And I don’t sleep.
Not right away. Because my brain has decided tonight is the perfect time to replay two images that shouldn’t share the same space:
Delaney’s hands on my arm in the bathroom—steady, warm, familiar.
The clean cut wire at the south line—cold, deliberate, malicious.
I close my eyes and run through lists.
Who benefits from pressuring the Colemans to sell?
Who knows the ranch’s layout well enough to hit the most vulnerable points?
Who has access to tools and the nerve to use them?
Who’s watched this place long enough to understand the rhythm?
A developer. A neighbor with old grudges. Someone on payroll with debts. A local official with a backroom handshake.
Or someone who hates the idea of a Coleman ranch surviving without bowing to money.
The careful one isn’t a random vandal.
The careful one is strategic.
I roll onto my side and stare at the dark.
The last time I lived in the same town as Delaney Coleman, we were teenagers sneaking soda out to the creek and swearing we’d never let the world turn us into strangers.
Life is funny like that.
Life keeps the words and changes the people.
Eventually, exhaustion wins a narrow battle.
I drift off to sleep with memories of the red-haired girl who would meet me at the creek, and that I almost kissed once upon a time.
Morning comes soft and early.I wake before the house does, the way my body always insists on doing. The hallway is quiet. I listen at Delaney’s door again—more subtle this time.
Nothing wrong.
That’s my favorite report.
Downstairs, the kitchen smells like strong coffee and home-cooked intention. Mrs. Coleman is already up, moving in the quiet way women do when they’ve carried families through storms and learned how to make calm out of pure will.
“Mornin’, Nash,” she says.
“Ma’am.” I take a mug she slides over like it’s a contract and a blessing.
“Delaney’ll be down in a minute. She’s mad at the universe today.”
“Any reason in particular?”
She smiles without showing teeth. “You’ll figure that out on your own.”
Yes, ma’am.
I step onto the back porch with my coffee and let my eyes sweep the ranch.
