Delaney stares, shocked all the way to her freckles. I shouldn’t enjoy that. I do. It’s petty and human and I let myself have exactly one second of it before I staple my restraint back on.
“No kissing,” she says, voice like a gallop being held in the first circle. “No… anything.”
“Public parameters are your call,” Gray says. “Private parameters…” His eyes cut to me. “Mission first.”
I give him a look back that saysI know the difference.I do. I wish I didn’t.
Delaney chews her bottom lip, then points the chewed-up part of her patience at Gray. “What does this actually look like?”
Gray lays it out: I move into the guest room—temporarily—because the bunkhouse leak made the other room unusable and the contractors are “delayed.” Cameras go up under the cover of me “testing a rodeo documentary rig,” courtesy of a couple of unobtrusive trail cams and my own kit. I escort her to town “dates”—grocery, sponsors, the co-op—so I can see who watches. We stage a visible presence at the south fence repair—call it a “couples project,” let the gossips chew.
“Worst idea I’ve ever heard,” Delaney mutters. “Which is why it will work here.”
“Exactly,” Gray says.
She turns to me, and I feel the full weight of what she’s offering without wanting to. “You keep this about the ranch,” she says, voice low. “About my daddy. About the kids who count on those scholarships.”
“Yes, ma’am.” It comes out rawer than I intend. The ma’am isn’t distance. It’s respect. It lands, and her chin tips a degree, accepting, not yielding.
Mr. Coleman rubs the back of his neck. “You two gonna be able to pull this off without… killing each other first?”
“No,” Delaney and I say at the same time, for different reasons.
She does a tiny double take at our chorus, then blows out a breath, sees the chessboard like her father and Gray do, and squares her shoulders. “Fine. We fake it. For the ranch.”
It shouldn’t hit like a victory. It does.
“Alright,” Gray says brisk again, relief hidden. “Roles. Boundaries. Signals. If something feels off, we call it off.” He points at Delaney. “You do not go anywhere alone for the next two weeks. Not even to the mailbox. That an order you can follow?”
Her nostrils flare. “I can follow an order.”
I remember the teenager who could not, who would not, because she was born to be the order when nobody else would take it. The woman standing here looks like she learned the difference between stubborn and strong the hard way.
Gray turns to me. “You’ll wear the mic. Record everything. Quietly. If anybody asks, we’re testing a podcast about ranch life and romance.”
“God save us,” Delaney groans.
“From content,” I agree.
The plan settles like dust after a stampede—finer than you want, everywhere you look. We run through practicals: code words (if she calls me “cowboy,” I listen harder; if she calls me “Nash Hawthorne,” something is wrong), exits, where to stash a go-bag. I add a few things Gray doesn’t have to say—check the gates twice, trip my own sensors to make sure the alerts work, walk the fenceline in the dark with a red lens and my heartbeat turned down to a whisper.
Through it, my awareness of her is a steady hum under the language of work. The scrape of her thumbnail along the edge of the table when she’s thinking. The way she reads the map with her mouth, a whisper of silent words forming as her eyes track fence to creek to gate. The little line that lives now between her brows—the one that wasn’t there when we were kids and thought promises were fences a storm couldn’t jump.
When Gray’s done, he checks his watch. “I’ll bring Josie by after school,” he says to Mr. Coleman, lighter now. “If that’s alright. She’s got cupcakes to repay Mrs. Coleman for saving the field trip last year.”
“You bring that girl any time,” Mr. Coleman says, warmth cutting through the weariness. “Barn misses her.”
Gray claps my shoulder once:call if. Then he’s gone, phone already to his ear, walking and planning at the same time.
Silence folds in after him, stretchy and thin. Mr. Coleman settles his hat, looks between us like a man who remembers how a match looks before it lights.
“If you’re gonna do this,” he says, “do it right. We’re Colemans. We don’t half-ass.”
“Noted,” Delaney says faintly, like she’s imagining believing it in public.
He starts for the door. “I’ll go make sure the hands know Nash is stayin’ for supper and—” His eyes twinkle once, brief. “—courting my daughter again.”
“Daddy,” Delaney warns.
