I can see it all over her face.
She squeezes my hand again.
“I’m so proud of you,” she says softly.
Before I can answer, Charli’s voice rings out across the yard. “Shots time!”
A cheer erupts.
Shelby immediately grabs my arm. “Oh, hell yes.”
“You’re all horrible influences,” I tell her.
“You mean fun influences.”
Charli lines up little plastic cups on the picnic table like a bartender.
“Graduation tequila!” she declares.
“Oh God,” Bryce mutters.
Bryce Raintree is a bull-riding superstar. He and Charli met when his management team hired her to help him rebrand after a nasty fall that landed him in the hospital with a possible career-ending concussion. She failed at training the stubborn cowboy, but she won his heart in the process. Now, he’s relocated from Texas to a cabin here behind the main house, and he and our family have partnered up to build and open a premier rodeo school at Wildhaven Storm.
Charli walks down to us and hands one of the shots to me.
“To the future,” she says.
“To bad decisions,” Shelby adds.
“To my baby sister,” Matty says, lifting her tea.
We clink.
We drink.
Tequila burns down my throat.
Fire pops in the pit.
Music drifts from the speakers near the porch.
And for an instant, everything feels perfect.
Then Matty makes a weird sound.
It’s faint.
Barely more than a gasp.
But every Storm woman on this property hears it.
Her hand flies to the arm of her chair.
Her eyes go wide.
“Oh,” she says.
The word hangs in the air, and Caison freezes.
