Chapter Seventeen – Lark
No one says much the rest of the afternoon.
Hadley fills the first few minutes with a running commentary about Nolan’s “audacity,” Bailey laughs where she should, Lila tries to smooth it over, Ivy listens—always listens—but eventually the conversation thins out, the crowd dispersing to their own unproblematic lives.
I don’t linger around the inn much longer, my SUV following Holt’s truck to his home. Even Rook is strangely quiet during the drive, his small yips dissolving into the hum of the road and the rhythm of tires over gravel.
By the time I pull into the farm, the silence is more than uncomfortable.
The sky shifts toward evening, streaks of soft gold cutting through the fading blue, the kind of light that makes everything look softer than it is.
The barn doors are open, shadows stretching long across the ground, and somewhere down the road leading to the ranch, I hear the low, steady sound of cattle settling in.
It should feel peaceful, and it almost does, until I remember the way Nolan looked when he left.
Not angry, not really. Worried. Which is almost harder to shake because anger is simple.
Worry has roots. Until I remember the way Holt stepped forward without hesitation.
Until I remember how my own voice sounded when I told them both that this was my choice.
My choice. The words echo differently now. Heavier. Because now I have to stand by them.
Holt sighs like he expected nothing less.
Dinner happens in pieces. Holt doesn’t say much, and neither do I. We don’t need to. Everything we didn’t say at the inn is still sitting between us. Still waiting.
It’s later when the house finally settles. Dishes done. Lights dimmed. Doors closing one by one.
I step out onto the back porch without thinking, drawn by the cooler air, by the open space, by anything that doesn’t feel like walls closing in around everything that’s changed in the past twenty-four hours.
The night stretches wide. Stars just beginning to scatter across the sky, the faint hum of insects rising from the grass, the soft shift of wind moving through the trees.
I rest my hands on the railing and breathe. Try to let something settle. I feel him before I hear him. The door creaks softly behind me. Holt stops just inside the doorway. He doesn’t come all the way out.
“You ran out of patience back there,” he says.
I don’t turn.
“I ran out of options.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
I exhale slowly and turn to face him. He’s leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed loosely, the porch light catching the edge of his face, throwing the rest into shadow.
He looks…tired. Not physically. Something deeper than that.
“You didn’t have to step in like that,” I say.
His mouth curves slightly
“Yeah,” he says. “I did.”
I shake my head.
“That wasn’t Hadley’s or your fight.”
His gaze locks onto mine.
“Felt like it was.”
The words shouldn’t matter, but they do anyway.
I turn back toward the yard.
“You made it worse.”
“Did I?”
“Yes.”
“How?
I hesitate because the answer isn’t simple. The truth is, he didn’t. He just made it harder to ignore.
“He’s not wrong about everything,” I say finally.
The silence that follows is stifling. Brash. I don’t need to look at him to feel it.
“About what?” Holt asks with a quiet voice. Lower.
I turn slowly, meeting his eyes.
“This being complicated,” I say.
A muscle in his jaw tightens.
“Everything worth anything is complicated.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“It’s not supposed to be.”
The space between us shifts like always. Like we keep circling the same moment, and neither of us knows how to step out of it.
He steps closer. There’s no space left for distance. No room for pretending. No way to ignore what’s been building since the first night I stepped into this house and realized nothing about this place would let me stay detached.
His hand settles at my hip like it belongs there. Not pulling. Not forcing. It’s as if he’s giving me something to lean into instead of something to fight.
My breath catches anyway. That’s the difference. Holt doesn’t take. And that makes it harder to walk away.
“You keep acting like this is something you can control,” he says.
“I can.”
“No,” he says quietly. “You can’t.”
My pulse spikes with something that feels like standing too close to the edge of something I already know I’m going to fall into.
“You don’t know that,” I say.
“I do.”
“How?”
His hand lifts with a gentleness I wasn’t used to and settles at my waist.
“Because if you could,” he says, “you wouldn’t be standing this close to me.”
My breath catches, and that’s the moment everything changes. I close the distance. My hand finds his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric as I pull him closer, and this time, there’s no hesitation, no testing the edges of something we’re not ready to admit. We’re already past that.
His mouth meets mine immediately like he was waiting. The kiss is different this time. It builds fast, heat sliding through it in a way that feels more certain than anything before.
His hand tightens at my waist, pulling me fully against him, and I feel it everywhere—the shift in his body, the way his breath breaks against mine, the way everything we’ve been holding back finally starts to unravel.
I lean into him. His other hand slides up my back, steady, grounding, and I feel the contrast of it—his control against the way everything else between us feels like it’s slipping past that point.
The porch light flickers slightly, and I don’t notice at first. Not until…it goes out.
Darkness settles around us. The moonlight still cuts across the yard, outlining the shape of the barn, the fence line, the low movement of something shifting out near the edge of the property.
I pull back just enough to breathe.
“What—”
Holt’s head turns, his eyes sharp and focused. The shift in him is immediate.
“Stay here,” he says.
I blink.
“What—”
“Lark.”
The firm and controlled way he says my name leaves no room for argument.
I step back just as he moves without hesitation, his attention already fixed on the darker stretch beyond the barn where something moved.
I see it now, or I think I do. A shadow. My pulse spikes as it shifts.
Crossing the yard with that same steady, purposeful stride I’ve seen before when something is important.
I don’t stay still because I’m too stubborn to listen. Instead, I follow. Close enough to keep him in sight but not get in the way.
The ground feels uneven under my feet, the grass damp, the air cooler away from the house.
By the time we reach the barn, there’s nothing. Just the soft rustle of the leaves in the wind.
Holt looks around. Every line alert and focused.
“What was it?” I ask.
He exhales slowly, as if he expected me to follow.
“I don’t know.”
I wrap my arms around myself.
“That didn’t feel like nothing,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “It didn’t.”
Later, back inside, the power flickers once, then steadies.
Holt’s busy checking the breaker but finds nothing wrong. And when he comes back, there’s something in his expression I haven’t seen before. Concern.
“We had a call earlier,” he says.
My stomach drops.
“What kind?”
“Same side of town as the beach fire.”
The words sink in the pit of my gut.
“And,” he adds, “someone mentioned seeing a car out near the access road last night.”
A pause.
“Same one your guy drives.”
Nolan.
The name hits like a sharp drop beneath my ribs. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No,” Holt says.
“But it doesn’t mean nothing, either.”
The room feels smaller again. Everything is tightening around something we don’t yet fully understand.
“And your ex,” Hadley’s voice cuts in from the doorway.
We both turn to find her standing across the threshold of Holt’s house with her arms crossed and expression sharp. Both of us were so lost in the moment that we never even heard her vehicle pull up the drive or her unlock the front door.
“She was all over town this week,” she adds.
My stomach drops further.
“Who?” I ask.
Holt’s jaw tightens.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does if she’s showing up where she shouldn’t be,” Hadley says.
And suddenly, this isn’t just about us anymore.