BOONE
BOONE
Hudson holds up a baseball card, careful with it like it’s something sacred. Fingers on the edges, no fingerprints on the surface.
“This one?” he says, holding it toward the light. “This is the crown jewel of my collection.”
I lean in, arms crossed, nodding. “Alright. Show me what you’ve got.”
His grin’s quick, proud. “Signed Mookie Betts rookie card.”
I let out a low whistle. “No shit. That’s a solid one.”
“Mom got it for me last Christmas,” he says, eyes still on the card. “Said she had to call in a favor to get it. Won’t tell me what, though.”
That sounds about right. Lark’s never been one to back down from a challenge—always figured out how to get what she wanted, especially when it mattered.
While he talks, I take in the rest of the room. Dodgers stuff everywhere—banners, posters, jerseys pinned up on the walls. Even his damn comforter’s blue. He’s not just a fan. He lives and breathes it.
Makes me wonder how many games he’s been to. If Lark ever took him to one at Dodger Stadium. If he brought his glove and waited on a foul ball, eyes trained on the sky, hoping to walk away with something he’d never forget.
Should’ve been there for that if she did .
I press the thought down.
Hudson sets the card on his desk and turns back to me. “Mom said you used to play.”
“Shortstop,” I say, meeting his eyes.
His eyebrows lift. “That’s what I play.”
I smirk. “Must run in the blood.”
He sits up straighter. “What was your best game?”
I chuckle, shift my weight against the desk. “State semifinals, senior year.”
His eyes light up. “What happened?”
“We were tied in the bottom of the ninth,” I say. “Two outs. Guy on second. Coach gives me the sign to swing away.” I shake my head, remembering it clearer than I expected. “First pitch, I fouled it so hard it nearly took out our assistant coach. Second pitch? I damn near took myself out.”
Hudson cracks up. “No way.”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “Brutal. But third pitch? Fastball down the middle. I cracked it into left. Guy scored. We won.”
He grins like I just told him I hit a grand slam in the World Series. “That’s badass.”
I shrug. “Didn’t hurt that your mom was in the stands screaming at me loud enough to make my ears ring. Swore she’d kill me if I struck out.”
He laughs again—real and full and so much like Lark it stops me cold.
He might have my eyes, my swing, my posture.
But that laugh? That’s hers. No doubt about it.
Hudson shakes his head. “She’s crazy sometimes. She would do that.”
“Oh, she did,” I say. “Loud enough that my coach gave her a warning.”
Hudson’s eyes sparkle with amusement, but then he shifts slightly, like he’s mulling something over. “Mom said you could’ve gone pro.”
I nod, stretching my legs out. “Could’ve.”
Hudson tilts his head. “Why didn’t you?”
“Went into the military instead.”
His eyes widen. “Whoa.” Then, after a beat, “Like Captain America? ”
I bark out a laugh. “Yeah, something like that. Just with a lot less spandex.”
Hudson smirks. “That’s disappointing.”
I shake my head, chuckling. “Tell me about it.”
Hudson goes quiet for a second, then hesitates before saying, “Mom also said you have a ranch.”
“I do,” I say, nodding. “A pretty big one.”
Hudson hesitates again, chewing his lip like he’s debating something. Then, finally, he says, “Could I see it sometime?”
The question hits me harder than I expect. My kid wants to come to the ranch. He wants to see where I live. That must mean he likes me, at least a little…right?
I can’t stop the grin that spreads across my face. “I’d like nothing more.”
Hudson nods, satisfied with that answer. Then, like it’s no big deal, he says, “Good. Because I wanna learn how to fish, and Mom hates fish, so she’s useless.”
I chuckle. “Oh, I know.”
Hudson raises an eyebrow. “You do?”
“Oh yeah,” I say, shaking my head. “One time, when we were kids, I picked her up and threw her in the lake.”
Hudson’s jaw drops. “No way.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, grinning. “Middle of summer, hot as hell, and she wouldn’t get in the water, so I helped.”
“What did she do?”
I smirk. “Came out swinging. Chased me all the way around town, soaking wet, and found me hiding out in the Bluebell. She went to the back, found an entire cooler of ice water, and dumped it on my head in front of everybody.”
Hudson loses it, laughing so hard he nearly falls off the bed. “That’s awesome.”
I grin, watching him, really watching him. Soaking up every little thing, filing it away in my mind to remember later.
I just met this kid. How is it possible to know someone for such a short amount of time and already know you’d do anything for them?
Is that what being a parent feels like?
Hudson wipes at his eyes, still laughing. “Man, I wish I could’ve seen that.”
A knock sounds at the door, and then Lark’s head pokes in, her blonde hair swinging around her shoulders. “Alright, kiddo. Bedtime.”
Hudson groans, flopping back onto the bed. “Mom, come on. Just a little longer?”
She arches a brow. “It’s a school night.”
He crosses his arms, lips pressing into a pout. “That’s just a technicality.”
I chuckle, shaking my head. “Hey, it’s okay. I’ll see you again really soon.”
Hudson pushes up on his elbows, eyes lighting up. “Yeah? When?”
I glance at Lark.
She hesitates for half a second before saying, “What about this? Maybe Boone can start taking you to baseball practice and bringing you home.” She turns back to me. “Unless that interferes with the ranch, but—”
“I’ll do it,” I cut in immediately.
Because that’s what parents do, right? They move things around. Make time.
No clue how she’s been doing this on her own all these years. The diner. Raising Hudson. Handling every damn thing without flinching. I wouldn’t have lasted a month.
Her shoulders drop a little, like she didn’t know how I was going to respond. “Great. His practices are Tuesdays and Thursdays at Rockwell Field, five o’clock.”
I nod. “I’ll be there.”
Hudson grins. “Awesome.”
I reach out, ruffle his hair. He bats my hand away with a laugh. “Alright, get to bed, slugger.”
Before he can fire back, Lark steps into the doorway, arms crossed. “Teeth. Pajamas. Lights out. ”
Hudson groans like she just ended his whole life. “Yes, ma’am.”
He salutes her like a smartass and disappears down the hall, still grinning.
We head downstairs, and I do my best to focus on the steps in front of me instead of how good she still looks.
Her jeans hug her in all the right places, sweater pulled snug across her back.
I remember how she used to run every morning before school.
Wonder if she still does. Wonder if she has time to.
At the bottom of the stairs, she glances over her shoulder with a grin. “That went better than I expected.”
I nod, a smile tugging at my mouth. “He’s a solid kid.”
Her face softens. “I like to think so.”
She walks into the kitchen and rummages through a drawer, pulling out a photo. She hands it over. “His most recent. You should have one.”
I take it, careful not to smudge the edges. Hudson’s in his uniform, bat over his shoulder, that cocky little half-grin like he already knows he’s going to win.
“You sure?” I ask.
“I’ve got plenty.”
I slide it into my wallet and glance at the counter behind her—papers, folders, envelopes stacked in that way people do when they’ve got too much on their plate and nowhere to put it.
“Looks like you’ve been up to something.”
She sighs, rubbing her forehead. “Yeah. Diner stuff.”
“Good or bad?”
She leans on the counter, eyes on a folder like it personally offended her. “Not sure yet.” Her fingers tap once, then stop. “Wendell Tate wants to buy the Bluebell.”
I straighten. “Wendell Tate?” My voice comes out harder than I mean it. “What the hell does he want with the diner?”
She gestures to the paperwork. “Says the land’s worth something now. Oil, supposedly.”
She shakes her head and flips through the papers. “I’ve been trying to make sense of it all, but it’s a mess.”
“Can I take a look?”
She nods, and I step in beside her, close enough to smell her shampoo. Lavender and honeysuckle . Same as before. Same scent she wore when we were kids, when she used to crawl into the bed of my truck and press her body against mine like she was trying to block out the whole world.
I push the thought aside and skim the papers. Geological survey report. A bunch of numbers and terms I haven’t seen in years, but I can follow it well enough.
If these projections are legit, there’s a shit-ton of oil under the Bluebell. He wasn’t bluffing. The valuation, the barrel estimates—hell, even the drilling specs. It’s all here.
I glance at her. “You trust this?”
“I don’t trust Tate farther than I could throw his smug ass. But the docs seem legit. I’m just trying to wrap my head around it.”
We both know Wendell Tate doesn’t make a move unless he’s getting something out of it.
I nod, still flipping through the documents, my mind turning over everything I’ve just read. “Miller looking at these? She’d probably know what all this meant.”
Lark nods. “Yeah. I gave her a copy. We’re meeting for lunch tomorrow to go over everything.”
I glance at her. “How’s she doing?”
Lark snorts. “Still Mills.”
I smirk at that.
Miller Ashford has always been a force of nature.
You always heard her before you saw her, and she never backed down from a fight, never bit her tongue when she had something to say.
She was the girl who could convince a teacher to extend a deadline one minute and then turn around and talk a cop out of giving her a speeding ticket the very next.
She’d been wanting to be a lawyer since our freshman year of high school.
She and Lark have been thick as thieves since before I can remember—practically attached at the hip, finishing each other’s sentences, always on the same wavelength. And if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that Miller would go to war for Lark without a second thought.
“She practicing at all?” I ask.
Lark nods. “Owns the firm now.”