Page 89 of Holding Hope

My eyebrows shot up. Delia and Colton? Married? I’d suspected something, but not that.

“Are you excited for their wedding?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I hope I can make it till then. It’s one of the last things I want to see before I go.”

“You will,” I said, squeezing her hand. “They’ll let you be the flower girl. Or a bridesmaid.”

She smiled weakly. “I wouldn’t look very nice with all these tubes.”

“You’ll be the prettiest one there. No offense to the bride.”

That earned a laugh.

“Am I invited?” I teased.

Her eyes widened. “Of course! And if you’ll stay, I’m sure a certain someone would like that.”

Heat rushed to my face. Melody had been playing matchmaker since the day I arrived.

“I’m happy you’re here,” she whispered. “It’ll make my leaving easier on her.”

I leaned forward, squeezing her hand. “There’s no place I’d rather be. What’s the other thing you want to see before you go?” I asked softly.

She brightened. “You and my sister. You like each other, right?”

My face burned hotter. “Yeah. I think there’s something here.”

“Oh, I’m so glad.” She sighed with relief. “Clarke has these walls up. She built them so nobody could get in, but now they’re so strong she can’t get out. She’s trapped inside her own boundaries.”

She squeezed my hand—her strongest grip still barely pressure.

“You have to get in,” she whispered. “I don’t know how, but you have to save her from herself.”

Her expression fell. “My death will be the hardest for her. My parents have been preparing for months, and Colton…he was always away when it got bad. But Clarke?”

She sniffled, wiping a tear. “Clarke always held onto hope. She used to say: ‘Melody, when all else fails, we hold onto hope.’ But now I think she needs something else to hold onto.” She looked at me with fierce determination.

“Promise me you’ll be there for her. Even when she pushes you away. Promise you won’t leave her alone.”

Tears spilled freely down my cheeks. I didn’t bother wiping them. I placed my other hand over hers. “I promise.” I held out my pinky.

She wrapped hers around it.

“Pinky promise.”

The early afternoon sun beat down on me without mercy as I pulled Apollo around the barrel. The mud beneath his hooves sucked at every step, making the turn heavier, slower, messier than it should’ve been — but that wasn’t his fault. We couldn’t control the weather. We could only work with what it gave us.

“Good boy,” I murmured, patting his neck. “But I know we can do better.”

He snorted like he agreed, tossing his head with a spark of excitement that made my chest loosen just a little. Even after hours of running patterns, Apollo’s enthusiasm never dimmed. Mine didn’t either— not when I needed this distraction like oxygen.

I steered him back toward the barrels, nudged him with my heels, and we took off again. The figure-eight pattern flowed smoother this time, Apollo adjusting to the mud, finding his rhythm. If we could keep this up, we might actually place in the top three at tonight’s rodeo.

“Clarke!”

I turned toward the fence. Avalon stood there, leaning against the wood, concern etched across her face. She wore a pair of my old shorts and an oversized country band tee, her hair thrown into a messy bun. Even dressed in my hand-me-downs, she was still effortlessly pretty— the kind of pretty that didn’t require effort or awareness.

Her natural beauty was almost unfair. Those strange grey eyes, the sharp lines of her face, the dark hair that made her look like she’d stepped out of a magazine. Half the country envied her — not just her looks, but her life. The freedom she carried like a second skin. The way she did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted. Including dropping everything to spend a summer in the middle of nowhere with a girl she barely knew.