Page 18 of DFF: Delicate Freakin’ Flower (Family Ties #5)

Chapter Fifteen

Webb

W e’d stopped using the campfire a few nights ago, it'd just made sense. The glow carried too far in the dark, and I didn’t want us looking like a beacon in the trees if someone with bad intentions happened to be watching from the ridge line.

Instead, we’d rigged up a little portable gas stove outside, tucked between two fallen logs.

I kept it angled behind a makeshift screen of brush and corrugated tin we’d scrounged up from the backup supplies for the cabin.

It didn’t throw much light, and I could shut it off in seconds if we heard anything.

Tonight, the skillet was back on it— the skillet—and Gabby was watching it like it might betray her at any second.

“I wiped it with soap,” I reminded her, nudging the steaks around with the tongs. “In front of you to prove it. It's ruined it, but I was hoping you'd quit moaning about it.”

“Wiping is not washing,” she muttered, arms crossed tight over her hoodie. “It’s smearing bacteria into a deeper, more aggressive formation.”

I glanced over my shoulder at her and smirked. “You sound like it’s forming a union.”

“I’m just saying if we start glowing or develop a fever, I’m blaming the pan.”

“You can blame the pan,” I snickered, flipping a perfectly seared steak, “but you’ll be doing it with a full stomach.”

She gave the skillet another disgusted look, then went back to slicing tomatoes into perfect little rounds for the salad she insisted we include to balance out our meals.

She wouldn’t stop watching the pan, though.

Every few seconds, her eyes flicked to it like she was waiting for it to sprout legs and chase her.

It made me smile. Maybe because it was stupid. Perhaps because it was so perfectly her.

We were sitting just a few feet apart when I finally brought it up.

“Got a call from Marcus and Matty earlier,” I said, keeping my voice even and steady. “Maddox has upped the bounty.”

Her hands paused on the salad tongs, and she didn’t look at me right away.

“How much?” she asked after a long beat.

“Doesn’t matter.”

“How much, Webb.”

“Enough to attract people who don’t care what’s right or wrong. Enough to bring strangers sniffing around just to make a payday.”

She stared at the logs across from us. “Great.”

I watched her shoulders pull tight, her whole body drawing in as if she were trying to become smaller than she already was, and it made my chest clench.

“But it’s okay,” I added quietly. “We’re ahead of him.”

She gave me a doubtful glance, but I didn’t back down.

“I mean it. And something else, I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but I called one of my cousins back in Gonzales County. He knows a guy called Maddix who used to be a cop.”

Gabby's head jerked. “Wait, Maddix? Like?—?”

“Nah, this guy’s name’s spelled differently, and he’s definitely not the same guy,” I reassured her.

“But the name caught me, too. He’s working out of Texas now but still has a few ties up north.

Said he’s going to reach out to some of his people in New York and start sniffing around for anything Maddox might be tied into out there. ”

She raised a brow. “You think he’s got reach that far?”

“If his empire’s as big as it’s looking, I don’t see him limiting himself to Florida. The kind of greed this guy’s chasing doesn’t come with borders. Especially not when money and reputation are involved. If he's known there, they'll have a bigger idea of what else he's been up to.”

I plated the steaks and handed hers over. Gabby took it wordlessly, staring at the meat and salad like they were foreign objects.

As I took bites of my own, she just sat there, pushing her steak around with the side of her fork, dragging it slowly through the lettuce and tomato like she was trying to camouflage it.

I watched her lips press into a line, her eyes distant again, far away in that place she sometimes went to when it got quiet.

I didn’t say anything, just set my plate down, stood up, and walked over to her. She didn’t resist when I pulled her up gently, not even when I turned and sat back down in my chair with her tucked into my lap like it was the most natural thing in the world. Because, at this point, it was.

She settled against me, the tension still clinging to her limbs like static, and I grabbed both plates and started feeding us slowly—one bite for her, one for me.

She didn’t fight it, and I didn’t press her to tell me what was going on in her brain.

I also didn’t tell her it was going to be fine because she was too smart for platitudes.

I just held her, fed her, and stayed present.

I could feel it in her, how badly she needed the gentleness of it. The simplicity of just being taken care of, even for a minute. She’d carried herself through fire before she ever got to me—of course she was tired, so I let her lean. And I made damn sure she knew I’d hold her steady when she did.

Gabby stayed curled into me, her body warm and still, but I could feel the way her breath caught every so often. It also felt like her heart was beating faster than she wanted it to, as if something was trying to claw its way out of her chest, and she was too tired to hold it back anymore.

Her fingers, resting lightly on my thigh, twitched once, and then her voice came, soft as smoke. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

I stopped chewing, letting her words settle in my chest like a stone. She didn’t look at me, just stared past my shoulder, her eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the trees.

“It wakes me up at night,” she whispered. “Thinking about what would happen if something went wrong. If you got hurt because of me.” She sucked in a ragged breath, sharp and shaky. “I know this wasn’t your fight." Her voice cracked. “But I’m so glad it’s you.”

I didn’t say anything right away. I just stared at her—at this woman who’d come barreling into my life like a storm wrapped in sarcasm and panic and strength she didn’t even know she had.

Then I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to hers. The touch was gentle and simple, but it said everything.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I murmured, my voice low, barely more than a breath between us.

Her eyes fluttered closed, and I felt her exhale against my skin. In that quiet, with the night wrapped around us and her heartbeat pressed against my chest, I knew she wasn’t dragging me into anything. I’d walked in willingly, and I wasn’t going anywhere.

Gabby didn’t say anything right away after I whispered that I wouldn’t have it any other way, but something in her shifted.

Her breathing changed—shallower, quicker. I could feel it against my neck. Her fingers flexed where they rested against my leg, curling just slightly into the fabric of my jeans like she needed to hold on to something solid.

Then, slowly, she angled her head, and before I could blink, before I could even ask if she was sure, she kissed me.

It wasn't soft or hesitant. It was deep, hungry, and hot. Like she’d been holding it back for days and couldn’t anymore.

It was a kiss that told me everything Gabby didn’t say out loud—that she was scared, that she was tired, that she wanted something tangible to hold onto in all the chaos. That she wanted me.

I froze for half a second, my brain catching up to the explosion happening in my chest. Then I was moving.

I set the plates down fast, letting them clatter gently onto the ground beside us, not caring if the steak got coated in dirt or if the salad rolled off into the grass. My hands found her face, cupping her jaw, angling her just right so I could kiss her back.

And when I did, it was like striking a match to gasoline.

Her mouth parted beneath mine, and I deepened it, pouring every ounce of emotion I’d been holding in—fear, desire, respect, everything—into the way I kissed her. One hand slid into her hair, the other still holding her cheek as if anchoring her in place, like if I let go, we’d both come undone.

She made a soft sound, not quite a moan, not quite a sigh, but it wrecked me. Her hands gripped the front of my shirt, pulling me closer, needing me like I needed her.

It wasn’t slow, and it wasn’t polite. It was full of want and promise and a thousand things we hadn’t said but had been building between us every time we touched, every time we fought, every time we laughed when we shouldn’t have.

Her lips were warm and soft and tasted faintly like the sweet tea she’d sipped earlier, but it was the emotion behind the kiss that made my pulse stutter. She was all in. And so was I.

When we finally pulled apart, both of us were breathing hard as our breaths mingled in the dark.

We didn’t say anything, we didn’t have to. The kiss had said it all.

Her forehead still rested against mine, her breath brushing my lips as it slowed and steadied.

I kept one hand curled around the back of her neck, my thumb gently stroking just behind her ear.

It felt like the world had narrowed down to just this—the quiet, the night air, and her, warm and solid in my arms.

“You feel better?” I asked, my voice low.

Gabby didn’t answer right away. Instead, she made a soft, vaguely indecipherable sound—a hum more than a word, non-committal and somewhere between yeah and don’t make me think yet.

She tucked herself tighter against me, pressing her face into the curve of my neck and shoulder, her breath slow and warm against my collarbone.

I let my chin rest on top of her head, closing my eyes for a second and letting the weight of her settle into me.

And then, right as peace started to settle in—smack, smack, crunch, slurp.

I opened one eye. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”