“Delaney,” he says. “Can we talk for a minute?”
My stomach flips.
“Sure,” I say automatically, even though my pulse has already started racing.
Julia arches a brow. “Come on, Sadie. Let’s see if any of these horses remember me.”
“They remember everyone,” Sadie informs her solemnly, already sliding off her chair.
Julia laughs and offers her hand. “Then I suppose I should apologize in advance.”
They head outside, Julia chatting easily about how Boone once tried to name a horse after a wrestler and how Caleb refused to ride anything that “looked smug.”
The door closes behind them.
The kitchen suddenly feels too big.
Silas exhales hard. “Okay. I definitely didn’t plan that part well.”
My heart starts to pound. “Silas… what’s going on?”
He steps closer, careful, hands open at his sides like he doesn’t want to spook me.
“I booked a couple nights away,” he says.
The words don’t register at first.
“You… what?”
“A cabin,” he says quickly. “Out of town. Quiet. Just a few days.”
My pulse roars. “Silas?—”
“For all of us,” he adds, immediately. “You, me, Boone, Caleb.”
That stops me cold.
“All of us?” I echo.
He nods. “Boone and Caleb already talked to the ranch hands. Everything here is covered. Julia offered to stay and watch Sadie. She wanted the time, and Boone trusts her.”
My chest tightens at that. At the care threaded through the plan.
“To… what?” I ask quietly.
“To talk,” he says simply. “Really talk. No work. No distractions. No pretending everything’s fine when it isn’t.”
The word lands harder than anything else.
Talk.
Not escape. Not distraction. Not heat or jokes or deflection.
My instinct is to back away. To protect the fragile equilibrium I’ve built by not asking for anything.
But Silas looks different right now. Serious. Not trying to charm his way out of discomfort.
“I’m not trying to corner you,” he says softly. “If you say no, that’s it. I just… I don’t want to keep orbiting this thing as if it’ll resolve itself.”
