Wyatt Harlow's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

The bank letter sat on the kitchen table for three days before Wyatt Harlow opened it. When he did, the number at the bottom was bigger than the one his father had died owing. He read it twice, then walked out onto the wraparound porch and sat on the swing his father built. The white paint on the rail was peeling. The forest green shutters needed a wash. Everything his father left him was slipping toward the auction block, and Wyatt had thirty days to stop it. He was twenty-six, blonde curls stuck to his neck, beard full of hay dust from the morning chores. He had come home to save the homestead, not bury it. He wanted this farm to be the best in Olive Hollow again, the way it was when he was a boy. Right now he could barely keep the dairy cow fed. Analeia's truck rattled up the drive before he finished the letter a third time. She climbed out in muddy boots and a flannel two sizes too big, dragging a bucket of soapy water from the bed. "You said you'd start on the barn Monday," she said. "It's Wednesday." He handed her the letter. She read it standing up, mouth tight. "Okay," she said. "Then we sell something big." They walked to the back pasture together. Analeia whistled once, and the white horse came at a trot, black mane lifting, black tail sweeping the grass. Wyatt had watched her train this horse since they were kids. She'd raced him at every county fair from here to Bakerston and won purses that put her through school. "He'll clear the debt," she said. "Auction's Saturday in Bakerston. I'll drive." "Analeia. He's yours." "He was mine. Now he's the down payment on your dad's land." She scratched the horse under the jaw. "Don't argue with me, Wyatt. I already decided." Saturday, the horse sold for eleven thousand dollars to a stable owner from two counties over. Wyatt drove straight to the bank Monday morning and slid the cashier's check across the counter. The teller stamped the account current. The farm was his for another season. That night he cut every orange lily from the side of the house and tied them with baling twine. He took Analeia to the steakhouse on the square and ordered the thing with two sides. She laughed at him for wearing a clean shirt. He watched her cut her steak and felt something shift in his chest that he did not have a plan for. He walked her to her truck after. She kissed his cheek and told him to sleep. Wyatt drove home past his empty back pasture. The debt was paid. The horse was gone. The best racehorse in the county had belonged to him for one afternoon, and now he had a farm to rebuild from nothing, and no fast money left to do it with.