I wipe my eyes and square my shoulders.
Maybe I never got up.
Maybe I’ve just been standing very still for years, waiting for the right kind of brave.
And now he’s here.
Different.
So am I.
The ranch is fighting. The town is watching. And my heart?
My heart is about to test every fence I ever built to keep him out.
SIX
NASH
I walk the perimeter twice because once isn’t enough when someone’s trying to bleed a ranch to death a cut at a time.
The night is cool by Texas standards—meaning the air only feels like a warm hand instead of a furnace. The stars are sharp. The horses are restless. The south line hums in my head like an unfinished sentence.
I check the gates, touch every latch, scan the fence posts with a light that doesn’t announce itself. Whoever did this is bold. Familiar. Confident enough to come back after we made noise in town.
Which means they’re either stupid… or they think they’re untouchable. That thought lodges under my skin.
When I finally step inside, the house has gone quiet in the way old homes do when they’re holding their breath. Mr. and Mrs. Coleman have turned in. Delaney’s bedroom door is closed across the hallway, a small rectangle of safety I’m not going to take for granted.
I stop outside it.
Not to be dramatic. Not to be a creep.
To listen.
War teaches you to read the rhythm of a place. The little sounds that mean normal. The lack of them that means wrong.
I hear movement—soft, human, safe. The faint rustle of sheets. A quiet exhale.
My chest loosens a fraction. “Goodnight, Laney,” I murmur under my breath, and step into my room. I lock the door, then unlock it again.
Locked doors make people feel safe. Unlocked doors make me useful.
I shower fast, keeping my ears tuned for anything that doesn’t belong—footsteps that hesitate, a creak that shifts direction, a sound that doesn’t have an explanation. The water doesn’t help with the thoughts. It never does.
When I’m dressed down in sweatpants and a worn tee, I cross the room and stare at the bed.
It’s positioned with the headboard against the far wall. It’s comfortable. It’s normal.
Normal won’t protect her if someone decides to turn this house into the next message.
So I grab the frame and drag it.
The legs scrape across the floor with a low groan. I reposition it closer to the door, closer to the hall, close enough that I’ll hear ifDelaney’s door opens fast—or if it opens because somebody else opened it for her.
I pull the nightstand with it.
Then I lay down.
