Chapter Twenty-nine – Lark
I stand at the kitchen sink with my hands braced against the counter, staring out into the dark stretch of land behind the house, the faint outline of the pasture just visible under the low wash of moonlight.
The barn sits at the edge of that space, quiet now, rebuilt enough to stand but not enough to erase what happened there.
Nothing about this feels erased. The image comes back without warning. That photograph. The angle. The timing. The way it captured something that wasn’t meant for anyone else.
The way it proved she was close enough to see us.
I close my eyes briefly, forcing a slow breath through my lungs, trying to shake the tension that’s been building all day. It doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked since the moment Holt handed the note over to the deputy, and I realized this wasn’t just someone circling the property.
This was someone circling me.
The sound of a truck engine cuts through the quiet. Still enough to make my shoulders loosen just slightly.
I don’t move right away. I stay where I am, watching the headlights sweep across the back field before cutting out completely. The engine goes silent, replaced by the soft crunch of boots on gravel, then the solid, unmistakable rhythm of Holt crossing the yard.
He doesn’t rush. He never does. Even when he should. Even when everything around him says urgency, his movements stay controlled. Deliberate. Like he’s learned the hard way that reacting too fast gets people hurt.
The back door opens without hesitation.
“You left the lights on,” he says, his voice carrying easily into the kitchen.
I don’t turn.
“You noticed.”
“I notice everything.”
“Not everything.”
His boots stop just behind me. Close enough that I can feel the heat of him, the shift in the air as he steps fully into the space.
I turn then, meeting his gaze. He looks the same as he did this morning—steady, composed—but something else is underneath it now. Something tighter around the edges. Something that wasn’t there before.
“You’re late,” I say.
His brow lifts slightly. “Didn’t realize I was on a schedule. You okay?”
I shrug, pushing off the counter and crossing my arms loosely over my chest. “I heard something earlier.”
His expression sharpens immediately. “Where?”
“Back of the house. Probably nothing.”
“Probably isn’t good enough right now.”
“I checked.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“I know what it means,” I cut in, more sharply than I intended.
Silence falls between us.
“I handled it,” I add, quieter now.
His jaw tightens just slightly. “That’s not the point.”
“It is when I’m the one standing here.”
“And you don’t have to be the only one.”
I hold his gaze, something shifting in the space between us, something that has nothing to do with the noise I heard earlier and everything to do with this.
“I think she’s not just watching the property anymore,” I say slowly. “I think she’s watching me.”
“Yeah,” he says.
The agreement lands harder than anything else.
“You knew that?” I ask.
“I suspected it.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Then what changed?”
Something tightens in Holt’s expression before he reaches into the pocket of his jeans and pulls out his phone.
My stomach knots immediately.
“What is that?”
“I got a message earlier,” he says quietly.
He unlocks the screen and turns it toward me. And there it is. Michael’s name.
The breath leaves my lungs in a slow, uneven rush. The message itself is short. You should really keep a closer eye on her out there.
Ice crawls down my spine.
“What the hell…”
“He sent it from a fake number first,” Holt says. “But he slipped up. My buddy traced it back.”
I stare at the screen, my pulse pounding harder now.
“He knew where I was?”
Holt nods once. “Yeah.”
“And he wanted you to know he knew.”
“Seems that way.”
A sick feeling settles low in my stomach because that’s exactly the kind of thing Michael would do. Not a direct threat. Something quieter. Controlled. Calculated. Something designed to get under your skin and stay there.
“There’s more,” Holt says.
I force myself to look up at him.
“My friend started digging after the message came through,” he continues. “Not illegally. Just public stuff. Social media. Accounts tied together.”
My throat tightens.
“And?”
“There’s a connection between Kenzie and Michael.”
Everything inside me stills.
“How?”
Holt exhales slowly, like he’s trying to decide how much to say at once.
“She’d been posting things online for months,” he says. “A lot of vague stuff. About feeling invisible. Being overlooked. Getting passed over for someone else.”
A bitter edge cuts through me immediately.
“She wasn’t hard to find,” he adds carefully. “Especially not for someone looking for exactly that kind of instability.”
I cross my arms tighter over my chest.
“That sounds like him.”
Always figuring out exactly where the weak spot was before pressing on it.
“She tagged locations around Coral Bell Cove a few times,” Holt says. “Michael started following her account after you moved here.”
I close my eyes briefly.
Of course he did.
“He commented first,” Holt continues. “Then messages. Nothing obvious. Just enough to make her feel seen.”
My laugh comes out hollow.
“That’s how he works.”
Holt watches me carefully as I continue.
“He doesn’t force people into things,” I say quietly. “He just keeps feeding them pieces until they think it was their decision all along.”
His jaw tightens slightly.
“He never outright told her to do anything,” Holt says. “At least not that we can prove.”
“But he pointed her at me.”
“Yeah.”
The word lands heavy between us.
“He knew she wasn’t stable,” I whisper.
Holt doesn’t answer immediately. Doesn’t need to.
“The first fire,” I say slowly. “At the inn.”
“That’s what I think too.”
I look away, my gaze drifting back toward the dark kitchen window.
“He wanted to scare me,” I whisper.
“Yeah.”
“Make me feel unsafe enough to leave.”
Holt stays quiet behind me because we both know I’m right.
“And if you left,” he says carefully, “the inn probably goes too.”
I turn slowly. “What?”
His expression tightens slightly, like he already knows he’s stepping into something I don’t want to talk about.
“My friend looked into your family’s and Michael’s separate companies after the message,” he says. “There’s been speculation about a merger for months. A big one.”
Cold unease settles low in my stomach.
“What does that have to do with me?”
Holt watches me for a long second before answering.
“The inn isn’t just property, Lark.”
No, it isn’t, but hearing someone else say it makes something inside me shift uneasily.
“The trust your dad left you,” Holt continues carefully. “Your controlling share in the land holdings tied to it—that matters.”
I stare at him, because suddenly I know where this is going. And I hate it before he even says it.
“He needed your signature,” I say quietly.
Holt doesn’t answer immediately, which is answer enough. The realization lands hard and ugly all at once.
Michael hadn’t just wanted me back. He wanted access.
“He thought eventually you’d sell,” Holt says softly. “Or fold the property into whatever development they were planning.”
A hollow laugh escapes me.
“My father would’ve hated that.”
“Probably why he protected it the way he did.”
My father hadn’t just left me the inn. He’d left me the power to keep it from people exactly like Michael.
Years of conversations rearrange themselves in my head. The pressure. The timing of the relationship. The way Michael always talked about “future expansion” whenever he mentioned our destiny.
God.
“He wasn’t trying to save our relationship,” I whisper.
“No.”
“He was trying to save himself.”
Silence settles heavily between us, then Holt steps closer.
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t want control too.”
That part almost hurts worse. Michael had never needed love to justify possession.
Holt stays quiet behind me because we both know I’m right.
“And when I didn’t…”
My voice fades.
Holt steps closer then, not touching me yet, but close enough that I feel the heat of him anyway.
“Michael gave the nudge and she escalated,” he says quietly.
I swallow hard.
“And when you got involved,” I murmur, the realization settling into place piece by piece, “it stopped being about Michael.”
Holt’s gaze locks onto mine.
“Seems so.”
My stomach twists painfully.
“It became about her.”
“She fixated,” he says.
I nod slowly. That explains the photo. The note. The way everything shifted from intimidation to obsession.
“She didn’t care about me before,” I say quietly.
“No.”
“But she does now.” The words hang between us heavily. “And Michael let it happen.”
Holt’s jaw tightens.
“Looks that way.”
I close my eyes briefly, trying to steady the sudden wave of anger and nausea twisting together inside me. Because that hurts worse than the fear ever did.
It explains everything that didn’t make sense before. I step forward, and the space between us disappears.
Holt leans forward and kisses me. The spark of attraction between us is just as potent today as it was that first moment he yelled at me for fighting the fire at the inn.
My arms wrap around his neck as he presses his body against mine.
He reaches out and grips my thighs, something he seems to do whenever we’re close, and lifts me, forcing me to wrap my legs around his taut waist. I can feel his stiff erection as it rests against my center, the heat seeping through my pants to my skin.
There is little I can do to hold back my moan.
We move toward the hall where his bedroom is located, but before we get there, some primal instinct inside him takes over. In the hallway just outside his door, he slams my body against the wall and pulls away from my mouth with our hips still united.
“Fuck, you’re gorgeous,” he tells me as his gaze travels across my mussed hair and kiss-swollen lips.