“I’m not leaving,” I murmur.
She shifts, half-asleep, and whispers back, “You better not.”
And in the dark, with danger outside and peace inside, I make myself a vow I’ll live by: Whoever is messing with this ranch… is going to learn what happens when you threaten the place where Delaney Coleman’s heart lives.
And now?
That includes me.
TWELVE
DELANEY
I wake up warm.
Not Texas-warm, not sun-on-the-back-of-your-neck warm—safe warm. The kind that lives under blankets and inside arms you trust. For one blissful second, I don’t remember the fence line, the sabotage, the Strouds, the truck in the night.
I just feel… held.
Nash’s arm is heavy around my waist, his hand splayed flat on my stomach like he anchored me here sometime after midnight and never let go. His chest rises slow behind me, solid and steady. His breath is a soft brush at the back of my neck.
I’ve dreamed about this.
Not in the dirty way people assume when they heardreamed—though, okay, sometimes in that way too—but mostly in the achey way. The way you lie awake at twenty-two in a city apartment that doesn’t feel like yours yet and imagine what it would be like if the boy you loved hadn’t turned into a ghost.
If I move, will the dream break?
I shift an inch anyway, because curiosity is my fatal flaw.
Nash makes a low sound—half sigh, half warning—and tightens his arm like his body knows I’m real before his brain catches up.
“Morning,” he rasps, voice wrecked with sleep.
My heart does something stupid and teenage.
“Morning,” I whisper back.
He presses a slow kiss to my shoulder—unhurried, intimate, like he has nowhere else to be and no reason to pretend he doesn’t want this. Then his mouth trails up to the spot just below my ear, and my whole body lights up like a struck match.
“Nash,” I breathe, not a warning this time. More like a surrender.
He rolls us gently so I’m on my back, hovering over me on one forearm. His hair is mussed, his eyes a darker brown in the morning light, and there’s a faint crease between his brows like he woke up already worried and decided to look at me anyway.
He studies me for a second like he’s making sure I’m still here. “You okay?” he asks softly.
I nod, because words feel too fragile.
His thumb slides along my cheekbone, feather-light. “Tell me if you regret it.”
I grab the front of his t-shirt and tug him down until his mouth meets mine.
That’s my answer.
He kisses me slowly at first—deep, warm, morning-soft. Then he breathes out against my lips like he’s losing the last of his control, and the kiss turns hungry without turning reckless. His hand cups the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair, holding me like I’m something he’s been missing and found again.
I kiss him back like I’m trying to make up for ten years of distance with one morning.
We break apart only because lungs are required.
