I exhale, glance at the menu even though I don’t need to. “Not sure yet.”
She hums and slides me a cup. “Well, figure it out over some coffee, boy.”
I wrap my hands around the mug, let the heat work its way into my fingers, then take a long pull. Black. No cream. No sugar. Strong enough to put hair on your damn chest or clean rust off an engine block.
Lark used to say I was unhinged for drinking it like this. Said coffee was supposed to taste like something you’d actually want in your mouth. Then she’d tear open a pile of sugar packets like she was fueling a racehorse, dump ’em in one after another, stir like her life depended on it. Half the time, it’d slosh over the side and hit the counter.
I’d call it melted candy. She’d tell me I had the taste buds of a seventy-year-old war vet with nothing left to live for.
The memory tugs at something. Doesn’t make me smile, not exactly—but it’s close.
I glance at the stool next to me. Same one she used to sit on when her feet didn’t hit the floor yet. Used to swing her legs while we played Go Fish and, later, Texas Hold ’Em—cards sticking to the counter while Alice wiped down tables and our dads were off doing God knows what.
Feels like a lifetime ago.
Probably because it was.
Harvey Westwood was solid. Quiet type, didn’t waste words—but when he did speak, people shut up and listened. My old man respected him, which says a hell of a lot. Weren’t many folks he could tolerate for more than a couple hours, outside of my mom. But him and Harvey? They understood each other. Same work ethic. Same no-bullshit way of moving through the world. Harvey was the kind of ranch hand you wish you could clone—showed up early, stayed late, never complained. Just got the damn job done.
With Alice tied up running the diner and Harvey working sunup to sundown, Lark ended up at our place more often than not. She practically lived at the Wilding Ranch. Knew every inch of the land—where the ground dipped just enough to twist an ankle, which horses wouldn’t buck you clean off if you tried to ride them bareback. She could tear across the back field without flinching at a rattler or stepping in fresh cow shit. She fit there, same as the rest of us.
She ate dinner at our table most nights. Would swipe apple slices off my mom’s cutting board before they made it into the pie, dunk ’‘em straight into a jar of Jiffy like she paid the bills around there. Mom would give her that look, but Lark didn’t care. She had her own toothbrush in the bathroom, her own seat at the table. After a while, Mom quit calling Alice to check in—she already knew Lark would be there. She might’ve been an only child, but not when she was with us.
Lark was small back then—skinny limbs, too much energy, like she was always half a second from bolting in some direction even when she wasn’t moving. Her hair was this wild, almost-white blonde, always a little messy, like brushing it never made the top of her priority list. And her eyes—hell, they never could make up their mind. Blue one minute, green the next, always somewhere in between.
She had all these little quirks.
Couldn’t just walk like a normal kid—she had to skip, balance on the edge of the sidewalk, climb fences just because they were there. When she really laughed, it came out in a breathless little hitch at the end, like her lungs couldn’t catch up to the rest of her.
She hated the sound of Styrofoam rubbing together. Used to shove her to-go boxes at me and make me open them so she didn’t have to hear it. Had to sleep with one foot out from under the covers. Peeled labels off every bottle she touched—left little piles of shredded paper behind like she couldn’t help it.
I find myself wondering if she still does any of that.
I take another sip of coffee, let it sit heavy and hot in my chest.
Twelveyears.
Long enough for everything to change.
Long enough for some things to stay exactly the same.
“Boone Wilding,” a voice drawls behind me. “Well, I’ll be damned. Look who’s back in town.”
I glance up and spot Wyatt Dawson a few feet away, cowboy hat in one hand, steaming coffee in the other. He’s a few years older, runs cattle about twenty miles out. Been around as long as I can remember. I stand and shake his hand—firm grip, steady eye contact. It’s how men like us were brought up.
“Good to be back,” I say, because that’s what you’re supposed to say.
Wyatt nods, eyes flicking to the empty stool beside me before settling back on mine. “Heard about your dad,” he says, voice a little softer now. “Hell of a man. Damn good rancher. Funeral was somethin’ else. Never seen that many folks packed into one church.”
I give a small nod. Didn’t get to go, so I wouldn’t know.
He studies me for a beat, like he’s expecting more. But I’ve got nothing to give him, so he shifts gears.
“Heard you went into the military after high school.”
“Yeah.”
“What branch?”
