CHAPTER 1
LARK
The sign comes up faster than I expect, and I whoop loud enough to make Laurel swerve.
"Lark,Jesus?—"
"Sorry, sorry." I'm hanging halfway out of the passenger window of her SUV like a big happy dog, one hand clamped on the roof, the other catching wind.
The arch over the drive is wood and wrought iron, all curling letters and a longhorn silhouette reading WILD VISTA RANCH.
We rumble under it and the shadow passes over my face, cool and quick, and then we're out into the sun again and I swear I can smell the whole place at once—dust and horse and cedar…and something sweet baking from a kitchen somewhere on the property.
Hill Country air. There’s nothing like it.
A hawk wheels overhead, wings riding the thermals.
"You're gonna eat a bug," Lyla says from the back.
"Worth it."
"Lark." Laurel has a two-fisted grip on the steering wheel, eyes flicking between the gravel drive and her phone propped in the cup holder. "Please get back inside this vehicle before I haveto explain to a Texas state trooper why my best friend is a hood ornament."
I slither back in and flop into the seat, boots up on the dash. She slaps my knee without looking, and I put them down.
"Itinerary check," she calls. "Check-in fifteen hundred. Welcome mixer at the Shed at eighteen hundred. Tomorrow, we be ready by oh-eight?—"
"Babe." I reach over and cover her phone with my palm. "It's your birthday week. You are allowed to just…exist."
"I exist on a schedule."
"She really does," Lyla confirms, and I glance back. She's cross-legged in the middle of the back seat, redoing her long black braid, fingers moving like she's not even thinking about it. She’s got horse-girl hands. Muscle memory. She's been braiding something her whole life—her own hair, a mane, a tail, a friendship bracelet, andmyhair when I'd sit still long enough. "She scheduled her divorce."
"I did notschedulemy?—"
"You had a binder, Laurel,” Lyla says. “That’s probably what won your case."
“No, his blatant cheating with his secretary won me the case.” She rolls her eyes. “And a lot a’ good it did me. I’m still broke."
"Things’ll turn around, love,” I say, patting her thigh. “Still, you have to give props to that binder. It had over twenty tabs!”
She mumbles. "Yes, those tabs were helpful."
I'm already laughing, and then Lyla grins that slow, sleepy grin of hers and lifts her fist and yells.
"Lick!"
"Laugh!" I throw back.
"LOVE!" All three of us cheer at the top of our lungs, and Laurel's white-knuckle grip finally breaks since she's too busy whooping.
We've been yelling that stupid motto at each other since we were eleven years old at a sleep-away camp in East Texas with mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds and a counselor named Brandi who taught us how to paddle a kayak and also how to French-braid.
Therealphrase isLive, Laugh, Love. But we all thought our version was the filthiest, funniest thing ever invented, and twenty-some years later, apparently we still do.
It went with our three L theme. The Three Ls. Lark, Laurel, and Lyla. I was the oldest by a year and I’ve never let them forget it.
But look at us now. Laurel, three months divorced from a douchebag, is starting a brand-new job in Hollow Peak, Colorado, in a few months. Lyla is between stable gigs because her last one shut down when the owners retired. She’s sleeping on her mom's couch in Wyoming and pretending she’s okay with it. But I know she’ll find something soon.