Tell myself I’m not listening for her footsteps on the porch, wondering what time she’ll come home, or replaying the way Silas damn near choked on his own tongue when she passed him.
Or the silence that fell over Caleb as if he’d been punched in the sternum.
Tell myself it means nothing that I noticed all of that.
That she means nothing.
I tell myself I’m fine…. focused, responsible. A parent. A boss. A man who knows better, who is not built for this kind of wanting anymore, not since Marissa.
The thought hits. A fist to the ribs. Old scar tissue tearing open.
Marissa in the doorway, saying she “couldn’t breathe here,” packing her bags while Sadie cried, walking out without looking back.
The sound of the front door closing that morning… I still hear it.
Some nights, it wakes me.
I swore I’d never let myself lose control in that way again.
Never want someone so much they could break me just by leaving.
Never need anyone in a way that made me weak.
I built rules, boundaries, routines… walls thick enough to muffle the worst of the memories.
And then Delaney Rivers showed up in my kitchen with her soft voice and warm eyes and the kind of laughter that sinks into the bones of a house and makes it feel lived in again.
That scares the hell out of me, because wanting her feels like standing on the edge of a cliff and leaning forward, because she’s younger, because she works for me, because Sadie adores her, and because she deserves someone whole, and I don’t know if I am anymore.
Because losing control over a woman once left my daughter with a wound she still can’t name.
And now this feeling… this heat, this hunger…
I don’t want it.
I don’t trust it.
I scrub a hand over my face, trying to shake it off, trying to be the version of me I know how to be—steady, responsible, contained.
But every time I close my eyes, I see Delaney’s mouth curve in that shy little smile.
I roll onto my back, stare at the ceiling, waiting for answers.
It doesn’t give any.
I close my eyes.
Tell myself I’m going to sleep.
That tomorrow I’ll be rational.
Controlled.
The man I’m supposed to be…
“Boone.”
Her voice.
