Page 3

SKYE

“ Y ou’re beautiful.”

I stare, dumbstruck, at the way he loves me.

At eighteen, he’s already built like a man. My palms glide up his forearms until my hands clasp behind his neck.

The late afternoon desert sun blazes down on us, lighting me up—yet somehow, he’s the one who glows.

He’s the Sun God, and I’m just the soot left after the burn. That’s how it’s always felt in comparison.

Like I’d never be enough.

And deep down, I knew I never would be.

But somehow, he loves me.

He only sees me. Calls me Red. Can’t keep his hands out of my auburn-brown hair.

My throat thickens. I swallow hard, but the tears rising behind my eyes are harder to hide.

“Red?”

I shake my head, unable to speak the words he’s heard a thousand times—words soaked in doubt and fear. The kind that knows the only thing left after love is ash. The world is at his feet, a million blank tomorrows just waiting for JD to claim them.

But he stays—for me.

He turned down Ivy. I only knew because I found the acceptance letters stuffed under the truck seat while searching for a lost earbud.

He’s the golden boy. I’m the cliché—the girl living in a metal can. My tomorrows are filled with the reality that I’ll never leave that patch of dirt I call home. We barely have enough to eat. College? Traveling the world? As unreachable as Mars.

His mama’s right.

Her words echo in my head as he lowers his mouth to mine, his lips clinging to me like a lifeline. My eyes sting as his tongue slips between my lips, and I get lost in the bliss of him.

It burns.

Love.

Because I know I’m about to break his heart—and mine right along with it.

I squeeze my eyes shut, threading my fingers through his golden hair. My lips memorize this kiss. My soul will wear the scar of it.

His ring sits on my finger—solid, heavy—the family crest carved into the gold. An heirloom. And every time his mother sees me wear it, her lips curl, her face flames.

We break for air. His mouth trails to my neck. His hand slips under my shirt, easing beneath my bra. His fingers toy with my nipples, his mouth warm and hungry on them next.

We get lost in our love all night, tangled in the desert dust on the rough woven blanket we bought at the state fair. We only stop to eat the dinner he packed—cold drinks pulled from his fishing cooler. We dreamed out-loud. Laughed. Kissed.

It was perfect.

The perfect night to be our last.

Only one of us knows that.

Careful not to wake him, I gently lift his thick arm from around my waist. Bit by bit, I slide to the blanket’s edge. My eyes drink him in—shirtless, golden in the morning sun.

The agony of what I’m about to do makes my legs tremble. These are the moments country songs are made of—the kind that go platinum. Because anyone who’s ever touched love this real knows the shattering loss when it’s gone.

And I’m the one doing it to us.

My hand rests on my still-flat stomach, trembling.

“We made a baby,” I whisper, eyes locked on him.

He murmurs my name in his sleep. His brow furrows, trapped between dreaming and waking.

“Shh, I’m right here,” I whisper, placing one last kiss on his lips, pulling back before a tear can fall.

And then I leave him.

Just like that.

Asleep beneath the desert sky, on the blanket where we made love.

I put his truck in neutral, ease off the brake, and let it roll down the hill he parked on.

His phone sits in the cupholder.

I left him with nothing but the taste of me on his lips and the scent of me on his skin.

Because how do you tell the man you love that you are the concrete holding him down—when all he needs is to break the surface and breathe?

His mother found out about the baby—threatened to kill us both. And I believed her. Down to the marrow of my bones, I knew she meant it.

Money and power bury secrets every day.

The moment I saw what she was capable of, I made my plan to disappear.

A small town in rural North Carolina.

Southern Pines.

Shanique had emailed about it. Said there were only woods, pine trees, and a massive lake. Her aunt’s cabin would be the perfect place to lay low. Raise a baby who could breathe clean air. Maybe heal my heart in the process.

I never told JD much about Shanique. She lived states away. Quiet. Shy. Not someone he’d remember even if they crossed paths.

JD will be fine.

It’s in his DNA to go to Harvard. That was the latest letter—tucked under his mattress. I accepted on his behalf. Didn’t even flinch when I typed up the response at the library and mailed it from there.

He’ll marry someone with a name that ends in as many zeroes as his own. She’ll be blonde. Petite. Perfect.

Everything I’m not.

“We’ll be just fine,” I whisper, patting my belly. I’ll never hurt or abandon our baby. But I also won’t be the reason JD misses out on everything the world owes him.

It was always meant to be his.

At least I left him a note. That’s more than I did for my mother. She won’t care. Honestly, she’ll probably be relieved once she sobers up. Feeding me, keeping the lights on—she could barely manage that. I started working at fifteen. Fed myself. Bought my own clothes at Target.

JD never cared about any of that.

With him, I never worried about going hungry—or that some high or drunk stranger would bust through my bedroom door.

I often slept at the ranch. We’d fixed up an old hunting lodge into something that felt like home. I’d wrap my arms around his waist on the back of his bike, playing house and dreaming of our future.

But his family?

That was another story entirely.

A shiver crawls down my spine as I remember the venom in JD’s mother’s voice. Two weeks ago, she cornered me.

My hands shake on the wheel as her words replay...

The morning sun beat down on the patch of scorched dirt I called a front yard. My knees were in the soil, hands deep in a bed of stubborn weeds clinging to the base of the rusted mailbox like they had a right to grow there.

I wiped sweat from my brow, pausing to breathe through the nausea that hadn’t let up in days. Four test sticks said what I already knew—clear as the sky I was named after.

I was pregnant.

And I hadn’t told him yet.

I didn’t get the chance.

The unmistakable sound of tires crunching gravel drew my attention. Not the clunky groan of a neighbor’s junker or the sputter of an engine that needed a good kick—this was different. Polished. Sleek.

A silver Mercedes-Benz coasted to a stop in front of my trailer.

I stood slowly, brushing dirt off my cutoffs, the hair on the back of my neck already standing.

She stepped out like she was gliding on air, like she didn’t notice the busted swing set two trailers down or the way the cicadas went silent. She wore white linen pants and oversized sunglasses that probably cost more than our entire rent .

JD’s mother.

Clarissa Keniston Northport—of the Boston Kenistons.

“What the hell ? —”

“Don’t speak,” she snapped, slipping her shades down just far enough to let her ice-chip eyes pierce me. “I’ll do the talking.”

I crossed my arms, trying to hold together the trembling pieces of my spine. “Why are you here?”

She gave me a tight, contemptuous smile. “Oh, I think you know.”

I didn’t answer.

She reached into her designer purse and pulled out a thin white envelope. I didn’t take it. Just stared at her, heart pounding.

“I pay for information. People talk.” She smirked, glancing at my still-flat tummy. “Your little secret? It wasn’t so secret.”

My stomach dropped.

“The receptionist at that… quaint little clinic you went to? She cleans tables at the country club on Sundays. I tipped her well.”

My throat closed. I was choking on heat and fear.

She leaned in, close enough for me to smell her perfume—sharp, floral, expensive.

“You really think someone like you is going to trap my son with a baby? That he’d throw away his future for some barefoot trash with a bastard in her belly?”

My body jolted as she shoved the envelope into my chest.

I caught it reflexively, too stunned to move as she pinched my arm—hard—and yanked me close.

“I’ll bury you both,” she hissed into my ear. “Think I’m exaggerating? Try me. Disappear, and I’ll let you live. Stay, and I will end you. Quietly. No one will miss you. Or the mistake growing inside you.”

Then she opened her purse.

A sleek chrome revolver glinted in the sun.

She pressed it to my temple while I was still reeling from her words. I’ll never forget the cold metal against my overheated skin, or the contrast of her shiny, lacquered nails as her finger brushed the trigger.

“Bang,” she laughed.

Then she shoved me.

Not a slap. Not a tug. A shove.

I stumbled back, tripped over the brick edging of the flowerbed, and landed in the dirt.

She stood above me like she hadn’t just committed a felony, brushing nonexistent lint from her blouse.

“This check,” she said coolly, “is enough to vanish. Use it. Or don’t. But if I see you again, Skye…” She leaned down, tapping her manicured finger against her temple. “I don’t lose. Ever. Remember that.”

The gun now pointed at my stomach.

And then she was gone.

Her heels clicked against the cracked concrete. Engine revving. Tires spitting gravel as she vanished like a demon in designer sunglasses.

I lay there, heart pounding, one hand on my belly.

“I’ll protect you,” I whispered to the baby inside me. “No matter what.”

And from that moment on, I knew.

I couldn’t stay.