Chapter 4
Daniel
The coffee’s gone cold in my hand.
I’ve been standing at the kitchen window for twenty minutes, watching the sun climb over the east pasture, replaying the same moment on an endless loop.
Her face when I pulled back. The shock. The heat. The fury.
Mine.
I said it like I had any right to. Like she was something I could claim with a word and a kiss in front of half the town.
The taste of her is still on my lips. Black coffee and something sweeter underneath—something that kept me hard and restless half the night, tangled in sheets that smelled nothing like her.
Behind me, the kitchen door swings open. I don’t turn around.
“So.” Tom’s voice carries that particular tone—the one that means he’s about to enjoy himself at my expense. “Heard you caused quite a scene at Spur and Spoon yesterday.”
I take a sip of cold coffee. Say nothing.
“Mabel Kerry called Kitty last night. Then Doris from the feed store. Then Pastor Mike’s wife.” Tom pulls out a chair, the scrape of wood against tile deliberately loud. “Apparently, my cousin kissed Delaney Phillips like he was staking a claim on government land.”
“Tom—”
“In front of God and everybody, they said. Hands on her face. The whole production.” He’s grinning. I can hear it. “Declared her yours. Asked if anyone had opinions.”
I set the mug down harder than necessary. “You got a point?”
“Several.” He kicks out the chair across from him. “Sit down. You look like you haven’t slept.”
I haven’t. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt her mouth under mine. Soft. Startled. Then—one perfect second before the fury hit—responding. Her lips parting. That tiny sound in her throat.
I sit.
Tom studies me with that irritating perceptiveness he inherited from his mother. “You want to tell me what the hell you were thinking?”
“No.”
“Too bad.” He leans back, arms crossed. “Because Kitty’s worried about her sister, and I’m worried about you, so you need to start making sense.”
I drag a hand over my face. The stubble’s rough—forgot to shave. Another sign that my legendary control is cracking at the seams.
“They were talking about her.” The words come out rough. “Those town gossips. Calling her desperate. Saying she waslingering,hoping someone would settle for her.”
Tom’s expression shifts. “Ah.”
“She heard them. I saw her face, Tom. Like she’d been gutted and was trying to hold everything in so her sister wouldn't notice.” My hands curl into fists on the table. “And they just kept going. Laughing.”
“So you kissed her.”
“So I kissed her.”
Silence stretches between us. Outside, a horse whinnies, demanding breakfast.
“Did you kiss her because you wanted to shut them up?” Tom asks quietly. “Or because you wanted to kiss her?”
Both. Neither. I don’t know anymore where the protective instinct ends and the wanting begins. All I know is that I’ve been thinking about her mouth for weeks, and when I finally tasted it, the reality was so much better than the fantasy that I nearly lost my mind right there in the diner.
