Page 205 of Halo

“Hold on to me.”

“That part I can do.”

Sweet Tart starts forward at an easy walk, carrying us away from the barn and toward the open pasture.

I rest my cheek against Nick’s back.

The breeze moves over my bare arms and catches the loose edges of my new head wrap. The afternoon sun is warm against my skin, and underneath us, Sweet Tart moves with a slow, steady rhythm that eventually lets my body relax.

For the first time all weekend, I don’t feel sick.

I don’t feel like a cancer patient.

I’m just Leah, wearing a ridiculous dinosaur head wrap made by a little boy I love, holding on to the man I love while he takes me riding beneath a wide Texas sky.

And for right now, that is more than enough.

The longer we ride, the more my body gives in to the rhythm of Sweet Tart beneath us. I let my eyes fall closed and rest my cheek against Nick’s back, breathing in sun-warmed grass and leather and the faint earthy smell of the horse. The breeze catches the loose ends of my dinosaur head wrap, and for once, I don’t reach up to fix it.

I just breathe.

Then Nick goes completely still.

Sweet Tart slows beneath us before coming to a stop, and I feel the sharp pull of his breath beneath my arms.

I lift my head.

“What—”

The question dies before I can finish it.

Beyond us, the pasture opens into a wide stretch of green, but it isn’t grass.

It’s clover.

Thousands upon thousands of them, growing thick across the field, so bright beneath the afternoon sun that for a second, all I can do is stare.

My mouth falls open.

“Oh, Nick.”

He doesn’t answer.

Chapter 50

Nick

Four Months Later

“Do you think she’d want the pink dinosaur?” Grady looks between two tiny toy T-Rexes in his hands.

“I think she would, partner.” I blink away the burning behind my eyes. “And it would match her flowers. Did you see that?”

He grins up at me through the gap where his two front teeth used to be and nods. “I want to leave it for her.” He turns the figurine over, inspecting the purple spots along its back.

I squat down beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. “I think she'd really like that.”

He carefully crawls forward through the grass and sets the dinosaur on the marble headstone next to the flowers I picked out yesterday.