Page 1 of Sunrise Arrows

Prologue

ARCHER

10 YEARS AGO

Her back archesand her nails rake across my shoulders.

Tongue trailing up the column of my throat.

Teeth sinking into the curve of my neck as she smothers the sweet sounds of her orgasm.

She grips me even tighter, stealing my release before I’m ready.

Sweat mists my skin, her own is dewy and flushed pink as she relaxes back into the bed, breath heavy and lips tilted up in a serene smile.

She whispers, “I love you,” and the weight of holding it in is lifted off of me as I return her words.

Heat turns to chill under the steady hum of the A/C and slow moving fan.

I roll onto my back, bringing her with me, and pull the comforter over us.

I tell her again that I love her as we fall asleep.

Nothing in my life is more precious than her.

A lifetime on the ranch has irrevocably trained my body to be up before the sun. It’s an internal programming that rarely fails me. But this morning, I wake up to the sun streaming in through the blinds. A subconscious wish to linger in bed with Tinsley as long as possible before I absolutely have to be up for the day’s work getting answered.

It’s still early though. The sun is only now cresting over the horizon, its rays grazing us through the slats in the blinds.

The morning is calm, quiet. Easy to get lost in. And I almost do.

It’s the absence of weight on my chest, however, that prevents me from further slipping beneath the blankets. The empty space beside me in the bed where she should be.

For a moment, I think the hazy recollection I had between awake and dreaming was just that. A dream. But the sheets are rumpled. The other pillow still dented. Any form of clothing I would have on, even my briefs, is absent. And beside me where she should still be, is a ripped out sheet of lined paper.

It’s folded in half and through my squinted, blurry gaze, I make out my name scrawled across the front in Tinsley’s messy, looping handwriting. The sloppiness of her penmanship tells how far ahead her mind was as she wrote. It’s magnificent to watch happen; words that become her lyrics pouring out of her so quickly that by the time she reaches the end, what’s on the page can only be discerned by her.

I sit up in the bed, scrubbing my hands over my face. There’s a pit already sinking to the bottom of my stomach. A premonition of what I’m about to read is clear in my head. With a stilted breath that is meant to steady my nerves and fails, I put my glasses on and unfold the cream colored paper with its gray lines, and begin to decipher her glittery, pink words.

Once.

Twice.

It’s on the third pass that I can put it all together, her letters cramped, scratched, and smudged where tears fell and stained the paper. Most of what she says doesn’t matter. Words meant to soften what follows. Things that may be true but were ultimately not strong enough to prevent the outcome.

The only words that matter are her final eight.

If I don’t leave now, I never will.

There’s nothing after that. Not even her signature. She’s just… gone.

CHAPTER1

Tinsley

“Ten weeks off; are you ready?”

“After seven months of shows, travel, interviews, appearances, and living out of a suitcase? More than,” I reply, head tilted back on the headrest of the SUV.

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