Chapter 9 Delaney
NINE
DELANEY
By the time the coffee finishes dripping, everyone in Valor Springs apparently already knows I have a boyfriend.
She gives me a look over the rim of her mug. “Apparently, my daughter is big news.”
“She always was,” Daddy says around a mouthful of toast.
I groan into my coffee. “Everybody needs a hobby that isn’t me.”
Nash sits at the end of the table in a clean t-shirt and that damn Stetson, forearms tan and already dusted from checking the front gate. He’s scrolling his phone with a half-smile that makes me nervous.
“Somebody die?” I ask.
“Nah.” He turns the screen so I can see the Hawthorne brothers’ group chat.
Crewe: Mom just asked if she should start sewing a dress.
Mack: You finally made an honest woman of my favorite Coleman, proud of you, jackass.
Sin: Try not to get shot this time.
Banks: She’s lost her mind.
Jace: Do I get to be best man or is Crewe going to pull rank?
Colt: I’m not wearing a tie.
I choke on my coffee. “You told them?”
“Of course not,” Nash says, amused. “News travels. Colt’s camping buddy texted him. Said ‘saw your brother at the Beaver last night losing his mind over some girl.’”
“Some girl,” I repeat. “Rude.”
He looks up. “Yeah,” he says. “It is.”
My insides go warm and unsettled.
Mama sets a plate of eggs and biscuits in front of me and gives Nash a fresh one because she’s secretly adopted him and isn’t subtle about it.
“So,” she says, all casual in the way rattlesnakes are casual. “What’re y’all doing today? More… dates?”
“We’re going into town,” Nash says before I can answer. “Couple errands. Couple of… couple things.”
“Couple-y things,” I echo. “Very technical.”
“Gotta keep the brand consistent.” His eyes spark.
Daddy snorts. “Your mother and I are happy to handle the ranch chores while you kids go ‘brand’ yourselves all over Main Street.”
Mama smacks his shoulder with a dish towel. “Hush. We want folks to see him with her. If whoever’s messing with us knows we’ve hired help…” She trails off, eyeing Nash, then me. “This is the least horrible plan we’ve ever had.”
High praise.
Nash reaches for the jam, his arm brushing mine lightly. “We’ll check in with Gray too,” he says. “See if he dug anything up on Stroud.”
I stiffen. “What did he say last night?”
“Not much.” He nods, jaw tightening. “Told him what happened at the Beaver. And about the truck that cut across the back corner.”
My fork pauses halfway to my mouth. “Truck?”
Mama freezes.
Daddy lowers his paper. “What truck?”
“The one that decided to use your land as a joyride around midnight,” Nash says calmly, but his eyes flash. “Didn’t get plates. Only saw taillights. But it knew the layout.”
My stomach drops. “You didn’t think that was worth mentioning last night?”
His gaze lands on me, steady. “By the time I got back, you were upstairs and your dad was half asleep in his chair. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done with that information except lose sleep.” He pauses. “I had it covered.”
My knee bounces under the table. He did have it covered. And part of me wants to be mad anyway, because this is my home and I want to know every threat that breathes near it.
Daddy blows out a slow breath. “Well. I’m up now. We’ll take another look at that corner later.”
Mama slides a cup of coffee toward Nash like it’s a weapon she’s choosing to lay down. “You make sure my daughter doesn’t get shot at before dinner, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says. His voice goes soft on ma’am in a way that eases something tight in my chest.
Breakfast hums on—talk of fence staples, Josie’s pony lesson, the weather.
At some point, Nash’s phone buzzes. He glances at the screen, then leans closer to me, the world narrowing to the bend of his head and the low, private rasp of my name. “Laney.”
It’s not the way he said it in high school. It’s deeper now. Roughened by sand and time and whatever broke him over there. It slides under my skin like it owns the place.
I look up, caught.
He’s close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his irises. Close enough that if I leaned forward an inch, my nose would brush his.
“Gray says he’s working on the Stroud files,” he murmurs, eyes on mine. “Wants us to keep doing what we’re doing today. Business as usual.”
“Right,” I say, but it comes out as more of a breath than a word.
His gaze dips to my mouth, then back up, fast.
Mama clears her throat so loudly she might have swallowed a spoon.
We jerk apart like teenagers.
“I am right here,” she says. “At my table. Where I eat food.”
Daddy bites a smile into his toast.
Heat floods my neck. Nash’s ears turn pink, which is deeply satisfying.
“Town,” I say, standing so fast my chair squeaks. “Let’s go… be nauseating in public.”
“Ma’am,” Nash says, nodding to Mama. “Sir.”
We escape onto the porch like it’s a lifeboat. Outside, the air is already warming up, sun lifting over the pastures, a soft breeze trying its best. I head for Nash’s truck with more energy than dignity.
“You okay?” he asks once we’re in the cab.
“No.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Absolutely not.”
He grins. “Copy that.”
We start with the feed store because nothing says romance like bulk mineral blocks.
Mr. Calhoun gives us a slight discount “because y’all are young and in love and under attack,” which is his way of caring without saying he’s worried.
Then we hit the co-op, the hardware store, and the bakery, where I buy cinnamon rolls for the crew and the lady at the counter gives us a free extra “for the happy couple.”
By the time we reach Main Street and park in front of the coffee shop, my cheeks hurt from smiling.
Fake smiling.
Real smiling.
Some unholy mix.
We grab iced coffees and claim a small table outside. It’s shaded, and the breeze channels up the sidewalk, carrying the sounds of town—music from someone’s truck, laughter, the metallic thunk of someone closing a tailgate.
Nash sits opposite me, long legs stretched out, one ankle crossed over the other. He’s relaxed in that way that isn’t actually relaxed at all. I’ve come to recognize it in the last few days. It’s a coiled stillness, like his muscles have gone on low power, not off.
“So,” I say, tracing my straw in a circle over the condensation ring. “Strouds.”
He sobers. “Gray says public records show three attempted acquisitions within a fifty-mile radius where owners ‘suddenly’ changed their minds after ‘unfortunate incidents.’”
I frown. “Unfortunate like what?”
“Break-ins. Fires. Livestock ‘accidents.’” His jaw tightens. “Nothing they could pin on anyone. But the pattern smells.”
My stomach turns. “So we’re not special. We’re just next.”
“You’re special,” he says automatically.
The words hang there.
His face shifts as he hears them.
“That’s not—” he starts.
“It’s fine,” I say quickly, heart doing weird aerobics. “We’ll be careful. And annoying. And extremely public.”
He relaxes a fraction. “That last part we can manage.”
As if summoned by the gossip gods, Brooke Jenkins appears with two other women flanking her like bridesmaids on patrol.
“Delaney!” she chirps. “Oh good, I was hoping I’d run into you.”
Nash mutters, “You manifested that.”
I kick him under the table.
Brooke swoops in, ponytail bouncing, eyes taking everything in—the coffee cups, our seating arrangement, the way Nash’s hand is resting on the table like it might migrate over to mine any second.
“Well,” she says, smile bright and sharp. “You two look cozy.”
I paste on my polite face. “Morning, Brooke.”
“I mean, who would’ve guessed?” she goes on. “You leaving town, talking all those years about ‘getting out’ and ‘being more than a ranch girl,’ and then you come back and you’re…” Her gaze flicks to Nash and smirks. “…right back where you started.”
There’s something bitter under the sugar.
Something old and sharp.
I feel my spine straighten. “Life’s not a one-way road,” I say. “You can go out and come back. You can be more than one thing.”
“Sure.” Brooke’s eyes glint. “Or maybe you just couldn’t hack it in the city.”
The words land like little cuts.
She has no idea—about the burned-out boss, the hospital bills, the way I stared at spreadsheets at 2 a.m. and wondered if I’d traded every part of myself that mattered for a salary and a view.
She doesn’t need to know.
Nash moves.
Not much.
Just enough that his knee bumps mine under the table and stays there. A steady pressure. An anchor.
“Delaney always could hack whatever she wanted,” he says, voice even but edged. “City. Ranch. Any room she walks into. Anybody who knew her back in school remembers that.”
Brooke laughs. “Sure. She was stubborn. That’s not the same as special.”
The old insecurity hits like a ghost hand—high school whispers, nasty notes in lockers, girls who hated me for raising my hand too much and boys who hated me for not letting them copy my homework.
Before I can respond, Nash leans forward, forearms on the table, eyes locked on Brooke.
“This town hasn’t been the same since she left,” he says quietly.
The words punch right through me.
Brooke blinks.
He doesn’t look at me when he says it. He keeps his gaze on her, calm and unflinching.
“You remember what Rodeo Days was like senior year?” he asks. “Who kept it from falling apart when the main sponsor backed out? Who rounded up volunteers? Who got half the county to donate prizes so the kids’ events didn’t get canceled?”
Brooke shifts, uncomfortable. “That was—”
“That was Delaney,” he says. “She’s the reason this town has a scholarship fund big enough to matter. She’s the reason the 4H kids got to keep their trailer after the storm. She’s the reason your little cousin got to go to Ag school, if I remember right.”
Brooke’s mouth snaps shut.
A flush creeps up her neck.
The satisfaction is petty and glorious.
I stare at Nash.
He shrugs slightly. “We all leave. We all come back different. But don’t stand here and act like her coming home is some kind of failure. This place should be damn grateful.”
The other women mumble something about needing to check on someone inside. Brooke coughs out an awkward laugh, mutters, “Well, okay then,” and retreats.
We sit in the wake of it, the air around our little table humming.
My heart is in my throat.
“That was…” I start, then falter.
“Too much?” he asks, mouth twitching.
“Unexpected.”
“Untrue?”
I look down at my coffee. “No.”
“Then it stays.”
Silence falls again, this time heavier in a different way.
I fiddle with my straw. “Why haven’t you married anyone?”
He turns his head slowly, like he wasn’t expecting the question to jump from my brain to my mouth that fast.
“No easing into it, huh?” he says.
“I’m not great at easing,” I admit. “But you’re… you.” I gesture at all of him. “You’re good-looking and competent and your family’s… loud. You’ve been home for a while now. There must have been… options.”
“There were,” he says.
“And yet…” I lift my brows.
He watches me for a long heartbeat, eyes searching my face like he’s deciding how much to give.
Then he huffs out a breath and sits back.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he says.
My stomach flips. “Not to me.”
“It was always you, Laney.”
The simple honesty of it knocks the air right out of my lungs.
He holds my gaze, no flinch, no joke to soften it.
“I didn’t marry anyone because I didn’t want anyone else.
I tried.” A rough laugh. “Went on a couple of dates. Had some almost-somethings. But every time it got close to real, all I could think was ‘she’s not you.’ Which isn’t fair to them. Or you. Or me, if we’re counting.”
My throat burns.
I didn’t come prepared for this.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” I whisper.
“You don’t have to do anything,” he says gently. “I’m not dropping it in your lap like a proposal. I’m just answering your question.”
He looks away finally, eyes scanning the street like he’s giving me space even as his words sit between us like a living thing.
“I broke things back then,” he says. “I made choices for both of us. I’m not asking you to forget that. Just… it’s the reason I’m still single. That’s all.”
That’s all, he says, like he didn’t just put my entire teenage heart on the table and slide it back to me.
I sip my coffee to have something to do with my hands. It tastes like melted ice and confusion.
The truth is, I’ve been comparing, too.
Every date in the city, every almost-kiss in a bar with a nice safe stranger—I held them up in my head against a boy on a dock who carved initials into wood and promised always.
“Okay,” I say eventually.
“Okay?” he echoes.
“I hear you.”
He nods like that’s more than he expected and less than he hoped.
“We should head back,” I say. “Daddy’ll need the truck.”
He tosses our cups, opens my door, and helps me into the cab like I’m fragile crystal and not the girl who once broke her arm falling out of a hayloft and walked herself to the ER.
On the drive home, we talk about small things—a hawk on the fencepost, Josie’s latest obsession with glitter, the fact that the bakery started selling kolaches again. The big things sit quiet in the truck with us, taking up space I pretend not to notice.
When we pull into the yard, Daddy’s waiting by the barn, wiping his hands on an oil rag.
“Need a strong back,” he calls as we climb out. “One of the auger bits is stuck and Rafe’s got Penny down at the south creek with a colicky calf.”
Nash tips his hat. “I’m your back.”
He glances at me, something unreadable in his eyes—a silent you okay? that I answer with a small nod.
“I’ll be in the house,” I say. “Working on those old files.”
It’s not a lie.
It’s also not the full truth.
Because as I watch Nash follow Daddy toward the barn, shoulders broad, gait easy, my brain offers a new plan:
Barn.
Later.
No sponsors. No Brooke. No watchful town.
Just us.
Practice, I tell myself.
We need to practice being a couple in private if we’re going to sell it in public.
Totally logical.
Completely professional.
My heart doesn’t believe me for a second.
But I go inside, pretend to bury myself in paperwork, and listen to the faint echo of male voices and clanking metal from the barn.
And somewhere between the Stroud folder and the old water rights dispute, a thought settles in like a seed:
Maybe it’s time I stopped letting the past write every page of our future.
Maybe tonight, in that barn that watched us grow up, I’ll finally stop running from the answer we’ve both been avoiding.
Or at least… start asking the right questions.