Chapter 12 Delaney
TWELVE
DELANEY
I wake up warm.
Not Texas-warm, not sun-on-the-back-of-your-neck warm—safe warm. The kind that lives under blankets and inside arms you trust. For one blissful second, I don’t remember the fence line, the sabotage, the Strouds, the truck in the night.
I just feel… held.
Nash’s arm is heavy around my waist, his hand splayed flat on my stomach like he anchored me here sometime after midnight and never let go. His chest rises slow behind me, solid and steady. His breath is a soft brush at the back of my neck.
I’ve dreamed about this.
Not in the dirty way people assume when they hear dreamed—though, okay, sometimes in that way too—but mostly in the achey way. The way you lie awake at twenty-two in a city apartment that doesn’t feel like yours yet and imagine what it would be like if the boy you loved hadn’t turned into a ghost.
If I move, will the dream break?
I shift an inch anyway, because curiosity is my fatal flaw.
Nash makes a low sound—half sigh, half warning—and tightens his arm like his body knows I’m real before his brain catches up.
“Morning,” he rasps, voice wrecked with sleep.
My heart does something stupid and teenage.
“Morning,” I whisper back.
He presses a slow kiss to my shoulder—unhurried, intimate, like he has nowhere else to be and no reason to pretend he doesn’t want this. Then his mouth trails up to the spot just below my ear, and my whole body lights up like a struck match.
“Nash,” I breathe, not a warning this time. More like a surrender.
He rolls us gently so I’m on my back, hovering over me on one forearm. His hair is mussed, his eyes a darker brown in the morning light, and there’s a faint crease between his brows like he woke up already worried and decided to look at me anyway.
He studies me for a second like he’s making sure I’m still here. “You okay?” he asks softly.
I nod, because words feel too fragile.
His thumb slides along my cheekbone, feather-light. “Tell me if you regret it.”
I grab the front of his t-shirt and tug him down until his mouth meets mine.
That’s my answer.
He kisses me slowly at first—deep, warm, morning-soft.
Then he breathes out against my lips like he’s losing the last of his control, and the kiss turns hungry without turning reckless.
His hand cups the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, holding me like I’m something he’s been missing and found again.
I kiss him back like I’m trying to make up for ten years of distance with one morning.
We break apart only because lungs are required.
I stare up at him, lips swollen, heartbeat loud, and try to file this moment away somewhere permanent.
“We should get up,” I whisper.
He stares down, a slow smile spreading. “Oh, I’m definitely up.”
I laugh—quiet, disbelieving.
He drops a kiss to the tip of my nose. “That sound… I missed that sound.”
My throat tightens. “You don’t get to say sweet things at 8 a.m. like you didn’t emotionally devastate me for most of my twenties.”
His smile goes crooked, regret flickering. “Fair.”
Then he kisses me again, and the argument evaporates into heat.
We’re halfway into another round of kissing—hands roaming in ways that make my brain short out—when Nash goes still.
Not stiff. Alert.
His head tilts slightly, listening.
I freeze too, suddenly aware of the house beyond my room. The hallway. The kitchen. My mother’s Jedi hearing.
“What?” I whisper.
“Nothing,” he murmurs, but his eyes sharpen. “Just checking. Old habit.”
Of course it is.
He kisses my forehead like an apology, then pulls back with a reluctant exhale. “We should get up.”
I groan. “I hate responsible decisions.”
He slides off the bed, offers me his hand like I’m a lady and not a woman who just tried to climb him like a tree.
“Rodeo Days is soon,” he says, voice calm but amused. “You’re the only person in this county capable of making a vendor list behave.”
I take his hand and let him pull me up, because I’m apparently choosing softness today.
“Fine,” I mutter. “But I’m doing it in a terrible mood.”
He lifts a brow. “Liar.”
I dress fast—jeans, boots, a tee that says COLEMAN RANCH in cracked lettering.
Nash disappears to his room across the hall and comes back looking unfairly put together in about thirty seconds.
He glances at my door as if to make sure it’s shut behind us, then walks with me down the stairs like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
It is.
That’s the scary part.
In the kitchen, Mama is already at the counter with her coffee.
She looks up.
She looks at Nash.
She looks at me.
Then she takes a long sip like she’s tasting a new reality.
“Well,” she says pleasantly, “good morning.”
I choke.
Nash clears his throat and becomes very interested in the coffee pot. “Morning, ma’am,” he says, a little too polite.
Mama’s eyes twinkle. “Sleep alright?”
I glare at her. “Mama.”
“What?” she asks innocently. “I’m just a mother. Concerned for… everyone’s rest.”
Nash’s ears turn pink again. It’s my favorite thing.
“We’re headed into town,” I announce, loudly, like if I speak in a big voice this conversation can’t follow me. “Rodeo Days stuff.”
Mama pats my cheek as we pass. “Be safe. Be smart. And for the love of the Lord, don’t get caught making out behind the cotton candy booth.”
“MAMA.”
Nash’s shoulders shake with silent laughter as he follows me out the door.
“I am never going to recover,” I mutter.
“You will,” he says. “Your mom likes me.”
“She likes everybody who eats her biscuits and doesn’t lie to her face. The bar is low.”
“You’d be surprised,” he says, and squeezes my hand.
And just like that, the tension drains out of me again.
Town feels different today.
Maybe because the sunlight is brighter. Maybe because my mouth still tastes like Nash. Maybe because the secret between us isn’t a secret anymore—at least not the part the town sees.
People wave. People grin. People stare like they’re trying to figure out if this is real or just a storyline.
We go to the community center first, where Rodeo Days planning lives in a chaotic stack of clipboards and flyers. I pull out my binder—yes, I have a binder, no, you can’t judge me—and start calling vendors.
BBQ truck? Confirmed.
Funnel cakes? Confirmed.
Craft booth row? Mostly confirmed, except Mrs. Landry thinks her booth needs to be “more central to foot traffic” like she’s a Fortune 500 company.
Nash follows along like a shadow with a sense of humor, leaning against doorframes, checking windows, scanning the parking lot, and making the occasional dry comment that almost makes me spit my iced tea.
When the cotton candy vendor cancels, I groan and thump my forehead against my binder.
Nash taps the page. “Call the guy from Stone Hollow. The one with the trailer shaped like a pig.”
“How do you know about the pig trailer?”
He shrugs. “I pay attention.”
It shouldn’t make my chest warm.
It does.
I call. He’s available. Crisis averted.
At lunch, we grab tacos from the food truck by the courthouse. Nash makes me laugh so hard I snort, and I’m not even embarrassed until I realize the deputy at the next picnic table is staring like he just witnessed a miracle.
“What?” I ask, wiping my mouth.
The deputy nods at Nash. “Didn’t think Hawthorne had it in him.”
Nash lifts his cup in a lazy salute. “I contain multitudes.”
The deputy chuckles and walks off.
I stare at Nash. “You’re… normal today.”
He looks at me like I said something dangerous. “Normal?”
“Like, you’re still you. Watchful. Serious. But…” I gesture vaguely. “You’re laughing. You’re teasing. You’re—”
“Here,” he finishes, quiet.
I swallow.
“Yeah,” I say, softer. “Here.”
We finish lunch, then head to the print shop for posters. Nash insists on carrying the boxes because apparently I’m a delicate flower now, which is hilarious considering I once threw a hay bale at him out of spite.
When we finally get back to the ranch mid-afternoon, the vendor list is tighter, the sponsor calls are handled, and the knot in my chest has loosened for the first time in days.
We step out of the truck and Nash pauses, scanning the property line automatically.
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “Nothing. Just… measuring.”
“Measuring what?”
“Risk,” he says simply.
That’s when it hits me—hard and sudden.
This easy day… it’s sitting on top of something sharp. A threat that hasn’t stopped just because we got tacos and confirmed a funnel cake truck.
Nash is always holding the edge of it, even when he smiles.
Later, while I’m sorting sponsor packets at the kitchen table, I catch myself watching him through the window. He’s out by the barn with Daddy, lifting something heavy, joking with him like they’ve been friends forever.
It’s… too easy.
I didn’t expect easy.
I expected hard conversations and awkwardness and old pain flaring like a sunburn.
But with Nash, it feels like sliding into a groove that’s been waiting for us all along.
Which is exactly why my brain starts doing what it always does when I’m happy:
It panics.
Because I live in Saint Pierce.
My apartment is there. My job, what’s left of it, is there. My whole big-city life I built out of stubbornness and survival is there.
And Nash…
Nash is Valor Springs down to his bones.
This ranch. His job. The way he knows the land like it’s an extension of his body.
How does a relationship like this work when our zip codes don’t match?
When the last time we tried to want each other, life broke us apart?
I stare at the sponsor packet in my hands and suddenly can’t read the words.
My chest tightens.
Nash steps into the kitchen a second later, wiping his hands on a rag. He catches my expression instantly. “What’s wrong?” he asks, voice low.
I try to smile it off. “Nothing.”
His eyes narrow. “Laney.”
There it is again—my name, softened like he’s holding it carefully.
I swallow, then tell the truth because it’s sitting too heavy. “I’m scared,” I admit.
His gaze softens, but he doesn’t interrupt. He just waits.
“Not about the rodeo,” I say quickly. “Not even about the sabotage—well, yes, that too. But…” I tap my fingers against the packet like I can organize my feelings into a neat list. “This. Us. Because it feels easy with you. And easy doesn’t happen to me.”
He steps closer, slow. “Easy doesn’t mean fragile.”
“But what happens after?” I whisper. “After we catch whoever’s doing this. After Rodeo Days. After I’m not needed here every second.” My throat tightens. “I live in Saint Pierce, Nash.”
He studies me for a long beat, then reaches out and hooks a finger under my chin, tipping my gaze to his.
“We’re not solving ten years of distance in one morning,” he says quietly. “We’re just… here. Today.”
“And tomorrow?”
His mouth curves, faint but sure. “Tomorrow we keep being honest.”
That should scare me more. Instead it steadies me. Because Nash Hawthorne isn’t promising something shiny and impossible. He’s promising the only thing I’ve ever actually needed from him:
Presence.
Choice.
Not running.
I let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”
He leans down and kisses my forehead—soft, not for show, just for me. Then he glances toward the window again, that watchful edge returning like a reflex. “Now,” he says, voice shifting back to business, “tell me which vendor has the biggest mouth and the best view of your north pasture.”
I blink. “Why?”
His eyes sharpen. “Because whoever’s doing this isn’t just cutting wire. They’re watching you.”
A chill crawls up my spine.
The easy day doesn’t vanish, but it gains shadows again—real ones, pressing in at the edges.
And as Nash moves closer to the door, already turning into the protector he can’t help being, I realize something else, too: I can worry about the future. I can fear the distance. But I’m more afraid of losing this again than I am of figuring out how to make it work.
So I gather my binder, square my shoulders, and follow him—because whatever comes next, I refuse to do it alone.