The word comes out before I can swallow it.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It might be.”
I stare at him.
He takes a step closer. Not aggressive. Not cornering. Just closing a gap we’ve been pretending doesn’t exist. His hand lifts like he wants to tuck my hair again—and stops an inch short, the restraint so deliberate it hurts to watch. “I’m trying to do this right,” he says. “The mission. The ranch.”
“Then do it right,” I whisper.
His eyes flick to my mouth.
I can feel the almost kiss like lightning building over a field—pressure and heat and that split second before the sky decides.
My heart bangs.
His breath shifts.
We lean?—
A knock hits the door.
“Delaney?” Mama calls, brisk with emergency. “Your daddy needs help getting the cattle into the paddock. They’re riled up from all this commotion.”
I close my eyes like I’m bargaining with the universe.
Nash’s jaw tightens. He steps back immediately.
I hate how grateful I am for his control.
“I’ll go,” he says quietly.
Mama opens the door a crack and stops short when she sees how close we were.
Her expression saysoh.
Her expression also saysnot under my roof without a ring.
Nash slides past her like a man who knows how to exit a room without making it a scene. “Be right there, Mr. Coleman.” He’s gone before my pulse can settle.
Mama leans against the frame, crossing her arms. “Bathroom bandaging is a time-honored Texas courting ritual,” she says.
“Mama.”
“I’m kidding.” She is not kidding. “Are you okay?”
I watch Nash through the window as he jogs toward the paddock, rolling up his sleeves, already taking the lead like the ranch is a language he never forgot.
I don’t remember deciding to speak the truth. It just falls out. “I think I might be falling for him.”
Mama’s face softens in a way that makes my throat ache. She steps closer and brushes a hand over my cheek like I’m stilleleven and fresh out of the creek. “Sweetheart,” she says gently, “did you ever even get up from the last time you fell for him?”
I blink. My eyes burn. I laugh once, watery and helpless. Because the answer is right there in my chest, carved deep as that old dock post:
N + D—come home.
Outside, the cattle funnel into the paddock with a chorus of snorts and stomps. Nash moves among them calm and commanding, a quiet gravity that steadies the chaos.
