Dear April (Sunshine & Shadow Book 2) by Alie Williamson

Chapter 1
     
     
     
    Dear
April,
    I
know you’re angry with me. I know you wonder why I left. I wanted to stay,
April, I really did, but I just couldn’t. There’s so much I want to tell you,
but I can’t.    I need you to forgive me. I don’t know what I’ll do if you
don’t. I can’t imagine never seeing you again. If you forgive me I won’t ever
let you down again. I promise you that. I love you, April Cooper, with all my
heart and I swear, I will explain everything. One day.
    I
miss you.
    Please don’t hate me.
    I love you.
    Lex
     
    Dear
April,
    I
started the prep for the movie yesterday, and I couldn’t get you out of my
mind. I’m surrounded by people every day, but I feel so lonely, because the one
person I want isn’t by my side.
    My
heart isn’t in this film, and everyone else has noticed. It’s at Blue Haven,
with you.
    Lex
     
    Dear
April,
          Please.
You have to write back to me. I need you. April, I’m begging you; you have to
forgive me. You have no idea how much I regret leaving. I should have waited
for you. I should have told you everything, but I was so afraid that you
wouldn’t forgive me.
          I’m
not the right man for you, April. I’m not good like you. I’m not kind like you.
I was selfish, and I’m sorry.
          I’m
sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
          I
don’t know what else I can say, April! Please, just write back to me. I need
you in my life. I need to know that you forgive me.
    Lex
     
    April Cooper sat on her
bed with her legs crossed. She flicked through a total of seventeen emails that
had landed in her inbox in the last two weeks, all from the same address:
[email protected]. The little arrow on the screen lingered over the Delete
button, but she couldn’t make that final click.
    April kept every single
email from Lex Mitchell that pinged into her inbox. Her heart still gave a
flutter when she saw the subject line, ‘Dear April.’
    She was angry with him.
How could she not be? He left her. He disappeared without as much as a ‘see ya
later’. And he had the audacity to leave her a note as if that would make
everything okay. Well, no sir. Everything was definitely not okay, and the best
way to convey that to him, was to ignore the emails, and the missed calls that
popped up on her phone from an unknown California number. April couldn’t bear
to hear his voice and changed the settings on her phone to send that caller
straight to voicemail, so she wouldn’t be tempted. She was going to every
length possible to remove Lex Mitchell from her life.
    And it wasn’t working one
bit.
     
    “April, honey, come down
and watch this video Jes and Rosie sent us from their Trek,” April’s mother
shouted from downstairs.
    Her mother and father,
surrounded by their ranch hands, Adam, Hailey, Caleb, and Kip, were watching
the television screen. As April came down the stairs, she could see last week’s
guests, Jes and Rosie, smiling at the camera. April hadn’t gone on the Trek with
them, and she almost wished she had. Being alone at the ranch, with only the
horses to keep her company, left her too much time to think.
    “Rosie and Lady sure got
along, eh, boss?” Kip said to Mr. Cooper. “Lady followed that woman around like
a puppy dog, even before the join up.”
    April’s father nodded,
his eyes still glued to the screen. “Some people just have a natural gift when
it comes to horses.” He looked at April fondly. “I knew April had it from the
time she turned three and almost every horse followed her around that pen like
she had them on ropes.”
    April’s mom stood up to
retrieve her slippers. “I’ll never forget when she found that mare at the old
Sweeney ranch that had been left to starve,” she said.
    The wranglers looked at her;
they had never heard the story.
    “April was seven then. She
ran home one day on her old pony, shouting and crying about this sad-looking
horse at the abandoned ranch down the road. Jack loaded