“What? I was born to stir,” he says, and disappears, whistling like a man who finally handed a worry to someone else for five minutes.
That leaves the two of us and a map of land we both know better than we know ourselves.
I should talk logistics. I should ask about schedules and rooms and which doors stick and who hates me on sight. Instead I say, “You look good, Laney.”
Her breath catches, that betraying little hitch. She recovers fast. “You look… like a problem.”
“Always was.”
“True.” The corner of her mouth betrays her, wants to smile and doesn’t trust itself yet.
We stand there in the low murmur of barn swallows and far-off hammering and every unsaid thing. The want is a living animalnow, pacing, testing the gate. I could step in. Close it with a joke. Or I could open it and let it run us down.
Mission, I remind myself. Her father. The scholarship kids. The rot we’re going to pull out of the fence posts and burn.
But I let myself have one thing. One truth that isn’t a tactical error.
“I won’t hurt you,” I say quietly. “Not with this. Not with the pretend. I know the difference.”
Her eyes lift to mine and hold. She searches, looking for the lie I don’t have time to tell. Whatever she finds relaxes something in her shoulders I didn’t know I was watching. “Okay,” she says. Just that. A door cracking open on a dark room.
“Okay,” I echo.
We’re still looking when a hand slaps the doorjamb and Penny leans in, grinning like a woman who already set the group text on fire. “Boss? Cowboy? Do I tell the crew to expect averypublic display of ‘fake dating’ at the south fence or just medium public?”
Delaney groans into her palms. I can’t help it, and I let the smile happen. It feels like something I haven’t worn in a while finding its way back to my face.
“Tell ‘em,” I say, eyes on Delaney, “to expect me wherever she is.”
Penny whoops. “Copy that.”
Delaney drops her hands, cheeks flushed, chin high. “Fine,” she says, like a woman stepping into a cold creek on purpose. “Let’s go save my ranch, Hawthorne.”
“After you,” I say, because I like watching her lead.
She brushes past. Heat and honeysuckle and sweat and dust kiss my skin in her wake. The urge to reach out and catch her fingers is a live wire. I don’t. Not yet.
I follow her out into the light, wanting and ready in equal measure, the plan in my head and the promise in my chest, both of them heavy, both of them mine.
THREE
DELANEY
Fake dating is a special kind of torture, and I say that as someone who once spent four hours trapped in a cattle trailer with a goat that had opinions.
On one hand, this plan makes sense. It’s small-town camouflage. A public distraction. A way to keep Nash on the ranch without hanging a neon sign that says SABOTAGE INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS, Y’ALL.
On the other hand…
Nash Hawthorne is not a camouflage-friendly man.
He’s a walking spotlight in a Stetson.
I wake up already tired of thinking about him.
The guest room door across the hall is shut. That should be comforting. Instead it feels like my brain has decided to camp out on the threshold with a folding chair and a megaphone.
He’s here.
