Chapter Nineteen – Holt #2
I cut the thought off before it finishes because that’s not entirely true. She wasn’t nothing. She just wasn’t something I kept. There’s a difference. And I made that decision for a reason.
Beckett finds me ten minutes later, leaning against the side of the building like I’m trying to outrun my own thoughts.
“She still following you around? ” he asks.
I glance at him. “You see her?”
“Hard to miss,” he says. “Girl’s got presence.”
That’s one way to put it.
“She’s passing through,” I say.
Beckett snorts. “Yeah. And I’m retiring next week.”
I don’t respond because I don’t actually believe that either.
The rest of the shift drags. Every quiet moment gives my brain too much room to work with and it keeps circling back to the same place.
Lark.
The way she looked at me this morning. The way she didn’t pull away. The way she said she wasn’t leaving and meant it.
And I don’t know what to do with it yet.
Except…I don’t want to let it go.
By the time I get a break in my double shift, the sky has shifted into that soft, late afternoon light that stretches everything out just a little longer than it should.
I don’t head home right away, don’t even think about it. Instead, I turn the truck toward town.
The inn is quiet when I pull up. Too quiet. My pulse stumbles once before I catch sight of her through the front window. Moving. Focused. Exactly where she said she’d be. Relief hits harder than it should.
I push the door open and step inside. She doesn’t look up right away, too focused on whatever she’s working on.
I lean against the frame, watching her for a second longer than I should. Watch the way she shifts her weight when she’s thinking, the way she brushes dust off her hands without really noticing, and the way she hums under her breath—quiet enough that I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it.
It should feel like observation. It doesn’t. It feels like… something closer to recognition.
Like I’ve seen this before. Not her exactly—but the shape of it. The way she fills a space without trying. The way she makes something half-finished look like it’s already becoming something whole.
And for a second, I forget I’m just supposed to be passing through this part of her life.
Yeah, this is a problem because I shouldn’t notice things like that, shouldn’t care, but I do and have since the first night she stayed in my house.
“Still working,” I say.
She startles just slightly, glancing up.
“Still standing in doorways,” she counters.
“Seems to be working for me.”
Her mouth twitches, just barely.
And another unnamed part of me falls even further.
“Come on,” I say.
Because if I don’t say it now—If I give myself another second to think about it—I might not. And that’s not something I’m willing to risk anymore.
She frowns slightly. “Come on where?”
“Dinner.”
She blinks. “That wasn’t a suggestion, was it?”
“No.”
“That’s bold of you.”
“Yeah, but I figured you probably haven’t eaten at all today. And I’d like to spend some time with you.”
She studies me for a second, as if she’s trying to decide something.
“Okay.”
That simple. That easy. And it eases all the tension of the day.
The Sweet Gum Café smells like grease and coffee and something sweet that’s been sitting too long on a heated rack. It’s a different atmosphere than the small diner we ate at before, the day Nolan burst into Coral Bell Cove.
It’s loud. Chaotic. Just… alive. The kind of place where no one really pays attention to you unless you give them a reason to.
Lark slides into the booth across from me, glancing around like she’s cataloging everything at once.
“This feels very… you,” she says.
“Should I be concerned?”
“You probably should be.”
I huff a quiet laugh. And just like that, the edge of the day softens. Something I’m afraid only Lark could do.
We place our order with the server, and I study Lark while she studies everything around the room. As the server drops off our drinks, Lark’s eyes connect with mine.
“Tell me something about yourself. Something I can’t find out by asking any person in this room.”
Her inquiry should have been expected, but panic rushes through me at the same time.
“The me you know now wasn’t always me,” I say.
Her brows rise in that way that asks me to continue without saying a single word.
“What changed?”
I hesitate, afraid to show her that part of myself, then answer anyway.
“I was the town goofball for a long time. In my large family, it was a way to guarantee I got some attention. Funny T-shirts, silly slogans, things like that. I just wanted to make people laugh.”
Lark smirks and says, “I can see that about you.”
“Yeah, then there was a fire at my parents’ farm,” I say. “Nothing big. But I was there.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t know what to do, like I was frozen on the spot.”
Her expression doesn’t shift into pity, so I keep talking.
“I watched everyone else move like it mattered,” I say. “Like they knew exactly how to fix it.”
“And you didn’t.”
“No.”
I exhale slowly.
“It was as if suddenly I felt like the current version of me was taking up space, taking away the air they needed to breathe. I didn’t like that version of me.”
Her gaze holds mine.
“So you became someone else.”
“Yeah. Someone my family and the town could be proud of.”
She doesn’t respond right away, just watches me, like she’s seeing something new. Something she didn’t expect. And for a second, I wonder what that looks like from her side.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
“For what?”
“For risking your life to save others.”
I shake my head slightly.
“What you do matters, Holt. You matter, always did.”
We eat our meals, the tone of the evening changing as we chat about the renovation and how much work she has left, and some of the things that happen in Coral Bell Cove throughout the year.
Lark gets excited when I mention the million festivals the town holds, especially the annual Christmas parade.
I’d do or say just about anything to keep the smile on her face.
When we finish eating and I’ve paid the bill, I don’t take her straight back to the inn. Not yet. Instead, I drive past the turnoff toward the overlook. The one place in town that feels just far enough removed from everything else.
Lark doesn’t question it, just watches out the window of my truck as the bay passes by.
Once we get to the gravel path that juts out over the bay, we sit there for a while not talking. Not needing to. And it doesn’t feel like silence.
It feels like something settling.
Like all the noise I carry around—calls, expectations, the constant readiness for something to go wrong—just…quieted. Not gone. Just not louder than her.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she says eventually, letting out a deep sigh as she takes in the salty air.
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
I glance at her knowing she deserves the truth.
“Because you needed something that wasn’t the inn,” I say.
She goes quiet.
“And I needed something that wasn’t the memory of the fire.”
Her breath catches slightly, just enough to seize my attention. And I realize this isn’t just a distraction, it’s something else, something I’m not sure I’m ready to name yet. But I feel it anyway.