“Is there one in particular, Tennyson?” Henry said, ducking out from under her arm. “I could arrange a meeting.” “Yeah, the one from Texas…what’s his name?”“That would be Dylan. But he’s a nice guy and you’d break his heart. He dropped out of Texas A&M to come up here and saddle bum around with my horses year-round. Knowing your dad, I think you’d better be looking for a pre-med honors student.”“Leave my dad out of this.”

“He ran his hand from my wrist up to the crook of my elbow and then to my shoulder. “When I was a little kid, my dad would come to my room at night to say a prayer with me. He used to say, ‘Lord, We know there’s a little girl out there who’s meant for Henry. Please protect her and raise her up right.’” His voice changed to something slower and more country when he mimicked his dad. He smiled at the memory, and then he put his mouth near my ear and whispered. “You were that little girl.”

“When Dad was in the middle of a description of the hotel’s laundry facility, I interrupted. “Why haven’t you told me today, like you do every day, that Mom’s going to be better soon?”He looked up then. His gaze locked with mine and held a promise that no matter what he said or didn’t say, he and I would ride this out together. “I haven’t told you that today, Meg, because I don’t know.”

“Grayson noticed me next to the lockers. He pointed at me then held his arms out magnanimously. “You’re welcome, new girl,” he said. “I just saved you from having to find a nice way to say no to the leg dragger.”

“My mom was sitting at the kitchen table. She’d set her coffee down, making a noise that made me look her way. I’d begun to notice her less and less often, like her colors were fading and blending in with walls. She was shrinking. Or maybe her sphere of influence in the family was shrinking. My dad glanced at her, too, and then wrote something on a napkin. He slid it across the counter to me—Don’t worry. Come home in one piece. Have fun and act like a sixteen-year-old for a change.”

“He carried her over the Owl Creek mountain range without stopping,” he said, quietly this time. “He carried her until he reached one of the hot springs around what became Chapin, and then he walked into the water with her and held her there for three days. He had about given up when she opened her eyes and whispered his name.”

“I’d never seen him bare-chested. For the first time, he seemed vulnerable to me. His smooth, tight skin wrapped around the long muscles he’d developed over a lifetime of hard work. He found a shallow spot and sat, settling me onto his lap, holding my back to his chest. I couldn’t stop shaking and it had nothing to do with the water or with being half dressed in a cave with a boy.“Nothing else matters,” Henry said in my ear. “I’m here. Start at the beginning.”