Page 236

She looks up. “Promise?”

“Promise.”

***

Nora, Chiara and Lexy start cooking while I set the table outside on the terrace with Dex.

“You’re smiling a lot.”

I look up and find him studying me.

I shrug.

“But what happens when she goes back home, bro?”

I place the glasses on the table and consider my answer carefully.

“Train Indigo.”

“Don’t play stupid with me, J.”

I look up. “I don’t want to talk or think about that.”

Dex’s eyes say everything he’s trying not to. There are questions in there and maybe some judgement, but mostly, I see worry.

Fuck.

“I just want her to be happy. Whatever that looks like, it’s fine by me.”

“Is it?”

Before I can answer, singing comes from the kitchen.

I smile and follow the sound inside, where I find Nora holding a wooden spoon like a microphone, singing some silly song playing on the radio while Chiara and Lexy dance around her.

“She’s happy again,” I say when Dex comes to stand next to me.

“She is.”

“The rest doesn’t matter.”

“Your happiness matters too.”

I look at him. “I’ll be okay.”

“We’ll see.”

We carry the whole mess out onto the terrace when the food is ready, still laughing, still singing, and sit down together as the sun starts sinking toward the sea.

Candles have been lit along the table, and twinkle lights glow above our heads. The whole sky changes in front of us, from blue to orange to soft pink as the sun slowly disappears into the sea.

I always thought this kind of beauty, this kind of peace, only existed back home. On my ranch after a hard day’s work, when everything finally goes quiet and the sun sinks behind the mountains, painting the Wyoming sky in colors that make me stop whatever I’m doing just to look.

But I realise now that beauty has many forms.

Maybe sunsets have their own kind of magic depending on where you’re standing when you watch them.

Mountains in Wyoming.