Page 60 of The Lilac River

The sun blazed high over the creek, bouncing light off the surface so fiercely it felt like punishment. I squinted against the glare and crouched to dip my hat in the cool water, scooping it up and dumping it over my head. A hiss escaped me, momentary relief in the devil’s armpit of a day. The heat out here was a living thing, sharp, oppressive, crawling down the back of your neck like you owed it money.

Ponti dipped his head beside me, snorting into the water as he drank. I let the reins hang slack in my hand. The breeze barely stirred, and the air clung to everything like sweat-soaked denim. My shirt stuck to my spine. Even my boots felt too heavy, like the sun had baked the leather into cement.

We’d always been lucky with the creek, this branch of the Sundance River wasn’t flashy, but it was reliable. Wide, steady, fed by snowmelt from the higher peaks. Not prone to flooding or clogging with runoff. Good for cattle. Better for the land. Best for my peace of mind.

This land had raised us. Broken us. It held the bones of our legacy, the sweat of generations. My great-grandfather had carved the first fence posts by hand, cut from local pine and driven into this dirt with nothing but stubbornness and borrowed time. There was something sacred in the way the light hit the ridgeline this time of day. The stillness that hung in the pine-stained air made me feel both small and anchored. Like maybe the ranch was the only place in the world that ever really made sense.

The kind of quiet you could only earn. The kind you only noticed when your soul needed mending.

I stood there a moment longer, soaking in the kind of silence that only existed in the high country. It should’ve felt like freedom. But peace didn’t come easy these days.

Lily floated back into my head, uninvited and relentless. I’d spent all weekend trying to shake her loose as Friday night kept replaying like a scratched record. The way Forester got in her space. The flash of her eyes when she stood her ground. And the way I’d felt like I was eighteen again, one wrong word from throwing fists.

She wasn’t mine. Hadn’t been for years.

But God help me, I still wanted to put her behind me and couldn’t.

She’d sunk in like mountain cold, slow at first, then all at once. Like a storm rolling over the divide, no warning, just wind and want.

"Come on, Ponti," I muttered, swinging up into the saddle. "Let’s get home."

We were halfway back when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I answered without looking.

“Nash Miller.”

“Oh, Nash, it’s Suki from the school office.”

Instantly my mouth went dry, and I gripped Ponti’s reins tighter, ready to move.

"Hey, Suki. Everything okay? Is Bertie alright?"

"Um… not really," she said gently. "Looks like she’s come down with something. Stomach flu, maybe. Can someone pick her up?"

My gut twisted. "I’m an hour out. Wilder and Gunner are off-property. I?—"

"We can’t keep her here much longer, Nash. Another kid’s already in the sick bay. And we really don’t want this spreading."

"Where is she now?"

"With Miss. Gray. Her class is out on a nature trail."

Of course. Lily.

I closed my eyes, breathed in through my nose. Even her name tugged at something buried deep and fragile. Still raw.

"Can she stay with Miss. Gray until I get there?"

"Honestly? It would be best if someone brought her home. Miss. Gray offered to, if that’s okay with you."

Lily. On the ranch.

Bad idea. The worst.

But I didn’t have a choice.

"Okay. Let her bring her. Call me if anything changes."

By the time I rode into the yard, sweat drying into salt on my back, a battered blue Subaru rolled up in a cloud of dust. The car looked one hard breeze away from retirement.