Chapter 13 Nash
THIRTEEN
NASH
Night in Valor Springs has a way of going quiet like it’s listening.
The ranch settles. The horses stop shifting. The wind eases off. Even the old house seems to breathe slower, like it’s finally tired of being brave.
Delaney is curled into my side, her cheek on my chest, one leg thrown over mine like she belongs there. I’ve got an arm around her, my palm spread across her back, fingers tracing idle circles through the thin fabric of her shirt.
I could do this forever.
That thought hits me so clean it almost scares me.
Who am I kidding?
I’ve wanted forever with her since I was twelve and she dared me to jump off a rope swing and then laughed like she’d just invented happiness.
I tip my head down and press a kiss to the top of her fiery red hair. She hums softly—sleepy, content—and it goes straight through me.
“You’re thinking too loud,” she murmurs.
I smile into her hair. “Am I?”
“Mmhmm.” She shifts, cuddling closer. “Your chest gets tight when you’re spiraling.”
Great. She can read my body like it’s a language.
I keep my voice light. “What else do I do?”
“You get quiet.” A pause. “Like you’re bracing.”
The room is dark except for the faint spill of moonlight through the curtains. It paints her face in soft edges when she tilts her chin up to look at me.
“Nash,” she says gently, like she’s touching a bruise with her voice, “talk to me.”
The request lands different than it used to. When we were younger, “talk to me” felt like a trap. Like if I said the wrong thing, I’d ruin everything.
Now it feels like permission.
I let out a slow breath. My hand slides up her back to the nape of her neck, thumb rubbing a steady rhythm. “You ever think about that night?” I ask quietly.
Her eyes don’t flinch away. “Graduation?”
“Yeah.” My throat tightens around the word. “The night we almost—”
“Kissed,” she finishes, voice barely above a whisper.
I nod once.
In the dark, my memories sharpen instead of blur. The smell of our future in the air. Her hair falling over her shoulder. The way her mouth parted when she looked up at me, like she was deciding to be brave.
And then the sirens.
For me.
Delaney’s fingers curl lightly in my shirt. “I remember the flashing lights.”
The memory stabs. I swallow hard.
“The cops pulled up by the dock,” I say, forcing the words out slow and steady. “They asked if I was Nash Hawthorne. And I thought… I thought I was in trouble.” I let out a humorless laugh. “I wasn’t. Not like that.”
Her hand slides to my jaw, grounding me. “They told you to get home.”
“Yeah.” My voice turns rough. “They said there’d been an accident. That my dad—” I close my eyes for a beat. “That my dad’s truck was found down by the creek road. Door open. No sign of him.”
Delaney’s breath catches.
“You never talk about it,” she whispers.
I open my eyes again. “Because if I talk about it, it’s real.”
“It’s real either way,” she says, voice shaking but firm.
I nod, because she’s right.
“He’d been drinking with the fire crew,” I admit. “Not drunk. Just… celebrating. He told me earlier that day he was proud of me.” My throat tightens like it’s trying to choke me into silence. “And then he was gone.”
Delaney’s eyes shine.
“They searched for weeks,” I say. “Divers. Dogs. Volunteers. Every inch of that creek and every stretch downstream.” I stare into the darkness, seeing the water instead of the ceiling. “They never found him.”
Her palm presses to my cheek. “Nash…”
I swallow, hard. “You know what’s sick? Part of me still expects him to show up. Like he just… wandered off to cool his head. Like he’s gonna come back mad about the mess he left behind.”
Delaney’s face crumples, and she buries it into my chest.
I hold her tighter, because if I don’t, I might come apart.
“After that,” I say into the quiet, “I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had these brothers looking at me like I was suddenly the standard they had to live up to. I had my mom trying to keep us all breathing. And I had this hole where my dad used to be.”
Delaney shifts, listening.
“I knew I had to prove something,” I continue, voice low. “Prove I wasn’t just… the kid left behind. Prove I could be the kind of man he’d respect. So when the recruiters came around talking about purpose and brotherhood and doing something that mattered…”
I exhale. “I signed my name like I was signing my way out of grief.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Then she whispers, “You thought war would fix you.”
“I thought war would make me worthy,” I admit.
Her fingers tighten on my shirt. “You were already worthy.”
I almost laugh. Not because it’s funny—because it hurts.
“I thought about you every day,” I say, and the confession comes out like a surrender.
“Every day. In places that didn’t feel like earth anymore.
I’d picture you at the creek. In the barn.
At your kitchen table with flour on your hands.
And I’d tell myself if I could just get back to you… I’d be okay.”
Delaney lifts her head. Her eyes search mine like she’s trying to match this man to the boy she waited for.
“When I came home,” I say, “I wanted to tell you I loved you. I wanted to grab you, kiss you, make it all make sense. But I wasn’t right.” My jaw tightens. “I was loud inside. Angry for no reason. Numb for reasons I couldn’t name. I didn’t want you to see how broken I was.”
Her voice is soft, but there’s no judgment in it. Just truth. “I could see,” she whispers. “I could see it in your eyes. In the way you flinched at doors slamming. In the way you couldn’t sit with your back to a room.”
I stare at her. “You noticed all that.”
“I noticed you,” she says, like it should be obvious. “And you kept pushing me away. Every time I tried to get close, you shut down. You’d say something sharp or disappear for days. And I—” Her throat works. “I didn’t know how to save you.”
I close my eyes for a second because hearing that is its own kind of wound.
“You weren’t supposed to save me,” I say hoarsely. “That was never your job.”
“But I loved you,” she says, fierce and quiet. “So it felt like my job.”
The words hit me straight in the chest.
I pull her closer until her forehead rests against mine.
“I pushed you away because I thought you deserved better,” I whisper. “You deserved more. You deserved a man who didn’t wake up sweating. Who didn’t look at the world like it was a threat waiting to happen.”
“And you decided that for me,” she whispers back, the old hurt slipping through.
“I did.” I don’t dodge it. “And then I overheard you—talking about leaving. About wanting more than this town.”
Her eyes flicker.
“I wanted to stop you,” I admit. “God, I wanted to. But I thought—if I begged you to stay, I’d be stealing your future. So I didn’t.” Regret burns in my throat. “And I’ve regretted it every day since.”
Delaney’s lips part like she’s about to say something, then she just exhales and shakes her head once. “That was never the choice,” she whispers. “I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you. I left because you made it impossible to stay.”
I swallow. “I know.”
Her gaze holds mine, steady and aching. “Do you still think I deserve better?”
“No,” I say immediately. “I think you deserve what you want.”
“And what if what I want is you?” she asks, voice shaking like she hates how true it is.
My chest goes tight in the best way. I cup her face in both hands, thumbs brushing under her eyes as if I can wipe away all the years we lost. “Then I’m yours,” I murmur. “If you’ll have me.”
Delaney’s breath trembles out of her. She leans in first this time, closing the space between us like she’s done running.
Her mouth meets mine, soft at first—an exhale, a promise—then deeper, more certain.
I kiss her back like I’ve been starved for this exact kind of yes.
Her hand slides into my hair, gripping, tugging me closer.
I shift over her, careful not to crush her, but I can’t keep the hunger out of it.
Not after what we just said. Not after we just ripped open the past and still chose each other anyway.
“Nash,” she whispers against my lips.
“I’m here,” I breathe.
Her legs hook around my hips, pulling me in, and the heat of her through the thin fabric nearly knocks the restraint clean out of me.
I groan low, then bury it in her mouth, kissing her slower—deeper—like I’m trying to memorize the way she tastes, the way she breathes, the way she makes my name sound like a prayer.
My hand slides down her side, over her waist, stopping at her thigh. I squeeze gently, feeling her shiver, feeling her press closer like she wants more.
I pull back just enough to look at her. Her eyes are dark and bright all at once, lips swollen, hair wild around her face.
“I love you,” I say, voice rough.
Her bright eyes shine up at me. “I’ve always loved you, Nash Hawthorne.”
That wrecks me.
I kiss her again—long and slow—then trail my mouth to her jaw, her throat, the spot below her ear that makes her gasp and clutch at me like she’s trying to hold on.
Her laughter breaks out breathless between kisses, half-disbelieving. “We are so bad at ‘not acting on our feelings.’”
I smile against her skin. “We tried.”
“We did.”
“And it was a terrible plan.”
“It was,” she whispers, then tips my face back to hers and kisses me like she’s making a new rule.
We move together in the dark—hands exploring, mouths learning, bodies fitting closer—until the world narrows down to warmth and breath and the steady beat of her heart under my palm.
I keep it tender. She keeps it fierce.
We kiss until our mouths are sore and our lungs are begging, until the line between grief and joy blurs into something softer—something like healing.
When we finally slow, Delaney curls into my chest again, fingers drawing lazy patterns over my ribs like she’s grounding herself in the fact that I’m real.
I press my lips to her hair.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, for everything. For leaving. For deciding. For the years.
She tilts her chin up and kisses the corner of my mouth.
“I’m here,” she whispers back. “Now. That has to count for something.”
My throat tightens. “It counts for everything,” I murmur.
Outside, the ranch is still threatened. The fences still vulnerable. The night still full of shadows.
But in this bed, with Delaney in my arms and the past finally spoken out loud, I feel something I haven’t felt in a long time:
Not control.
Not rage.
Not survival.
Peace.
And a vow that settles into my bones like bedrock— no matter who’s cutting wire, no matter who thinks they can scare this family into giving up…
They’re not taking her from me again.