puppies, nights inventing new ways to make her curse my name.
Someday, maybe a little house behind this one, dogs roaming free, kids running in the yard.
And even if her mother tries to bribe her back or the Senator turns this place upside down, it won’t matter. Delilah chose this life—chose me.
The next morning, with dew still on the grass and sunlight shining across her bare shoulders, I watch Delilah sleeping beside me.
Her hair spreads across the pillow like wheat after a storm, one strand between her lips.
I reach for the small velvet box I hid under my mattress weeks ago, my hands shaking.
When her eyes open, blue as Texas bluebonnets, I press the ring into her palm and whisper, "Marry me, brat.
Not because I tamed you, but because you set me free. "