Chapter Eight – Holt #2
The answer comes quick, then I think about it a little harder and add, “Not on purpose.”
That catches her off guard. I see it in the way she stills for half a second, then leans back slowly against the booth.
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It’s supposed to be honest.”
The coffee steams between us. Around us, the diner breathes and moves and talks. A fork clinks against a plate somewhere near the counter. Someone laughs too loud at the back booth. The front door opens and lets in a draft before closing again.
Lark glances out the window toward the street, then back at me.
“You always answer like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve already decided whether the truth is worth the trouble.”
I think about that. Too long, probably.
Then I nod once. “Yeah.”
She accepts that too easily. Which tells me something about her I probably don’t want to know yet.
Marlene brings the food before the silence can deepen too far. Plates land. Fries spill hot and golden across paper liners. The burger she sets in front of Lark is stacked too high to be reasonable, and she stares at it like I’ve placed a physical challenge in front of her instead of dinner.
“You said food,” she says.
“It is food.”
“That is a project.”
“You like projects.”
That earns me another look.
“Did you just flirt with me using a cheeseburger? ”
“No.”
“You did.”
“Eat.”
She shakes her head once, but she does it smiling this time, and the sight of it does something unhelpful to the center of my chest.
We eat. For the first few minutes, that’s all there is. Fry baskets sliding between us. Lark taking exactly one careful bite before realizing she is, in fact, starving and eating like someone who has spent two days pretending she didn’t need things.
I don’t mention it. I just push the onion rings closer when she reaches for one the second time.
“You’re watching me again,” she says.
“I’m making sure you don’t pass out in my truck.”
“I’m beginning to think you enjoy assuming I’m two bad hours away from collapse.”
I take a drink of coffee and set the mug down. “I enjoy being right.”
Her eyes narrow, though there’s no heat behind it now. Not really. The shift is subtle, but I feel it.
Lark wipes her fingers on the paper napkin and looks down at the table.
“My dad used to bring me to places like this after jobs. When I was little, he’d let me order pie first,” she says. “Said if life was going to be hard anyway, you might as well have your priorities straight.”
I glance at the pie case near the counter and then back at her.
“That sounds smart.”
“It was reckless according to my mother.”
“Your mother and I aren’t going to agree on much, are we?”
That gets me a real smile. Real enough that it changes her whole face for a second before she reins it back in.
“No,” she says softly. “Probably not.”
We’re quiet after that. The comfortable kind this time. The kind that lets us eat and breathe and exist without filling every inch of space just because it’s there.
I don’t realize how far into dangerous territory that thought has taken me until the bell over the diner door jingles and a man steps inside.
Tall. Dark hair. Clean-cut. The kind of guy who looks expensive without trying. His gaze moves through the diner, catches on our booth, and stills.
Lark goes rigid across from me. So slight I might have missed it if I hadn’t already been watching her too closely all evening.
There it is. The answer to a question I didn’t know I was asking. She knows him and suddenly the whole diner feels different.
The man starts toward us. Lark sets her coffee down very carefully. I don’t look away from him.
Not even when she says, low enough that only I can hear, “Well. That’s inconvenient.”
He stops beside the booth.
“Lark.”
Her face closes. Not cold. Not panicked. Just… shut.
“Nolan.”
There’s a lot in that one word. History. Frustration. Resignation.
The man’s gaze cuts to me and back again. I lean one forearm on the table and meet it without comment.
“Didn’t know you were in town and not at the inn,” he says.
Her expression doesn’t move. “I am.”
“I can see that.”
And there it is. The first spark of something I don’t like. Not because of the guy but because of what changes in her when he’s standing here. She gets still in a way I haven’t seen before. I know that posture. I wore my own version for too long.
Marlene appears like a damn ghost with a coffee pot in one hand and a curiosity problem in the other. “Well, this table just got interesting.”
“You should’ve answered my calls.”
Lark’s fingers tighten around the edge of her napkin.
“I was busy.”
His jaw shifts once. I don’t miss it.
Neither does Marlene, apparently, because she looks from him to me and mutters, “I’m going to get pie before this gets stupid,” then disappears.
I should probably be grateful. Instead, I’m watching Lark. Watching the way her shoulders hold. Watching the way she refuses to look at me now that he’s here.
That bothers me more than anything else about the moment.
Nolan looks at me again. “You’re Holt.”
It’s not a question.
“Yeah.”
He nods once. Controlled. Too controlled. “She didn’t mention you.”
Across from me, Lark closes her eyes for half a second. Interesting.
I lean back in the booth. “Well, I hope that if she had, it would have been flattering.”
That gets her attention fast enough that she cuts me a sharp look, and some ugly little part of me enjoys it.
Nolan doesn’t smile. “You’re helping with the inn?”
“I am.”
His gaze holds mine a second longer than it needs to.
Then he looks back at her. “You free after this?”
“No.”
The answer comes so fast it surprises all three of us.
Lark seems to realize that at the same moment I do, because something flickers in her face before she smooths it away.
“I’m tired,” she says more carefully. “I’m heading back after dinner.”
Nolan nods slowly. “Then, since I’m sticking around after flying nearly halfway across the country to check on my best friend, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He says good night to her and nothing at all to me before turning and heading toward the counter to order coffee like he didn’t just walk into the middle of something.
The moment he’s out of immediate range, Lark exhales. I sit back in the booth and look at her. She looks at her coffee. Neither of us says anything for a beat.
Then I ask, “That your contractor?”
Her gaze lifts.
“Yeah.”
I glance toward the counter where Nolan’s now leaning one shoulder against the pie case, talking to Marlene like he belongs here too.
“Seems invested.”
Lark’s mouth tightens. “That’s one word for it.”
And just like that, whatever this diner stop was supposed to be has changed shape again. Good. Messy. Interesting.
I pick up a fry and eat it while I watch her decide how much she wants to say.
I have a feeling I’m about to find out whether this dinner ends with pie or with trouble.