Page 86 of Something Like Sunflowers

Magical.

“I’ve been thinking about something. Ellie told me Katie keeps trying to place her with other families because Hunter isn’t married. But right now, everyone already thinks we are. What difference would it make if we just, I don’t know, made it legal for the sake of him winning custody. It’s not like we couldn’t change it later once he’s fully adopted her, and maybe we wouldn’t even want to…I mean the way things are now, I’m not sure I wouldn’t—”

Lemon stops me. “Katie does not want Ellie with other families, Devyn. She has purposely been working with Hunter to sabotage any potential foster matches while he fights for custody, just so you know. She’s on your side.”

I couldn’t have imagined that would sting so much coming from Lemon. I mean, I understand she’s Katie’s cousin, but she knows so much more about this than I do. So much more about a girl who feels like my responsibility. Not hers. And that’s crazy, right?

That she feels like my responsibility?

But I don’t care. That is how it feels.

“I was just feeling like Hunter and I had this whole new level of trust, but he hasn’t told me anything about her custody placement other than it’s been up and down. Ellie’s revealed more to me than Hunter has, and I get the feeling he isn’t telling me the stuff that truly has him in knots.”

Shana clears her throat, gripping the wheel with white knuckles and elbowing Lemon. Lemon, who is awkwardly wedged between Shana and me right now, stiffens suspiciously, but I go on.

“If we were for real married, as Ellie put it,” I smile at the memory, “Hunter would have a better chance of full custody, don’t you think?”

“Oh, boy, we have to tell her,” Shana suddenly blurts. “I can’t keep it secret anymore.”

“Shut up!” Lemon hisses. “It’s not your secret to tell, it’s—”

“Tell me what?” I snap at them both.

But before I can get my answers, Shana slams on the brakes and the truck comes screeching to a halt. She pulls to the shoulder and flicks on her brights, illuminating the field so we can see—

“Ellie?”

Chapter 33

Devyn

My first reaction to what I see ahead is to snatch someone’s kid up and demand to know why he hit a girl. My breath left my lungs at the sight of Ellie’s blood smudged cheek and mussed up hair. But when I see the other kid—the one with the busted lip and two black eyes—I remember gender equality and all.

Ellie looks much better than the other guy. She might have even started it.

“What the hell happened here?” I whisper to Ellie. She’s standing oddly close to the boy who seemingly hit her. Unless she hit him? Maybe some other bully beat them both up, and—

“Jon-a-than,” she drawls out the syllables, a whip of her neck assigned to each, glaring at the kid through narrowed slits in her eyes, like she aims to cut him with the sound of his own name.

Savage.

But…no. It’s also wrong.

It’s something Bitchy-Devyn would have condoned, but that doesn’t make it okay. Even if I do feel a tiny streak of pride at her competitive nature. Instead, I scowl at her as she continues, a silent plea for her to take it down a notch.

She does not, of course, take it down any notches.

“His father is the reason! If he wasn’t a no-good, animal-hurtin’ son-of-a—”

“Stop sayin’ that!” He clenches his fists by his side then huffs incredulously at the moon. “Dang it, Ellie! I helped you free the calf, didn’t I? We’re even!”

My brain circles back to past conversations with Hunter, talk of Ellie getting into fights with a boy at school. It breaks my heart that she’s going through so much all at once. Custody, bullies. Kids can be downright mean.

I should call Hunter right away. I know I should.

A smarter person would.

But after what she trusted me with the other day, the bond we share is…well, it’s just that. It’s a bond. It’s fragile and it’s new. And I want to help her.

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