Page 58 of Something Like Sunflowers

And we don’t either. But as long as I live, I’ll do whatever I need to protect my family. I swear it. I won’t be like my dad, a bachelor and a gambler. And Devyn won’t be like her mom, broken and lost. And our baby will be loved. Always.

“Ellie.” I repeat the name, turning to Devyn in the passenger seat and smiling.

“I love it.”

As we pull through the intersection, it feels like we’ve just crossed a new barrier in our relationship. I can see the sign for The Sugar Stable now, and I can’t wait to scoop her up into my lap and get her the extra-large strawberry milkshake she won’t admit she wants; the one I know always brings a smile to her face.

But she’s not smiling. Her eyes are wide when I look over at her, and she’s—

“Hunter!” she screams, and then I see it.

An eighteen-wheeler coming straight toward us…

In the wrong lane.

I grip the wheel, searching, scanning, praying to God for a way out. For a path of freedom. For something I can do, but there’s no way out.

My heart is racing to the beat of my thoughts.

My girls. My girls. My girls!

There’s nothing I can do but pray. I steal one last glance at the woman beside me, the one who feels like a walking representation of my heart, sitting outside of my body, pleading with me to save her.

To save our daughter.

“I love you,” she breathes.

Chapter 22

Hunter

Respectfully, Mr. Campbell, go the fuck to hell.” I spit the words into the air, wishing I could stand and face the man on the other end of the phone who thinks he’s a damn god rather than having no immediate body to direct my anger toward.

I shovel a heap of straw into Beau’s stall, rolling my eyes when I see Lyle’s stall is also in need of fresh bedding, a clear indication Ellie hasn’t done her chores before taking him out for a ride again.

Ellie.

I hadn’t thought about what might happen once Devyn got back home and met the little girl who shares our daughter’s name. The one who has stolen my heart and wrapped it up in pink tulle and friendship bracelets for the past nine years.

She didn’t replace our Ellie. That could never happen.

But she came into my life when I needed her the most. When my two loves had been ripped away from me and I was at my lowest of lows.

Yeah, Aunt Sarah, I know…A child will lead the way. I don’t think I’d be where I am…be the man I’ve become—leading the youth clubs, organizing charities, raising millions for people who need it. People who are hungry, small businesses who are failing…I help them now. I have the means to help them.

And my tenacious little buddy, my sweet Ellie girl, she’s the singular reason I’m still alive. At the rate I was headed, I could have easily become just like my father.

Like my brother.

I grind my teeth, staring into Lyle’s stall. But Eleanor needed me to be her papa, and I needed her to save me from myself.

I took that money, and I won’t let myself regret it longer than I have already.

“You gave me your word, Isaac. Nine years ago, when you came to me, a wasted mess with a bottle practically glued to one hand and a boxing glove on the other, still a whole year after what happened to my daughter—”

“Our daughters.” I cut him off swiftly. He may not view our unborn child as a life, but we did. We suffered. We lost. And I’ll be damned if he sweeps her under the rug like she never existed. Like she didn’t change our lives forever.

Silence fills the line. Silence followed by the sound of his pen drawer opening. I know the sound because of all the years Dev, Dusty, and I spent sneaking around his office, pretending to solve mysteries. I also know the sound because over the years it’s always accompanied the smooth wisps of his pen swiping across a blank check.

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