“Billy. With her. If he pushes her away again… if he hurts her again…”
“He won’t,” Seth says. “He can’t. He’s been in love with her since forever. He doesn’t know how to stop.”
“Neither do we,” I say quietly.
Seth stops walking. He looks at me. His face is grim, but there’s a faint, sad smile touching his lips.
“No,” he agrees. “Neither do we.”
We keep walking.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sedona
The heat is a living thing.It curls around my ankles, slinks up my calves, and settles in the pit of my stomach like a glowing coal.
I’m walking through the tall grass of the north pasture, but the grass isn’t green. It’s gold, dry and brittle, snapping under my boots. The sun overhead is too big, a white eye staring down unblinking.
I’m looking for something.
I don’t know what. A calf? A way out? The horizon shimmers, warping the line where the earth meets the sky. I turn in a circle.
The ranch is gone. No house. No barn. No fences. Just the endless, rolling gold and the oppressive weight of the sun.
Sedona.
My name is a whisper on the wind. It sounds like my mother’s voice. Or maybe Clara’s. I spin around, trying to find the source.
I’m here,I try to say, but my throat is sealed shut.
My tongue feels heavy, too big for my mouth. I reach up to touch my neck, and my fingers find skin that is burning hot.
Sedona.
It’s a man’s voice now. Deep. Rough like gravel crunching under tires.
Billy.
I start to run. The grass whips at my legs, scratching lines of fire into my skin. I don’t care. I have to find him.
The heat is suffocating, pressing down on my chest, squeezing the air from my lungs.
The ground slopes downward. I stumble, sliding on loose dirt. I’m in a ravine now.
The shadows are cool here, a relief against my fevered skin. I crouch by a dried-up creek bed, pressing my palms into the cracked earth.
I need you,I think. The thought is a pulse, beating in time with the throb between my legs. A different kind of heat uncurls in my belly, slick and aching.
It’s confusing. I’m sick. I’m dying. But my body is waking up, responding to the voice in the wind.
A shadow falls over me.
I look up. A figure stands at the top of the ridge.
The sun is behind him, turning him into a silhouette. Broad shoulders. Sturdy stance. The glint of a belt buckle.
He holds out a hand.
