Prologue
PROLOGUE
Ivy - Fourteen Years Ago
The creek sang my favorite song tonight—water over stones, cicadas in the cottonwoods, and the distant lowing of cattle settling for sleep. But this time, it felt a lot more like goodbye.
August in Copper Creek had its own rhythm, slow and sweet as molasses, the kind of heat that made the whole world shimmer at the edges like a half-remembered dream. The air hung thick with honeysuckle and fresh-cut hay, with the promise of summer storms building somewhere beyond the horizon. It was the kind of night that made you believe in forever, in promises whispered against sweat-dampened skin, in love that could survive anything.
Anything but running away.
"Happy birthday, Ivygirl."
Wyatt's voice rumbled against my ear where I lay tucked against his chest in the bed of his beat-up Ford, nothing but an old quilt between the rusty truck bed and us. Above us, the Texas sky sprawled endlessly, stars scattered like spilled sugar across black velvet. I could pick out the constellations he'd taught me over the years—Orion's Belt, the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia's Throne.
We'd been coming to this spot since we were kids, first on bikes with playing cards clothespinned to the spokes, then on horseback on his daddy's gentlest mares, and now in his truck that coughed blue smoke and had more rust than paint. This place existed outside of time—our sanctuary, our whole world condensed into a patch of Texas earth beside running water.
"Technically," I started, tracing lazy circles on his bare chest, feeling the steady thump of his heart beneath sun-bronzed skin, "it won't be my birthday for another seventeen minutes."
His chest rumbled with quiet laughter. "Close enough. Besides, I want to be the first to give you your present."
"Wyatt Blackwood, if you bought me something expensive?—"
"Hush." He shifted beneath me, careful not to dislodge me from my spot against his side as he reached for his jeans crumpled near our feet. The movement made the truck bed creak, a familiar sound that would forever after make my heart ache. "It's not what you think."
I pushed myself up on one elbow, holding the quilt to my chest with my free hand, suddenly aware of every place where the night air kissed my bare skin. The temperature had dropped maybe ten degrees since sunset, leaving the perfect amount of coolness to balance the heat still thrumming between us from what we'd just shared.
An hour ago, he'd laid me back against this same quilt with hands that shook just enough to tell me he was feeling this moment as deeply as I was. "I want to see you," he'd whispered, his voice rough with want. "All of you. Want to memorize you in the moonlight."
And I'd let him, let him worship me with his hands and mouth, let him tell me with his body what words could never quite capture.
He’d been gentle and loving, but Wyatt had never been anything else with me. He always treated me like I was precious. Something to treasure. Protect. He’d made sure I was comfortable and warm. Had taken his time exploring every inch of me, while letting me rediscover every part of him in return. He had watched for every little reaction, noting what made me gasp or arch into him. And when he figured out what made me call out his name, he kept going until it felt like the stars in the sky were dancing across my skin.
When he'd moved over me, his eyes had held mine, so full of love and promise that I'd had to close my own against the tears that threatened. He'd whispered my name like a prayer, like a vow, and I'd broken apart in his arms, knowing I was stealing something that wasn't mine to keep.
Now, in the aftermath, with our breathing finally steady and our hearts finding their normal rhythms, he was trying to give me the world, and all I could give him in return was goodbye.
Only he wouldn’t know this was goodbye until he woke up tomorrow morning.
"Just open it." He pulled out a small velvet box, midnight blue in the moonlight, the kind that made my heart stutter and race.
My hands trembled as I took it. The velvet was soft beneath my fingers, expensive-feeling in a way that made me know he'd saved for this, probably skipped lunches and worked extra hours mucking stalls to afford whatever was inside.
The hinge creaked softly. Inside, nestled on white cotton, lay a silver horseshoe pendant on a delicate chain. It was perfect—not too big, not too small, with tiny diamonds (real or not, I didn't care) dotting the nail holes. It caught the moonlight, throwing tiny sparkles across the darkness between us like captured stars.
"It's beautiful," I whispered, my throat suddenly tight.
"Turn it over."
I lifted the pendant carefully, tilting it toward the moonlight. On the back, engraved in letters so small I had to squint:Forever - WB
"Wyatt..." My throat closed around his name like a fist.
"I know we're young." He took the necklace from the box with those hands that could gentle a spooked horse or fix a fence or make my whole body sing with just a touch. His fingers were steady as he unclasped the delicate chain. "I know everyone says high school love doesn't last. But what we’ve built these last four years—" He moved behind me, gathering my hair to one side with a tenderness that broke my heart. The chain was cool against my throat as he fastened it, the horseshoe settling into the hollow between my collarbones like it had always belonged there. "Is different. We're different."
His lips brushed the nape of my neck where he'd fastened the clasp, and I shivered despite the warm night.
Each word was a stone added to the weight on my chest. My suitcase was already hidden in the bushes behind our barn, covered with an old tarp and tucked where Daddy wouldn't think to look, even if he noticed I was planning something. The acceptance letter to the University of Texas with a full scholarship was tucked in my journal, along with the note I'd written and rewritten a dozen times, never getting the words right because there were no right words for this kind of leaving.
