Maybe pacing.
Maybe pretending she’s not listening for trouble.
Maybe wondering if I’m going to knock.
I walk back toward the house in long strides, every sense stretched thin. When I step onto the porch, the boards creak an old, familiar greeting.
Inside, the hallway is dim, lit by the small lamp Mrs. Coleman always leaves on like a lighthouse.
Delaney’s door is closed.
I stop there. I can hear the faint sound of movement—fabric, maybe, or feet crossing the floor. My hand lifts.
If I knock, she’ll open.
If she opens, she’ll see everything I’m trying not to bleed all over this operation—anger, fear, that possessive protective instinct that’s been coiled since the day I left her.
I hover there, knuckles an inch from the wood.
I could tell her about the truck.
I could tell her about the files I want Gray to dig up.
I could tell her I’m not going anywhere until this place is safe enough for her to breathe without looking over her shoulder.
Instead, I swallow it all back down.
She deserves sleep more than she deserves my half-formed fears.
I lower my hand.
“Not yet,” I whisper, same as I told her on the porch.
Not yet.
I retreat to my room, shut the door softly, and sit on the edge of the bed I dragged closer to the hall.
The anger is still there. So is the resolve.
Whoever is doing this thinks they can come onto this land under cover of dark, take little bites out of a legacy, and scare a family into signing a piece of paper.
They’re not just messing with a ranch. They’re messing with the girl I carved my initials next to on a dock post a lifetime ago.
I stretch out, one arm behind my head, eyes on the ceiling, ears tuned to the faint sounds of the house.
They want a fight?
They just got one.
And I’m done playing nice.
NINE
DELANEY
By the time the coffee finishes dripping, everyone in Valor Springs apparently already knows I have a boyfriend.
“Seven texts,” Mama says, waving her phone like it’s the coolest thing since sliced bread. “Seven, since sunrise. Brooke. Theresa. Nancy from the church. People I haven’t spoken to since they borrowed a casserole dish in 2009.”
