Saddle to Sunup (The Darling Brothers #3)

Chapter 1

Lawson

“This way.”

I follow the whisper of a voice to see Oakley huddled behind a tree, the tea towel he wrapped around his head as an eye patch tied bulkily over his light brown hair. The stick he’s using as a sword is at his side.

I sneak close, peering around the tree.

“You see them?” he asks, voice hushed, the register a little lower at eleven than it used to be.

It’s a strange thing to notice, the passage of time, and my heart beats swiftly with it.

I refocus on the pirates. They’re huddled on the shore, their ship a log anchored in the tiny bend of river flowing just outside the woods we’re hidden within.

“I see them,” I confirm.

“On my count,” Oakley says, hunching low. “One… Two… Three!”

We spring from behind the tree, our sticks cutting through the air in front of us, the pirates no match for the strength of our swords.

The fight is over quickly, every one of our enemies lying in tatters.

Oakley and I stumble forward to catch our breath beneath the shade of a willow tree.

The branches sway gently in the breeze, surrounding us in tendrils of green, sunlight peeking through the leaves and scattering pixie dust on the air around our heads.

“Good fight,” Oakley says, sounding out of breath.

I hum my agreement, setting my stick on the ground and leaning my head back against the sturdy trunk of the tree. The branches spread out overhead, looking like an earthborn star.

“What is it?” Oakley asks, slipping the tea towel off his head. He blinks several times, his multihued eyes flashing.

Oakley has the most interesting eyes I’ve ever seen.

Each is a blend of brown and blue. Heterochromia, he told me it’s called.

Sometimes folks will have one brown eye and one blue.

Sometimes it’s a burst of color ringed by another.

In Oakley’s case, each eye is marbled, almost. Blue and brown together as if someone dabbed the colors on with a paintbrush.

I shrug, but Oakley flicks my forehead, causing a tiny sting I don’t actually mind.

“Tell me,” he persists.

“Do you ever think about growing up?”

His brow furrows. “’Course. Everyone’s gotta do it.”

“We’re growing up,” I point out. “Right now. And when we do…”

I don’t have to say it aloud for Oakley to get it.

We both know this game we play is just that, a game.

But even so, our own Neverland is my favorite, imagined or real.

A place where we can fight pirates and hide away under our safe willow tree, just the two of us, lost boys by choice because being lost together never once has been scary.

But everyone grows up except for Peter Pan. And someday soon, it’ll be my last day with Oakley beneath this willow. The last time I’ll sit with him as the pixies dance on the air, born from the sunbeams cutting through the tree.

One day, I won’t see any of it. Not the pirates. Not our safe little cove. And certainly not the pixies.

One day, I will be grown. And then what of me and Oakley?

“Hey,” he says gently, flicking my forehead again.

“Cut it out,” I grumble, a halfhearted protest at best.

He gives me a grin, although it tempers after a moment. “Growing up doesn’t mean growing apart, Law.”

I swallow harshly. “You mean it?”

“’Course. Where would either of us even go? This is our home. And you and me? We ain’t ever gonna let something silly like getting older change who we are. We’re best friends. We’ll always be that.”

My eyes sting as I reach into my pocket, rolling the smooth ceramic surface of the thimble I stole from my mother’s sewing supplies between my fingertips. Wendy gave Peter a thimble. A kiss, she called it. A youthful promise.

I pull the thimble from my pocket, offering it to Oakley. His head cocks as he plucks it from my palm, a floral design painted onto its surface. I feel as if my heart might beat right out of my chest as I wait for him to say something. Anything.

His blue-and-brown eyes meet mine, a smile in them I recognize.

Without a word, Oakley scrambles upright. I watch as he swings the willow branches out of his way, jogging over to the nearby tree line. He stops before his namesake—an oak tree—and scours the ground.

When he comes back, it’s with a wide grin on his face. The sun shines on his hair as the willow branches sway back into place, making me believe, for a moment, he really could fly covered in pixie dust like that. He grabs my hand, and I automatically open my fingers.

Oakley sets an acorn in the well of my palm, small and nearly weightless. Peter gave Wendy an acorn button. This is even better.

I close my fingers around the token of friendship, and Oakley does the same to his thimble. He holds out his pinkie, and there’s no question. I curl mine with his.

“I promise, Law. No matter how old we get, nothing is going to change. I’m your best friend, and you’re mine. And we’ll always be together. ’Kay?”

I nod in a fierce jerk, wanting desperately to believe the words of my friend. But belief is a tricky thing, as ever-changing as time, as elusive as pixies. If you don’t hold on to it tight enough, you might just look back to find it gone.

I tighten my pinkie around Oakley’s, his promise digging into my palm.

I won’t let go. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t.

“The two of us,” I say in kind, my own vow. “Forever.”

My hands flex, the rough leather of my steering wheel digging against my palms as the memory from so long ago fades into the highway in front of me.

My truck’s headlights cut through the early morning darkness, dawn not yet having arrived.

I’ve been on the road for over twenty-four hours, only stopping briefly to rest and refuel.

I passed the border into Kansas an hour ago, my hometown of Darling, Montana far in the rearview.

My hands flex again, the acorn no longer curled within my palm but tucked safely away inside the center console beside my seat.

I fight the urge to check on it only to lose.

Popping the compartment open, I fish out the small acorn, the curve of it familiar and comforting, even as I’ve often wondered if a person my age should keep such a thing.

It was given to me thirty-two years ago.

Surely a token shouldn’t mean the same at forty-three as it did at eleven. But I’ve never forgotten the promise made that day.

Friendship that would never change. Would never fall victim to the passage of time.

It was a promise broken. And I aim to rectify that.

The cap of the acorn is rough beneath my thumb as I toy with it, taking the turn off the highway that my GPS guides me down. The anger I’ve been trying my best not to entertain returns, the fire of it hot in my chest.

It’s not fair to be mad at Oakley. That’s what I keep telling myself. We’re not eleven anymore. Or eighteen. Or, heck, thirty. We did grow up as we had to, but he left. He left, and now I’m alone.

I’m alone when he promised I never would be.

I can’t put the blame on him for my recent divorce. Losing my home of nineteen years in the separation isn’t his fault either.

But none of it changes the fact that I am mad. Rightfully so or not, I’m damn pissed at my friend for leaving Montana and not coming back.

And he’s gonna know it.

My GPS gives another direction I follow, Oakley’s house in the countryside looming closer as the dawn sun breaks over the horizon.

It’s early in the day to arrive unannounced, but Oakley wakes with the birds.

Always has. It’s part of a cowboy’s lifestyle, whether that cowboy is in Montana or Kansas.

And Oakley Beaumont? That man is a cowboy down to the tips of his steel-toed leather boots.

I pull carefully down his drive, my truck rolling over stones and dirt as his house comes into view.

My swallow is heavy as I turn off the ignition, the silence that follows stifling.

I place the acorn back into its home before shutting the compartment door.

My palms feel sweaty now that I’m finally here after my rather impulsive decision to chase down my wayward friend.

I haven’t seen him in person in three years. Not since I was forced to say a reluctant goodbye.

Dust kicks up when my boots hit the drive. All is quiet save the typical sounds of the countryside. A few animals nearby making their morning calls. A vehicle passing out on the road. An engine kicking into life. Tractor, as far as I can tell. But Oakley’s house is still.

I make my way to the front door, wiping my palms on my jeans as I ascend the couple steps.

My heart is racing, anger swirling with the desperate need I have to set eyes on Oakley again.

To reassure myself that he’s well and whole, despite him telling me on our phone calls that he is.

I don’t know whether I want to punch him or hug him, but I figure I’ll decide once he opens the door.

I square my shoulders before knocking on the white painted wood.

It takes a minute for the bolt to disengage. My breath seizes, a lump in my throat I wish would disappear. But no amount of swallowing has it moving anywhere, and the door is swinging open now.

Oakley goes stock-still upon seeing me standing on his stoop. His eyes, the blue and brown, swing over me, from my face down my body and back up again, as if he’s trying to determine whether or not I’m real.

I am. Very.

He looks freshly woken, although I doubt I was the cause.

His hair, sun-streaked brown, is rumpled.

His stubble is thick. He’s still wearing pajama pants, the fabric a lightweight gray.

I know for a fact he doesn’t sleep with a shirt, but I’m not surprised he threw one on to greet his guest, even if he didn’t know his guest was me.

Almost nothing has changed since the last I saw him, even as everything has.

“Law?” he says, my name spoken in a mixture of astonishment and plain disbelief.

My eyes prickle, but I stand tall and say what I came here to. The words I’ve been reciting in my head ever since I got in my truck to drive across the country and retrieve my friend.

“You’re coming home.”