Chapter 8 Nash
EIGHT
NASH
By the time we pull into the driveway, my jaw hurts from clenching. I kill the engine and sit for half a second, fingers tight on the wheel. The porch light glows like a lighthouse, the rest of the ranch spread out behind it in dark shapes and shadows.
“Sorry,” Delaney says quietly.
“For what?”
“For Kyle being the human embodiment of a tax audit.”
A laugh punches out of me despite everything. “You didn’t invite him into existence.”
“Still feel responsible,” she mutters, then looks over at me. “You okay?”
I’m not. I’m wired and half-feral and one smart remark away from putting my fist through something that’s not drywall. But she doesn’t need more weight.
“I’m fine,” I lie.
She hears it, I can tell. She taps the door handle. “Walk me up? Or is your fake boyfriend contract up for the night?”
I shove the keys in my pocket and get out before I can say something stupid. “Come on, Coleman,” I say, circling the truck. “Gotta sell this thing.”
We walk side by side up the path. Crickets screech. A breeze ruffles the leaves in the big oak. The night smells like dust and distant rain.
Her shoulder brushes mine once, twice. It’s not an accident. It’s not quite deliberate.
On the porch, she stops. We’re in that tiny pool of light, everything else fading out. Her eyes look greener at night, somehow, like there’s more depth the darker it gets around them.
“Well,” she says. “This has been the weirdest date I’ve ever been on.”
“High bar?”
“You’d be surprised.”
Silence stretches between us, taut and shimmering.
She studies me, head tipped like she’s trying to line me up with the ghost in her memory. “You coming inside?” she asks.
Two words.
Too many implications.
My mind offers up an image I have no business entertaining—her backing up into that hallway, my hands on either side of her head, her mouth under mine finally, finally, finally.
I shut it down so hard it almost hurts. “Not yet,” I say, voice rougher than I intend. “I need to make a call to Gray. About Stroud.”
Something flickers over her face. Disappointment? Relief? Both?
“Okay,” she says. “Don’t stay out too long. My mom has Jedi-level hearing. If she thinks we’re having a lovers’ quarrel, we’ll be in couples counseling by breakfast.”
“Can’t afford the copay,” I say.
Her mouth curves.
We stand there and don’t move.
Her hand rests on the doorframe, fingers spread. From this close I can see the faint crease on her knuckles from where she grips reins. There’s a tiny scar at the base of her thumb. I remember when she got it—she cut herself on a baling hook and refused stitches.
“You’re doing that thing again,” she whispers.
“What thing?”
“Looking at me like you’re memorizing me.”
I swallow. “Maybe I am.”
Her breath catches.
We’re too close now.
The air between us hums. My heart is pounding in my ears, but under it I hear the soft creak of the house settling, the far-off low of a cow, the tiny, important sound of her exhale.
I lean in.
Her eyes drop to my mouth and back up, slow. “Nash…”
“Yeah?”
“This is a bad idea.”
“Most of my best ones are.”
We’re inches apart now. Her hand lifts like she might touch my chest, then hovers mid-air, undecided.
Every muscle in my body is strung tight.
I could close this distance.
I could kiss her.
I want to kiss her more than I want a name on my next breath.
But behind that want is a picture of her face if this all goes wrong—the ranch threatened, the saboteur still out there, and me adding a fresh broken piece to the pile.
I stop.
She feels it. Her shoulders lower a fraction, not rejection—resignation. “Make your call, Nash,” she says, trying for light and almost making it. “We’ll practice the fake-relationship PDA another time.”
“Promise?” I ask before I can stop myself.
She huffs out a breath. “Go before I change my mind and kiss you first.”
I nearly do something catastrophically stupid then. Instead, I step back. “Goodnight, Laney.”
“Night, Nash.”
She slips inside. The door closes with a soft click that echoes louder than it should.
I stand there for a beat, staring at the wood, then force myself down the steps and away from the light. The yard swallows me up. I pull out my phone and hit Gray’s contact.
He picks up on the first ring. “Tell me this is a social call,” he says, dry.
“Not even close.”
“Tell me it’s at least not about damage.”
“Also not true.”
He sighs. “Hit me.”
“Kyle Stroud showed up at the Eager Beaver,” I say. “He’s sniffing around the ranch. Dropping hints about his daddy’s ‘investments.’ Talking leverage. Talking like he knows something we don’t.”
Gray’s voice sharpens. “Specifics.”
I give him a quick rundown—Stroud Holdings’ interest in the north pasture, the old complaint about ‘interference,’ Kyle’s little monologue about progress being inevitable and us standing in front of the bulldozer.
“And the way he looked at Delaney,” I add, jaw tightening. “Like she was already an acquisition.”
Gray doesn’t answer for a beat. Then, “Stroud’s always been thirsty for what he can’t have. Daddy’s money made him sloppy, not soft.”
“I want everything you’ve got on him,” I say. “On his old man. On the company. Land deals, backroom agreements, political donations, water rights. Any connection to the Keenes. Any hints of using ‘accidents’ to move reluctant sellers.”
“You’re thinking sabotage is part of a pattern.”
“I’m thinking rich men don’t like being told no. And Clay Stroud got told no by a Coleman with a big fat Sharpie across a dotted line.”
Gray exhales through his teeth. “I can pull some of it from public records. The rest I’ll have to dig for. Might be morning before I have anything solid.”
“That’s fine. I’ll be up.”
“No, you won’t,” he says, all boss now. “You’ll sleep. I need you sharp, not cooked.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. You sound like me five years ago, and I was an idiot.”
I rub a hand over my face.
He softens a notch. “We’ll look into Stroud. In the meantime, eyes open. Ears open. Don’t let your… history with Delaney cloud your judgment.”
“Too late,” I say, honest because lying to him is a waste of both our time.
He’s quiet.
“I figured,” he says finally. “Just remember: mission first. Her safety is the mission. Not your second chance.”
The words land where they’re supposed to.
“I know,” I say.
“Good. Now go do what I pay you for—make bad people uncomfortable.”
“Yes, sir.”
He hangs up.
I slide my phone into my pocket and turn toward the dark pasture. The ranch stretches out like a living thing, breathing slow. I can almost feel the heartbeat of it in my feet. I start walking.
Habit. Training. Obsession.
Call it what you want.
I move along the edge of the yard, past the barn, toward the south line. My red-lens flashlight sifts through shadows, turning them into information.
Fence holds.
Gate’s latched.
The area where we fixed the wire looks untouched.
My phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out.
Sinclair. My brother.
I hit accept. “What’s up?”
“Nash, I found something you might want to take a closer look at.”
“What’s that?”
He pauses, and I can hear him breathing. “It’s about Dad.”
Fuck.
“Send me what you found.”
I keep going, circling toward the north side, where the pasture curls down to the creek. The moon throws enough light that I leave the flashlight at my side, letting my eyes do the work.
“Do you think he could still be out there?” Sin’s voice echoes my own questions I’ve had for years.
“I don’t know,” I answer honestly. I stop in my tracks. “I gotta go. Talk soon.” I hang up before he’s even had a chance to say goodbye.
I spot headlights.
Low, dirty, bouncing.
On Coleman land.
A pickup, no running lights, no hesitation.
My pulse spikes.
The truck is near the back corner, where the property line meets the old service road. Too far to catch detail, close enough to know it doesn’t belong.
“Hey!” I bark, already breaking into a run.
The engine revs.
Taillights flare—red ghosts in the dark—and the truck swerves toward the fence line.
I sprint, boots pounding, breath steadying into that tight, efficient rhythm I trained into my body years ago.
“Stop!” I shout, useless but automatic. “Coleman property!”
The truck doesn’t stop. It guns it. For a second, it looks like the fool driving is going to plow straight through the fence we rebuilt twice.
At the last second, they jerk the wheel and slip through a narrow gap between posts where the ground dips—just shallow enough to make it, just hidden enough you’d have to know it was there.
They peel out onto the service road, gravel spraying, taillights shrinking.
I push harder.
Adrenaline burns through me, hot and clean. My world narrows to those two red points and the knowledge that someone was just on this land, doing God knows what, and I was ten seconds too late.
I crest the small rise as the truck fishtails onto the main road and disappears behind a stand of pecans.
Gone.
I stop. My heartbeat is a drum in the quiet. My lungs drag in air that tastes like dust and exhaust and fury. “Coward,” I mutter to the empty night. I turn back, scanning the ground with the flashlight now.
Tracks.
Fresh.
Deep.
They drove in slow, left in a hurry.
I follow the impressions along the fence, looking for anything broken, anything planted. I find a churned patch of dirt near a gate post, like they stopped there for a second.
Crouching, I run my fingers over the ground.
Nothing obvious. No new cut wire, no packages, no obvious marks.
Maybe they were scouting. Maybe they were measuring response time.
Maybe they were just testing how close they could get to my nerve without getting caught. Either way, they’re getting bold.
Bold gets people hurt.
I straighten, muscles singing from the sprint, and look back toward the house. A light burns in an upstairs window—Delaney’s room. The sight hits me square in the chest.
She’s up.
Maybe pacing.
Maybe pretending she’s not listening for trouble.
Maybe wondering if I’m going to knock.
I walk back toward the house in long strides, every sense stretched thin. When I step onto the porch, the boards creak an old, familiar greeting.
Inside, the hallway is dim, lit by the small lamp Mrs. Coleman always leaves on like a lighthouse.
Delaney’s door is closed.
I stop there. I can hear the faint sound of movement—fabric, maybe, or feet crossing the floor. My hand lifts.
If I knock, she’ll open.
If she opens, she’ll see everything I’m trying not to bleed all over this operation—anger, fear, that possessive protective instinct that’s been coiled since the day I left her.
I hover there, knuckles an inch from the wood.
I could tell her about the truck.
I could tell her about the files I want Gray to dig up.
I could tell her I’m not going anywhere until this place is safe enough for her to breathe without looking over her shoulder.
Instead, I swallow it all back down.
She deserves sleep more than she deserves my half-formed fears.
I lower my hand.
“Not yet,” I whisper, same as I told her on the porch.
Not yet.
I retreat to my room, shut the door softly, and sit on the edge of the bed I dragged closer to the hall.
The anger is still there. So is the resolve.
Whoever is doing this thinks they can come onto this land under cover of dark, take little bites out of a legacy, and scare a family into signing a piece of paper.
They’re not just messing with a ranch. They’re messing with the girl I carved my initials next to on a dock post a lifetime ago.
I stretch out, one arm behind my head, eyes on the ceiling, ears tuned to the faint sounds of the house.
They want a fight?
They just got one.
And I’m done playing nice.