The simplicity of it undoes me more than anything else. He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t minimize it. Doesn’t tell me I was strong or brave or amazing.
He just knows.
“You don’t have to carry it alone anymore,” he says quietly. “You never have to do that again.”
I breathe him in. His warmth. His steadiness. The undeniable truth of him holding me while I finally let go.
For the first time in a decade, I believe it.
I’m not the only one standing guard anymore.
I’m Daniel Sutton’s wife, with all the love and family warmth that comes with it.
And I’m allowed to rest.
Chapter 15
Daniel
The tie is strangling me.
I’ve worn tactical gear in hundred-degree heat. I’ve carried sixty pounds of equipment through mountain passes. I’ve breached doors with explosives strapped to my chest.
None of that felt as uncomfortable as this goddamn tie.
“Stop fidgeting.” Delaney doesn’t look up from the folder in her lap, but her mouth curves. “You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m not fidgeting.”
“You’ve adjusted your collar four times since we left the ranch.”
“It’s trying to kill me.”
Now she does look at me. Navy blouse, fitted blazer, hair swept back in a way that makes her neck look impossibly long. She looks like she could run a Fortune 500 company. Or conquer a small nation.
She looks like she’s about to walk into that bank and win.
“The tie is not trying to kill you,” she says. “It’s a piece of fabric.”
“A piece of fabric with murderous intent.”
Her laugh fills the truck cab, and some of the tension in my chest loosens. Not all of it. But enough.
The road to Havenstone stretches ahead, the morning sun cutting through the windshield. Thirty minutes until our appointment with Marlon Ennis. Thirty minutes until we find out if everything we’ve built—the grant application, the operational improvements, this marriage—amounts to anything.
“Whatever happens?—”
“Don’t,” Delaney cuts me off.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t ‘whatever happens’ me.” She turns in her seat, eyes fierce. Certain. “We’re going to win.”
I look at her. At the determination written across her face. At the woman who walked into my life as a rejected bride and became the center of everything.
“Yes, ma’am.”
The Havenstone County Bank hasn’t changed since I was a kid opening my first savings account. Same brick facade. Same brass fixtures. Same smell of old money and older carpet.
