Chapter Fifteen – Lark
The house feels different in the morning. Like something settled overnight and hasn’t decided what it wants to be yet.
I lie there for a long moment, staring at the ceiling, tracking the faint cracks in the paint like I didn’t memorize them the first night I stayed here.
Light filters in through the window in soft, uneven lines, catching on the edge of the dresser, the floorboards, the shape of Rook curled at the end of the bed.
Nothing about the room has changed, but everything about it feels foreign.
My mouth still remembers him. That’s the problem.
Not in a way that’s overwhelming or dramatic.
Not something I can brush off as a mistake or a moment that got away from us.
It lingers in smaller places than that. In the quiet between breaths.
In the way my body feels just slightly more aware than it should be.
In the way I didn’t stop it and didn’t want to.
I push myself upright before that thought can settle any deeper. Rook lifts his head, watching me like he’s been waiting for me to catch up to something he already understands.
“We’re getting up,” I tell him.
He doesn’t move right away, then he stretches slowly, deliberately, like he’s making a point before hopping off the bed and heading toward the door. I follow because staying still feels worse.
The kitchen is already alive. Coffee brewing. Cabinet doors opening and closing.
The soft scrape of a chair shifting across the floor. Except there is a familiar giggle instead of the grunts I’m used to from Holt.
Hadley.
She’s leaning against the counter when I step in, one hip hooked against the edge, mug in hand, phone balanced loosely between her fingers like she’s been scrolling and not actually reading anything for the last ten minutes.
Her gaze lifts immediately, locks onto me, and just stays there. A beat too long. A bit too deliberate.
“Well,” she says.
That’s it, just that one word, but it hits like a question anyway.
I move toward the coffee pot, grabbing a mug without responding, letting the familiar motion carry me through something simple.
“You’re staring,” I say, pouring.
“I’m observing.”
“That’s worse.”
Hadley hums like she agrees.
I take a sip of coffee that’s way too hot, and I bite back my reaction.
“Something’s different,” she adds.
I lean back against the counter across from her, the ceramic of the mug warm in my hands.
“I didn’t sleep well.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
I look at her, really look this time. She’s not teasing, not entirely. There’s something cunning underneath it now. Something more aware.
“What do you think you mean?” I ask.
Her mouth curves slightly.
“I think my brother’s involved,” she says.
I choke on my coffee. Actually choke. Hadley’s expression lights up immediately.
“Oh, wow. That was fast.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
“You absolutely did.”
I set the mug down harder than I mean to, the sound echoing slightly in the kitchen.
“This is none of your business.”
Hadley pushes off the counter and takes a slow step closer.
“Everything in this house is my business.”
“That’s not how that works.”
“It is if I decide it is.”
I stare at her giving her the same scowl that used to make Nolan flinch. But she doesn’t back down.
Doesn’t soften.
“He doesn’t look at people the way he looks at you,” she says.
The words land low and sharp in my stomach, stealing my breath for half a second. I don’t ask what she means.
“And before you try to explain it away,” she adds, “I’ve seen that look exactly once before.”
I shift my weight, crossing my arms, trying to hold on to something steady.
“That’s not what this is.”
Hadley studies me long enough that it starts to feel like she’s reading something I haven’t even admitted to myself yet.
Then she nods.
“Okay.”
Just like that. No argument. No push. And somehow that feels worse than anything she could’ve said.
Thankfully, Hadley doesn’t linger. She finishes her coffee and exits through the front door, heading toward the family home on a UTV.
The drive to the inn feels longer this morning. Everything presses in a little closer—the trees, the road, the quiet stretch of water just visible through the gaps in the land. The town feels smaller than it did a few days ago, like it’s already started folding me into it in ways I didn’t plan for.
That should’ve been my first warning.
When the inn comes into view, I don’t immediately feel a jump in my chest at her grandeur. Instead, I feel an ache. An emptiness.
The Carrington House Inn is worn. Damaged. Waiting.
I step inside and immediately catch the sound of movement in the back hall. Nolan’s already working, crouched near the floor, tools spread out around him in a way that suggests he’s been here long enough to make changes I didn’t approve.
He glances up when I enter. His gaze sharpens almost immediately.
“You’re staying with him,” Nolan says.
No preamble. No soft entry. But his voice is different this morning. Less accusation. More exhaustion. Like he’s been carrying the sentence around for hours and hates that he has to set it between us at all.
I drop my bag on the table. “Yes.”
“Still?”
“Yes.”
His gaze drops briefly to my hands, then to my face. “Are you safe there?”
That’s not what I expected.
“Of course I’m safe.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“It literally was.”
He drags a hand through his hair, frustration flashing and then disappearing behind restraint. “I mean with him. Emotionally. Physically. All of it.”
The words hit somewhere deep in my stomach, sharp enough to steal my breath for a second. “Holt isn’t Michael.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
His face shifts. Not anger. Pain. “I know no one looks like Michael in the beginning. And I’m afraid when you get hurt,” he says, quieter now, “you won’t ask for help. You pack a bag, shut everyone out, and call it survival.”
I go still.
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” he agrees. “It’s not. But it’s true.”
“I left because I had to.”
“I know.” His voice softens around those two words. “And I’m not saying you were wrong. I’m saying I watched what it cost you.”