Chapter 3LARK #3
I should’ve gone to his funeral.
It still gnaws at me, the fact that I didn’t.
I told myself it was because I was too busy, because I had the diner to run, because I had Hudson. But the truth is, I was just scared.
Lane and I were never particularly close.
He wasn’t particularly close to anyone except Molly.
But he did a lot for my dad, for me. He gave my dad a job when he needed one.
A good job. One that paid our bills and then some.
And he let me run around that ranch like I belonged there because he knew Harvey didn’t have many other options for childcare besides Alice, who had her hands full with the diner.
Lane wasn’t a man who made things easy. He rarely showed his love outright, but sometimes— sometimes —he’d slide me a peppermint candy when no one was looking.
He’d let me sit on the fence while he trained a horse, even though I was probably in the way.
And once, when I broke my wrist falling off a hay bale, he drove me to the hospital himself, grumbling under his breath about how I needed to watch where the hell I was going but buying me a burger and a milkshake on the way home anyway.
I try to make sense of the thoughts swirling in my head, but they’re tangled up in the wine and the exhaustion, and honestly? I’m too tired to untangle them now.
Instead, I burrow deeper into the couch, tugging a throw blanket tight around my shoulders.
I’d splurged on this couch last year, justified it as a necessity because Hudson was getting bigger and we needed more space to sprawl out on movie nights.
He still was getting too tall too fast, and really, I’d bought it for nights like this.
Nights where I was too lazy to drag myself upstairs, too tired to face my own bed, too overwhelmed to do anything but sink into the cushions and pretend the world wasn’t waiting for me in the morning.
I let my eyes drift closed.
The problems will still be there when I wake up.
They can wait.
**********
The office at the Bluebell is too damn small. It always has been. I’ve tried rearranging the furniture a dozen different ways, but no matter how I shift the desk, the filing cabinets, the ancient printer that only works when it feels like it, it still feels like I’m working out of a closet.
The walls are lined with shelves crammed full of binders, invoices, and receipts that date back to Alice’s time.
I should get rid of most of them, but throwing away anything with her handwriting on it feels wrong.
The overhead light flickers, buzzing just loud enough to remind me it needs replacing, but it’s been on my to-do list for weeks, and I still haven’t gotten around to it.
I stretch my neck, rolling my shoulders as I glance down at the financials. They’re good. Better than good. It took me years to get to this point, but the Bluebell is finally where it needs to be.
When I first took over, it was a mess. Not because Alice hadn’t run it well—she had.
She’d kept this place going on sheer willpower, on loyalty from customers who would have crawled through fire to get a plate of her pancakes.
But she didn’t believe in raising prices, even when she should have.
She paid the staff out of her own pocket more times than I could count.
And she never updated anything unless it was falling apart at the seams.
So when I got here, I had to clean up the books, replace half the equipment, and get the suppliers to stop charging us like we were some rundown roadside joint instead of one of the busiest spots in town.
I added dinner service, brought in a new coffee supplier, started hosting community events that packed the place every weekend. I made this diner mine.
And now, it’s thriving.
I flip the last page of the report just as Hudson lets out a dramatic groan from the corner of the office.
“I’m dying,” he announces, slumping in his chair like his bones have turned to liquid.
“You’re not dying,” I say without looking up.
“I wouldn’t be this bored if I had a phone.”
I sigh, rubbing my temple. This again.
Hudson’s been campaigning for a phone for the last year, and he’s relentless. Every kid in his class has one, apparently. It’s cruel and unusual punishment that he doesn’t. I’m ruining his social life. He’s basically living in the Stone Age.
And I get it, I do. But the thought of handing him a direct line to the internet, to group chats, to kids being kids in the way that makes my stomach twist—I can’t do it. Not yet.
Hudson has a good childhood. A real one. He still reads actual books, still spends his free time at the baseball field, still talks to his friends in person instead of through a screen. I want to keep it that way for as long as I can .
He lets his head fall back against the chair. “Can we at least talk about it?”
“We are talking about it,” I point out.
He groans again, flipping through his Shohei Ohtani magazine with the enthusiasm of a prisoner counting the days on a cell wall.
I sigh again, setting my paperwork down. “Hudson—”
“I already know what you’re gonna say,” he mutters.
I raise an eyebrow. “Then why are we still having this conversation?”
Hudson rolls his eyes. “I’m not a baby anymore, you know.”
I press my lips together and take a deep breath. “I never said you were.”
“You think I am,” he says, still flipping through his magazine, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. “You just want me to stay little forever.”
There it is. The gut punch.
I turn in my chair to face him fully. “Hudson, that’s not fair.”
“It’s true,” he says, voice rising just a little. “I’m the only kid who has to borrow his coach’s phone to text his mom after practice. Do you know how embarrassing that is?”
“What’s so embarrassing about it?”
He glares at me. “Everything.”
I nod, leaning back in my chair. “Okay. I hear you.”
He blinks, clearly surprised I didn’t argue. “You do?”
“I do.” I rub my hands together, thinking.
“And I get it, Hud. I know it’s frustrating.
I just—” I pause, searching for the right words.
“A phone isn’t just a phone anymore. It’s everything.
Social media, the internet, messages from people I don’t know.
There’s a lot out there I don’t want you dealing with yet. ”
He huffs. “I wouldn’t do anything bad.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” I say gently. “But there’s a whole world outside of you that I can’t control. And my job—my most important job—is keeping you safe.”
He stares down at his magazine, picking at the corner of the page. “So, what? I just have to wait until I’m, like, thirty?”
I snort. “No. Maybe we can find a compromise. ”
He eyes me warily. “Like what?”
“Maybe a flip phone. Something you can use to text me and call your friends. No apps, no internet, just the basics.”
He makes a face. “A flip phone? That’s almost worse.”
I hold up my hands. “It’s that or keep borrowing Coach’s phone.”
Hudson groans, rubbing his hands down his face. “Oh my god. You hate me.”
I smirk. “I really do.”
Just as he’s about to launch another protest, there’s a soft knock on the door. Then Dawn pokes her head in, her expression unusually tight.
“Wendell Tate wants to talk to you,” she says quietly.
I furrow my brow. “Why?”
She shrugs, glancing over her shoulder like she’s making sure no one else is listening. “No idea. Just…be careful.”
My stomach tightens, but I nod. I turn to Hudson. “Stay put.”
He sighs dramatically, giving me a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
I roll my eyes, pushing up from my chair.
Wendell Tate is sitting in one of the booths around the corner, a cowboy hat on his head, his broad shoulders hunched slightly as he flips through the manila folders spread out in front of him, neatly arranged like he’s already halfway through some kind of deal I didn’t agree to.
He stands when he sees me, offering a handshake, his smile polite but unreadable.
“Morning, Miss Westwood.”
I shake his hand, firm but quick, and nod at the folders. “Morning. What’s all this?”
He chuckles, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Straight to business, huh?”
I don’t answer, just lift an eyebrow as I sit down.
His eyes flick over me, taking in my jeans and cream turtleneck. “You’re not in uniform today. Off?”
“I usually take weekends,” I say. “Hudson’s got practice, so I can’t talk long.”
Wendell nods. “I caught the last game,” he says, tapping a finger on the table. “Hudson’s got a hell of an arm. Gonna make a damn good pitcher one day.”
I know Ellis Tate, Wendell’s youngest son, is on Hudson’s team. I’ve seen him on the field, watched Wendell and his wife at the games. But something about him bringing it up now puts me on edge.
I lean back in the booth, crossing my arms. “I doubt you’re here to talk baseball.”
He exhales a short laugh, measured. “You’re right.”
Wendell shifts, straightens a folder in front of him like he’s gathering his thoughts. Then he leans forward, clasping his hands together, all business.
“The truth is, Summit Springs is changing,” he says.
“And it has to. We can’t just keep coasting along, relying on tradition and hoping that’s enough to keep this town afloat.
We need to be thinking ahead, looking at ways to grow, to make sure that in ten, twenty years, this place is still standing. More than that—thriving.”
I don’t like the way he says this place —like it’s some abstract idea, like it’s not real. Not homes and families and history. Not the ranchers who’ve worked this land for generations, the businesses that have held this town together longer than I’ve been alive.