Page 192 of Catch the Sun

I glance down at her, watching the emotion dance across her features. “It will never be enough. You saved my dad’s life. You saved mine. I never would have been able to afford his care…never.”

“It was the least I could do,” she whispers. “I’m glad I could help.”

“It was selfless. Brave. A testament to the amazing girl you are, and always have been.”

She takes my hand and squeezes, letting out a long sigh. “There was a time I thought I was a monster,” she admits. “Just like him.”

Pain bulldozes through my heart as I shake my head at the mere thought. “No, Sunny.” I wrap a strong arm around her and hold her tight, kissing the top of her head. “Neither of us own our brother’s mistakes. That’s not how it works. Their actions affected us, but that doesn’t make us guilty of those sins by proxy, you know?”

“Yeah,” she says. “You’re right.” Sniffling back her emotion, her head still cradled by my bicep, Ella peers out at the low-hanging sun and smiles softly, our fingers interlacing as we stand together in the open field. Then she adds, “I think I want to name her Dawn.”

Hours later, Dawn sleeps soundly, curled up in a little ball next to Klondike as he chews on a ham bone. Ella and I are on our backs, shoulder to shoulder, lying upon the vast acreage as we stare up at the twinkling sky. Night has fallen on Sunny Rose Farm and I’m taken back to a moment years ago when Ella and I watched the Taurid meteor shower together after the school dance.

But that’s not what holds our attention tonight.

It’s not the half-moon or the sparkling starlight, or even the picture-perfect moment of us resting beside a white horse and a young pup.

It’s something far more mystical. More magical.

“Look up, Sunny,” I say to her, just like I did back then when meteors painted the sky in whimsical brushstrokes.

Her eyelids flutter open.

Her gaze pops.

And she gasps, tears erupting instantly.

Slowly, almost teasingly, ribbons of green and pink begin to streak across the inky sky.

The dance of the northern lights.

Ella’s wish.

We don’t speak, conversation lost to the light show above. The glimmersstretch and twist across the horizon, moving in waves, each surge of color more enchanting than the last as they illuminate the farm in fleeting blips of brightness.

My own eyes mist.

This moment, this woman, this new dance between us unfolding along with the sky—it’s everything.

I suck in a breath, my future so much clearer.

Everything is finally, perfectly right.

As the sky bleeds green like the emeralds in her eyes, I stand up, untangle our clasped palms, and tell her I’ll be right back. She watches me jog toward the house and return a moment later, a familiar book tucked inside my palm.

I hand her the novel, the one I snuck from atop her desk before leaving the RV the night before.

Black Beauty.

Ella glances at me, her index finger grazing down the spine, a question in her starry gaze. Her throat rolls with wonder as she blinks slowly, then dips her attention to the front of the book featuring a black horse with a white diamond on its forehead. She starts flipping through, looking, searching, eager for the big reveal. She knows I’ve left her a little piece of my heart.

When she finds it, she gasps out a tiny cry, bobbing her head up and down as tears well in her eyes.

There, on the very last page, she finds what she’s looking for.

The final line is partially highlighted.

A message from me to her.

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