Page 52 of The Lilac River

"You poor bastard."

"No sympathy," he said over his shoulder as he rode off. "Go dunk yourself before you seize up, boss."

I leaned forward and gave Ponti a grateful scratch on the neck. "Let’s get you home, boy."

Ponti, short for Adam Pontipee. Bertie had named him after her favorite character inSeven Brides for Seven Brothers.Wilder had drawn the short straw with his horse, Alice Elcott. Bertie had been deep in her naming phase. Gunner's horse got spared, he’d already named his peanut-butter-colored gelding Peanut.

Thinking about Bertie made the ache in my knee fade a little. If I had her, I could weather anything.

Well, anything except maybe Lily Jones and that kiss at the weekend that I couldn’t stop replaying.

By the time we reached the house, my knee felt like it was being gnawed on by a bear. I needed to invest in one of those ice tubs with a lid, just to stop Bertie from turning it into a Barbie swimming pool.

I was about to dismount when the pounding of small feet hit the porch.

"Daddy, Daddy! I need to ask you something real big!"

Sunlight filled my chest. Bertie barreled toward me in a dress that had seen better days, smeared with chocolate, dirt, and probably Jello. My heart walked around on two legs, sass and spark wrapped up in a ponytail.

"And good afternoon to you, too, munchkin."

She grinned, her arms wrapping around my legs.

"Good afternoon, Daddy," she parroted, eyes gleaming. "So can I ask now?"

"Hit me."

She beamed. I spotted a new gap in her teeth. "Hey, you lost a tooth!"

"That’s nothing," she said with a wave. "Almost swallowed it, but Miss Gray made me spit it out. Not ladylike, but totally necessary."

Lily.

Her name punched straight through me, dredging up memories I had no business letting surface. Her laugh echoing through lavender fields. Her lips brushing my ear, whispering promises she never kept. The way she used to hum when she thought I was asleep. That ache in my chest that never really went away, not even when I buried it under parenting, ranching, and pretending I didn’t still think about her.

"Anyways," Bertie continued, oblivious to the storm inside me, "Miss Wright talked to me today."

"Principal Wright?"

"Yep! She wants to know if my class can visit the lavender farm."

I froze. The lavender farm.

That field wasn’t just flowers. It was history. It was Lily. The first time I told her I loved her was in the middle of that violet sea, her hair catching the wind, our bodies wrapped up in sun and secrets.

Now her class would be walking those same rows. She’d be walking those same rows. Lily, back in the place we broke and bloomed.

And suddenly I was back there, seventeen again, chasing her through rows of blooming purple, the sky split open with golden dusk. She tackled me from behind, and we fell into the soft earth, laughing. She said it smelled like summer and magic. I told her it smelled like her.

The memory didn’t just sting, it scalded.

Back then, the lavender field had felt like the edge of the world. Now it felt like a ghost that hadn’t learned how to leave me alone.

"Well, Daddy?"

I blinked. The memory fled.

I forced a smile, each muscle fighting me. "Yeah. Tell her it’s good. Just have Miss Wright email me."