He squeezes my hand once, hard. “Later.”
“Later,” I promise.
He ships out before the dew dries. He doesn’t kiss me. I don’t ask him to, because I know how he is with promises—he keeps the ones he makes. If he kissed me, he’d be tied in a knot neither of us could cut.
Later, I tell myself, watching the tailgate bounce over the cattle guard. Later, when he comes home.
I walk to the creek after, alone, and lay my fingers on the engraving. Sap and splinter and old metal smell.N + D—come home.The letters are crooked, but they’re ours.
“Always,” I whisper to the water.
The fireflies blink, bright then gone, bright then gone, like a code I almost remember. Somewhere far off, sirens wind down to silence. Somewhere farther, a bus rumbles east.
Later never comes. Not for a long time. Not the way we meant it.
But the dock keeps our secret, the rope keeps its creak, and the creek keeps moving, carrying all our beginnings forward whether we’re ready or not.
ONE
DELANEY
The barn smells like summer memories and bad news.
Hay and sun-warmed cedar. Leather oil and horses who know me even after all these years. And under it—sharper, metallic—the tang of fear that rides in on every whispered what if.
“What I’m saying,” Daddy says, palm flattening on the map of our property tacked to the feed-room wall, “is nobody forgets to set a brake on a brand-new tractor. Not me. Not Rafe. And not the boy who’s been drivin’ since he was tall enough to see over the wheel.”
His voice has the worn edge of a man who’d rather blame himself than say sabotage aloud. He’s always been like that—take the hit first, ask questions later. The accident two nights ago took out a corner of the new corral and spooked half the geldings through the south fence. We spent dawn pulling cactus from fetlocks and evening tallying the bill. We’re already behind on feed. The vet will want a check we don’t have.
Grayson Calhoun studies the map without blinking. He’s big-shouldered in a way that makes rooms look smaller, dark hairclipped close, Lone Star Security badge tucked on his belt like it grew there. He doesn’t carry himself like a cop. Instead, he carries himself like someone who knows cops will show up after he’s handled the problem. A day’s worth of dust clings to his boots and there’s a marker streak on his forearm—pink—like his daughter, Josie, tagged him on the way out the door.
“You had other incidents?” Gray asks, voice even. He uses his first name in town, but people say it like a title. Valor Springs has a funny way of knighting the men who stand in front when things get ugly.
Daddy nods at the corner of the map, where the creek slices through the pasture. “Two weeks ago—somebody cut wire along the north boundary. Looked like a calf got tangled, but the cut was clean. Too clean. Then the grain order showed light. Buck said clerk swears it’s what we signed for, but… we didn’t.”
I fold my arms. In the glossy glass of the feed-room cabinet, my city reflection looks like an imposter—the blazer tossed on a tack trunk because the summer heat doesn’t care about my old office habits, mascara smudged from sweat, a line of dust where I dragged my hand across my cheek earlier. I left Saint Pierce in a rush, kissed my best friends goodbye, promised I’d keep my heels and my sanity, and came home to a ranch that needs a miracle and a daughter who can be the adult if my parents can’t.
“I’ve got sponsors calling about Rodeo Days,” I say, throat tight. “If that arena fence is down, we’re sunk. They’ll pull the checks, and the scholarship fund goes with them.”
Daddy’s mouth does that little twist—half pride, half apology. “I shouldn’t have put that on you.”
“You didn’t.” I push a stray piece of hay off the cabinet with the back of my wrist. “I put it on me when I left. Somebody had to make something of this place while I went off to make something of myself.”
Gray’s gaze slips from the map to me, steady as a hand on the small of your back. “You’re already doing something. You called me.”
He says it like a compliment. It feels like a bruise.
“It was either you or a priest,” I say, because humor is cheaper than therapy. “And Father Miguel charges in chilaquiles, which we can’t spare.”
A corner of Gray’s mouth lifts, quick. “Good choice. Priests bless. I fix.”
Daddy sighs, and the sound has twenty years of weather in it. “We don’t need a full task force, Grayson. Just… tell me where the rot is.”
Gray taps the map with a knuckle. “Rot gets worse in the dark.” He traces a triangle between the barn, the creek crossing, and the south gate. “If someone wants to choke you out, they’ll hit you where you can’t afford to breathe. Feed, fence, livestock. The ‘accident’ with the tractor was clumsy. The cut wire wasn’t. You’re lookin’ at the difference between a thug and a planner. Which means you’re not dealing with one guy.” He turns to me. “You have anyone new on payroll? New vendors? A developer sniffing around your north pasture?”
“Two new hands this spring,” I say. “Penny vouched for one. The other came recommended by the feed store. Vendors are the same except the grain supplier’s got a new delivery driver. And developers sniff around every year, but Daddy tells them whatthey can do with their condos and it usually involves barbed wire.”
“Doesn’t stop them,” Daddy mutters. Gray doesn’t smile this time.
