Chapter One
Crescent Lake, California. Boy, have I missed you.
The transition from concrete and skinny palm trees to rolling green hills and lush pine is a long one, but when that mountain pops up above the horizon, blocking the rising early-morning sun, granting the peaks a glorious halo… I’m telling you, your entire body just relaxes, warm and comforted.
This is why, despite the circumstances, I’m very excited to return to the quaint town I’d spent every summer growing up. After high school, though, my visits were fewer and farther between. First, it was university taking up all my time, and then it was work. In little over a decade, I’d been back to Crescent Lake only three brief times.
But that all changes now.
Just inside the northern city limits sits an old, modest farmhouse with more than several envious acres of land around it. That house had been my Uncle Jim’s. And now… now it’s mine.
I pull into the driveway and throw my SUV in park. The silence rings in the car for a few minutes as I just breathe.
Okay, let’s go. You’ve got this.
When I swing open the door, I’m greeted by a shout.
“Adley!”
I climb out of my car and find an elderly woman, about my height, with dark silver hair pulled back into a bun behind her head. My smile is big enough to make my face ache. “Lilly!”
I go to her, wrap my arms around her slight frame. This woman who would always come check on me to be sure Uncle Jim wasn’t making me work too hard when I’d stayed with him. The woman who would smuggle my favorite snacks into the house when Jim was on some new fad diet and didn’t want any junk food around.
The floral shop owner who taught me the meanings behind different flowers when I only cared about their beauty.
She pulls free of my embrace, but keeps our hands joined as she peers at me with sad blue eyes. “I can’t tell you how much we’re all going to miss Jim. Please, tell me if there’s anything we can do to help you.”
My smile is watery, my vision blurs. “I appreciate that.” The people here are amazing, but especially Lilly and her pack, all of whom made sure Uncle Jim’s ashes were delivered to my family in Los Angeles for his funeral. That was their wish, not his. “Would you just give me the rundown before you go open the shop?”
Lilly leads me around the house from the driveway and gestures ahead with her arm. My eyes settle on fairly new-looking white paddock fencing around a huge area of the land. The bright red barn at the back of the area is definitely new.
I cast Lilly a questioning look.
She smiles and keeps leading me to the fence. When we get there, she raises her fingers to her lips and lets out one of the loudest whistles I’ve ever heard.
The sound stirs up a pounding I can hear but not feel yet. In a blink, a gorgeous brown and white horse starts running at us. The dirt his hooves kick up makes the horse look like a steam train as it barrels toward us.
Something trails the horse, obscured by the cloud of dust. My voice is hesitant. “Is that a baby horse?”
Lilly laughs, and I’m unsure of her tone right now. “Just hang on.”
In no time, the horse slows to a stop just in front of us, and I gape up at this giant creature, mouth opening and closing before I stammer. “I-I don’t know anything about horses. Like, I’ve never even ridden one before.”
“Don’t worry. Lloyd’s been taking care of these two, and he already has someone he trusts coming into town who’s willing to volunteer his time to care for them.”
There’s a lot to unpack there, but I’m stuck on “these two.” But only for a moment because the tiniest donkey I’ve ever laid eyes on—okay, theonlytiny donkey I’ve ever laid eyes on in person—stands beside this specimen of a horse, and all I can do is squeal from the cuteness before turning back to Lilly. “Tell me what’s happening right now.”
She laughs again, but this time I’m pretty sure it’s good-natured. “Well, I don’t know their stories, but each came in after their elderly owners passed. Jim got Pie first, thankfully—oh, that’s this guy,” she pats the horse’s reddish brown side right where his markings begin to bleed into white and wrap around his back and upper hindquarters. “Since Jim knew thehorse needed a lot of space, he and a bunch of volunteers put up a barn and fencing like it was no big deal. Took three days.” She crouches down, and I cringe for her knees, but she seems in better shape than I am. “Then Gator, here,” she gives the tiny white and light brown-spotted donkey a pat, “came into a pre-made home. These two are inseparable now.”
Back upright again, she sticks her hand into her jeans pocket. “These are your keys,” she says as she hands me a keyring. “Each is labeled, but I’m sure you’ll recognize the house key.”
I look down into my palm and immediately spot the worn, scuffed key, painted white with pink and purple flowers scattered across it. My laugh turns to a sob almost immediately. Like a kick to my chest, I see Uncle Jim and me standing in the small hardware store in town. He needed a new house key, and let his eight-year-old niece pick the design.
“Great choice!” he’d told me with a wide grin when I handed him the uncut flowery key.
In twenty-two years, he never changed it.
How am I going to do this without you?
