Page 63 of Something Like Sunflowers

Beau comes trotting through the field, a whinny echoing through the open doors of the barn. Brooklyn must be riding him since Ellie stayed next door with her last night. I peek out the window and see Lyle trailing behind, Ellie riding with damn near perfect form and laughing like a song my ears can’t get enough of. There’s no way I’m letting them take her from me. I’ll tell Devyn. I just need to figure out how.

But what if she thinks I lied to her again? What if she thinks the only reason I did this was for Ellie’s sake and she runs? I could risk losing her and Ellie. My stomach seizes with the idea of it. I can’t let that happen. I can’t.

On the other hand, Devyn was the one who initiated the marriage dare. And it got us both the job we’ve been after, so it’s not like she isn’t gaining something by staying fake married.

But it isn’t fake.

Katie supposedly has copies of the napkins we signed. I pull out my phone as the text pings to see the copies she said she’d send me. It’s miraculous that Lemon was sober enough to pen down the legal jargon so thoroughly…but still. It’s there. Both our signatures. And Lemon’s. In pink pen and signed with Devyn’s lipstick kiss.

My stomach tenses. Devyn might not be okay pretending if she knows it isn’t pretending.

Turning on my heel, I grab the brushes and tools I’ll need to help Ellie get the horses cleaned up from their run and ready for lessons before I pop back in to wake Dev. I smile, imagining this could be our new normal, as I make my way through the barn and toward the sound of laughter.

But it isn’t Brooklyn with Ellie.

It’s Dev.

She rides into the barn.

On my fuckin’ horse.

And if the sight of my woman bareback on my horse doesn’t damn me straight to hell for the sins I want to commit against her right here in this barn, then I don’t know what will.

Not just my woman…my wife.

Fuck, I like the sound of that.

Devyn’s hips sway with the motion of Beau’s canter, her smile stretching from ear to ear as they trot behind Lyle and Ellie. And she wears her hair down.

Fuck, Dev.

“What a perfectly good boy you are, Mr. Beau,” she baby-talks to him. Her blonde hair whips from one side of her body to the next when she lifts her head to the sky, laughing and smiling brighter than the summer sun when he seems to neigh in response. I chuckle; my horse is such a damn flirt for Devyn. I’d swear he might just remember her.

She doesn’t see me yet, as she dismounts Beau, kissing his nose like she’s visiting an old friend.

And I like that. Watching her fall back into her element in Pine Forest is like a drug. I can’t seem to get enough of her wonder and nostalgia as she makes up for lost time with the place she remembers, her practiced movement around the horses as she pads along in filthy bare feet with her heels dangling from her fingers, evidence enough that you can’t take the country out of the girl.

The animals are eatin’ her up, and I don’t blame them one bit. Hell, I’m jealous of my own damn horse as she runs her fingers through his mane.

But this wasn’t how I was going to introduce her to Ellie.

“You’re awake.” I stride toward Devyn, giving Beau an affectionate pat. He nuzzles my cheek, demanding attention. Devyn breathes in audibly and gives me a look I can’t quite place. But she’s not angry.

Her eyes swipe to Ellie and one eyebrow raises at me in a silent question. A sad smile ghosts across her lips.

“You’ve met—”

“Ellie?” Her smile falls then, taking pieces of my heart along with it. I don’t want to hurt Devyn, yet I always seem to be the source of her pain.

“I’m sorry, it isn’t—”

She stops me, placing a finger to my lips and meeting my stare dead on.

“Don’t you ever apologize for that little girl. You’ve done a damn good job, from what I can see.” She swallows, saying more with her eyes than words ever could. It kills me that she never lets those tears out, even after all these years. That hasn’t changed. I see them on the tips of her irises, glowing, shining, daring someone to break the impenetrable wall that holds them back.

“I’ve missed you so much,” I say. But I’m not as strong as Devyn Lynn. My walls do break.

I let my tears fall as I tug her close, and we mourn the loss of a life together we never got to live. A child neither of us properly grieved. A child who was ours.

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