Daddy lowers his paper. “What truck?”
“The one that decided to use your land as a joyride around midnight,” Nash says calmly, but his eyes flash. “Didn’t get plates. Only saw taillights. But it knew the layout.”
My stomach drops. “You didn’t think that was worth mentioning last night?”
His gaze lands on me, steady. “By the time I got back, you were upstairs and your dad was half asleep in his chair. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done with that information except lose sleep.” He pauses. “I had it covered.”
My knee bounces under the table. Hedidhave it covered. And part of me wants to be mad anyway, because this is my home and I want to know every threat that breathes near it.
Daddy blows out a slow breath. “Well. I’m up now. We’ll take another look at that corner later.”
Mama slides a cup of coffee toward Nash like it’s a weapon she’s choosing to lay down. “You make sure my daughter doesn’t get shot at before dinner, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he says. His voice goes soft onma’amin a way that eases something tight in my chest.
Breakfast hums on—talk of fence staples, Josie’s pony lesson, the weather.
At some point, Nash’s phone buzzes. He glances at the screen, then leans closer to me, the world narrowing to the bend of his head and the low, private rasp of my name. “Laney.”
It’s not the way he said it in high school. It’s deeper now. Roughened by sand and time and whatever broke him over there. It slides under my skin like it owns the place.
I look up, caught.
He’s close enough that I can see the gold flecks in his irises. Close enough that if I leaned forward an inch, my nose would brush his.
“Gray says he’s working on the Stroud files,” he murmurs, eyes on mine. “Wants us to keep doing what we’re doing today. Business as usual.”
“Right,” I say, but it comes out as more of a breath than a word.
His gaze dips to my mouth, then back up, fast.
Mama clears her throat so loudly she might have swallowed a spoon.
We jerk apart like teenagers.
“I amright here,” she says. “At my table. Where I eat food.”
Daddy bites a smile into his toast.
Heat floods my neck. Nash’s ears turn pink, which is deeply satisfying.
“Town,” I say, standing so fast my chair squeaks. “Let’s go… be nauseating in public.”
“Ma’am,” Nash says, nodding to Mama. “Sir.”
We escape onto the porch like it’s a lifeboat. Outside, the air is already warming up, sun lifting over the pastures, a soft breeze trying its best. I head for Nash’s truck with more energy than dignity.
“You okay?” he asks once we’re in the cab.
“No.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Absolutely not.”
He grins. “Copy that.”
We startwith the feed store because nothing says romance like bulk mineral blocks.
