LARK #3
Molly grins, setting the tray on the coffee table right beside the blanket fort. “I know. That’s why I haven’t let Wren anywhere near them yet. They’re hers, too.”
Hudson looks smug, already reaching for one, while Wren saunters up, eyeing the plate like a lion sizing up a steak.
“Come on, just one,” Wren says, leaning over the tray.
Molly smacks her hand with the spatula she must’ve brought just for this purpose. “Hands off. They’re for Hudson.”
Wren recoils, scandalized. “The whole plate? You’re spoiling him.”
Hudson sticks his tongue out at her, half a brownie already stuffed in his mouth. “You’re just mad because I’m the favorite now.”
Wren steps forward and flicks his forehead hard enough to make him squawk, crumbs flying. “Keep dreaming, kid.”
I watch it all unfold, heart tight in a way I didn’t expect. The banter, the teasing, the way Hudson glows being the center of their attention—it’s not just noise and laughter. It’s family. Real, messy, alive.
“He’s never going to want to go back home now,” I say, half-joking as I lean against the wall, but it comes out quieter than I meant. Molly hears me anyway, eyes meeting mine across the room.
“This is one of his homes now,” she says simply, brushing her hands off on her apron.
Something in me catches. That ache—the one I’ve been carrying since the day Hudson was born, wondering if I could ever give him more than just me—flickers into something else.
Something softer. He has more now. He has them.
These people who love him without question, who feed him brownies and build forts and flick his forehead like he’s always been theirs.
Wren is still scheming, making another grab for the brownies, practically wrestling Hudson for one while he guards the plate like it’s sacred.
“Seriously, just one ,” she says, trying to swipe one when he looks away.
“Nope,” Hudson says, mouth full, holding the plate over his head. “You had your chance. You got smacked for it.”
“You’re twelve, you can’t eat an entire tray of brownies without dying.”
“Watch me.”
The front door creaks open, and before I even look up, I know it’s him. There’s this shift in the room—like everything just recalibrates.
Boone walks in, shirt clinging to his chest and back, damp with sweat.
His face is flushed and there’s that damn backwards baseball cap, brown curls spilling out from underneath, messy and too much in the best way.
His forearms are bare, tan, and dusted with dirt, his muscles flexing as he wipes his hands on a rag tucked into his waistband.
His shoulders are broad, solid, filling the doorway like he owns the air around him.
I wonder—not for the first time—if I’ll ever stop thinking he’s stupid hot. If I’ll ever stop wanting to jump his bones the second he walks into a room looking like that. Honestly? I doubt it.
He walks straight to me, pulling me into him like it’s second nature, his arms wrapping around my waist as he presses a kiss to the top of my head, his skin warm, smelling like sun and sawdust.
“How was going into town?” I ask, looking up at him, palms resting against the plane of his chest.
“Interesting,” he says, something flickering behind his eyes—hard to read, but I catch it.
I raise a brow, waiting for more, but he just gives me that look, the one that says later , and I let it go.
I rise onto my toes, kiss him slow, just long enough to feel the tension leave his shoulders, just long enough to forget we have an audience—until Wren’s voice cuts in.
“Seriously, go find a room,” Wren says, victorious now with a brownie in hand, half unwrapped from its napkin prison.
Hudson groans, dragging a pillow over his head. “They do this all the time now. It’s gross.”
Wren takes a bite, talks around it. “It’s because they’re the horniest people alive.”
Hudson lifts the pillow just enough to peek out. “What’s horny?”
I freeze. Boone laughs.
Wren blinks. “Oh…uh…”
Boone clears his throat. “It’s, uh—like…being hungry.”
“For people,” Wren adds.
Boone turns to her slowly. “Please stop talking.”
Hudson sits up now, fully invested. “So like…hangry, but for kissing?”
I bury my face in my hands. “I’m begging the universe to take me out right now.”
Wren shrugs, totally unfazed. “You said he needed to learn about real-life stuff.”
“Not like this!”
Hudson grins. “I’m gonna tell Ridge you guys are horny all the time.”
I lean into Boone’s side, arm still looped around his waist. “Yeah, well, Ridge is the horniest of us all.”
“Excuse me?” Ridge’s voice cuts in as he rounds the corner, still tying the drawstring on his sweatpants.
Hudson lights up. “They said you’re the horniest person in the house.”
Ridge stops. Blinks. “I came down here for a Pop-Tart. Why am I being slandered?”
Wren points her half-eaten brownie at him. “Don’t play dumb, Rodeo Romeo. We’ve heard the stories.”
He grabs a bottle of water from the fridge, pops the cap, and takes a long sip before answering. “They’re not stories if they’re true.”
Wren narrows her eyes. “You’re foul. ”
Boone laughs. “Pretty sure you signed a girl’s belt buckle with that nickname.”
“Okay, one time,” Ridge says, grabbing a Pop-Tart and tossing it onto the counter. “She asked!”
“She was eighteen,” Wren says.
“Her mom asked first!” Ridge yells.
Hudson gasps like he’s witnessing a crime. “You’re going to horny jail.”
Ridge points at him. “You probably didn’t even know what that word meant five minutes ago.”
Hudson shrugs. “And now I know too much.”
Ridge tears open the Pop-Tart wrapper like it insulted his honor. “You guys are the reason I have trust issues.”
“You have trust issues,” I say, “because you fall in love every six seconds and then panic when someone texts back.”
Boone nods. “He’s got a crush on the girl at the feed store again.”
Wren grins. “Which one? Jane? Or the one with the braids…Emma, right?”
Ridge walks out mid–Pop-Tart bite, flipping us off on the way. “I’m never coming back down here.”
I’m crying now. Hudson’s nearly on the floor.
“Promise?” Wren calls after him.
Hudson wipes a fake tear. “He was so young. So full of bad decisions.”
I laugh and glance up at Boone, still flushed from the heat outside, his shirt damp along his shoulders and chest. “Did you find everything you needed for Old Faithful?”
“Yeah,” he says, tugging off his hat and running a hand through those sweat-damp curls, flattening them before flipping the cap back on. “Had to get new wiring, though. What’s in there’s basically trash—frayed, probably from the last forty years of mice and weather.”
My brows pull together, picturing the old house, sun-bleached and half-forgotten. “What are you even gonna use it for when it’s done? Turning it into a moonshine still or something?”
Boone snorts, a quick grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Nah. Gonna use it for storage. Tools, parts. Nothing exciting. ”
I tilt my head, glancing at him like I’m trying to do the math. “But that house is huge. What could you possibly need to store out there?”
Before he can answer, Wren jumps in from the couch, wiping brownie crumbs off her fingers. “Probably the big stuff. Fencing gear, irrigation parts, maybe that busted generator no one’s dealt with. You can’t exactly stash that in the linen closet.”
Boone nods, his hand still warm on the small of my back. “Exactly. Just easier to keep it all in one place.”
I nod, even though something about it doesn’t sit right.
Some foolish part of me—quiet and hopeful, the part I don’t let out too often—had wondered if maybe he was fixing up Old Faithful for us. Me and Hudson. Not that he ever said that. Not that I ever asked. But the thought had crept in once or twice. Made itself at home.
I’ve always loved that house. Even the way it is now—weathered, cracked around the edges, half-swallowed by tall grass and wildflowers. It’s got this quiet strength to it. Like it’s waiting. Like it still believes someone will come back for it.
You can see it if you really look.
And now, hearing it’s just being used to store busted generators and irrigation parts?
It stings.
I know it’s just a house. I know I shouldn’t care. But still—something deflates in me. Something small and dumb and persistent that had wanted to believe it could be more. That it could be ours.
Or at the very least, someone’s.
That house could be a home. Not just a shell full of broken things no one wants to deal with.
I sigh without meaning to, the sound slipping out before I can catch it. Boone glances down at me, his brow creasing. “You alright?”
I offer him a quick smile as I nod toward Wren. “Yeah, just worn out. That ride kicked my ass.”
Wren grins, wiping her fingers on a napkin. “Because I kicked your ass. Don’t forget that part. ”
I nudge Boone with my shoulder. “She cheated. Took a shortcut by the fence line.”
Wren shrugs. “I saw an opportunity and I had a fast horse. That’s called strategy. Sorry you’re slow and morally upright.”
I glare at her playfully and Boone presses a kiss to the top of my head, the heat of it sinking into me. I lean into him without thinking, fitting easily into the space he makes for me.
Still, the ache doesn’t go anywhere. I’d been hoping him fixing the house up for us was his way of saying he was ready for more. That he didn’t just want these brief, fleeting moments. That maybe he wanted a life with us in it.
A place we could come home to instead of just passing through.
I know it wouldn’t be simple. Hudson would have to go a new school. I’d have to juggle the diner. There would be things to figure out, but we could do it if he wanted to.
Maybe he’s just not ready yet. Not all the way.
Maybe he’s not sure if there’s space for me in the life he’s built out here.
And honestly? I don’t blame him.