Kaden pressed his lips together and nodded. “Before I left town, I’d have told you to give all that up to the harvest.”

“And now?”

Kaden glanced up the hill and shook his head. “Now I’m not so sure.”

Addison gave up on hiding behind her sunglasses. She wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.”

“What’s stopping you?” Kaden asked.

“The memory of losing him is one of the few things I have left of what we used to be,” Addison said. “Funny how the worst things about a relationship are the easiest to remember.”

“You could always read what you gave up if you ever wanted to,” Kaden said.

After the Bonners had tapped the first barrel with the dark-corn mash and people’s worst memories disappeared, the town and the Bonners put rules in place. Memory could be tricky, and the last thing they wanted was people walking around with holes in their minds and no way to fill them. While the harvest, it seemed, could only take a person’s darkest moments, if you wanted to participate, you had to write that memory down in detail and give the paper to someone close to you for safekeeping.

Addison shrugged. “Reading about what happened isn’t the same as having it here.” She touched the tip of her finger to her temple.

“It helps some people, forgetting,” Kaden said.

“I guess.” Addison stared off in the direction River had gone. “It didn’t help River.”

Fear bled into Kaden’s aura. “Did… did something happen with the memory harvest?”

“No, it was nothing your family did.” Addison closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She didn’t need to read this man’s emotions. She had enough to deal with.

Addison shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this.”

“Because I’m a good listener?” Kaden offered.

She laughed softly. “You’re a Bonner.”

“Let’s call me a Bonner in recovery,” Kaden said. “Besides, you and I aren’t that different.”

“How’s that?” Addison asked.

“We’re both healers,” he said.

She knew her grams would have more than a few words to say about that. “You think what your family does heals people?”

“I don’t know about my family, but it’s what I wanted. When we discovered what the bourbon did after that first dark-corn batch, it scared me. But taking those memories brought people peace,” Kaden said.

Addison smiled sadly. Even if Kaden was right, what she’d done to River wasn’t the same. “What if you took a memory someone didn’t want to give up?”

Kaden tapped his fingers against his car’s window frame. “Something like that happen with you and River?”