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“It feels like home for me,” I say, glancing at her brown eyes in the rearview mirror. “I love it down here.”

“And there’s a girl you love too,” Mama adds with a knowing grin.

I smile. “That too.”

The memories flood in—the nights we spent under the stars, the feel of Dakota’s hand in mine. I think back to all our almosts—almost kisses, almost admissions, almost touches. Our past is too full of tangled what-ifs and could-have-beens, and I need to make it permanent.

Mom scans my face from the backseat, and whatever she finds in my expression has her sighing. “Then I guess we’re moving back to Texas.”

My heart jerks.

“You’d follow me here?” I squeeze the steering wheel, hopeful. They’ve helped me out so much that I don’t know what I’d do without them. “Come back home? Really?”

“Sweetie.” My mama rolls her eyes. “If you think for one damn second I’m going to live more than five minutes away from my grandbaby, you’re sorely mistaken.”

Mom leans over from the back to kiss her cheek, and then she kisses mine. “There’s nothing you can do to keep us away. You’re stuck with us forever.”

My throat goes tight, thinking of all those summer memories—Mom teaching me how to fish, Mama taking me to Sweet Berry Farm to pick strawberries. And now, I’m doing all that with my little girl, and they’re still by my side.

“I love y’all,” I say. “You know that, right? I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Both their eyes go glassy.

“You’re our home, sweetie,” Mama says.

“That’s right,” Mom adds. “Where you go, we go.”

“Here’s that bouquet of roses and bronze leaf wax begonias, Willie,” I say, setting the giant arrangement of pink sherbet flowers on the bar counter.

His Caribbean eyes narrow on the flowers, and he stares at the bouquet like it’s about to explode into pink confetti. “I didn’t order these.”

“Hey, don’t look at me. Alanna said the bar could use some ‘prettyin’ up.’ Her words. Not mine, and I think there’s something else in there for you too.”

He digs around the white box I used to stabilize the bouquet and pulls out the embroidered apron. “What the hell is this?”

I hold up my hands. “She’s the one who told me to put it in there.”

He pulls out the pink floral apron with an image of a cartoon man with oven mitts on his hand that reads, Always Use Protection.

It must be some inside joke because I don’t get it.

He stares at it, but I can’t read his expression under all that dark hair. After a few seconds, he scrunches up the apron, throws it behind the counter, and mutters something under his breath that sounds like Fuckin’ Barbie.

The door suddenly bursts open with a bang.

Colter Cutler strides inside the bar, clad in Wrangler jeans and a plaid button-down. He scans the crowded bar beneath his cowboy hat, and when his eyes land on me, he cuts through the smoky haze. A few patrons give him a nod of hello.

This man turns more heads than his daughter.

Once he reaches the counter, he scrapes out a seat, turns it backwards, and straddles the wood. “Mind if I join you?”

Colt has finally started to ease up on the scowls directed at me, so I slap his shoulder. “I’ve actually got to finish some flower deliveries, so I was just heading out, but I’m glad I caught you. I wanted to talk to you about the Granite Falls rodeo in a few weeks.”

“What about it?” he asks, nodding to Willie who hands him a long-necked beer.

“I know Dakota lost her shot with the scout because of me, and I want to get her another chance. Think you could get me a meeting with him so I can convince him to come watch her at Granite Falls in a couple of weeks?”

He takes a slow sip of his beer before answering. “I’ll try. He’s a hard-ass, though. Fair warning. I already tried talking to the man, and he gave me nothin’. You might have to beg.”