The easy day doesn’t vanish, but it gains shadows again—real ones, pressing in at the edges.
And as Nash moves closer to the door, already turning into the protector he can’t help being, I realize something else, too: I can worry about the future. I can fear the distance. But I’m more afraid of losing this again than I am of figuring out how to make it work.
So I gather my binder, square my shoulders, and follow him—because whatever comes next, I refuse to do it alone.
THIRTEEN
NASH
Night in Valor Springs has a way of going quiet like it’s listening.
The ranch settles. The horses stop shifting. The wind eases off. Even the old house seems to breathe slower, like it’s finally tired of being brave.
Delaney is curled into my side, her cheek on my chest, one leg thrown over mine like she belongs there. I’ve got an arm around her, my palm spread across her back, fingers tracing idle circles through the thin fabric of her shirt.
I could do this forever.
That thought hits me so clean it almost scares me.
Who am I kidding?
I’ve wanted forever with her since I was twelve and she dared me to jump off a rope swing and then laughed like she’d just invented happiness.
I tip my head down and press a kiss to the top of her fiery red hair. She hums softly—sleepy, content—and it goes straight through me.
“You’re thinking too loud,” she murmurs.
I smile into her hair. “Am I?”
“Mmhmm.” She shifts, cuddling closer. “Your chest gets tight when you’re spiraling.”
Great. She can read my body like it’s a language.
I keep my voice light. “What else do I do?”
“You get quiet.” A pause. “Like you’re bracing.”
The room is dark except for the faint spill of moonlight through the curtains. It paints her face in soft edges when she tilts her chin up to look at me.
“Nash,” she says gently, like she’s touching a bruise with her voice, “talk to me.”
The request lands different than it used to. When we were younger, “talk to me” felt like a trap. Like if I said the wrong thing, I’d ruin everything.
Now it feels like permission.
I let out a slow breath. My hand slides up her back to the nape of her neck, thumb rubbing a steady rhythm. “You ever think about that night?” I ask quietly.
Her eyes don’t flinch away. “Graduation?”
“Yeah.” My throat tightens around the word. “The night we almost?—”
“Kissed,” she finishes, voice barely above a whisper.
I nod once.
In the dark, my memories sharpen instead of blur. The smell of our future in the air. Her hair falling over her shoulder. The way her mouth parted when she looked up at me, like she was deciding to be brave.
And then the sirens.
