“I’ve been there longer than I should’ve been,” he adds, his voice lower now. “I just didn’t say it out loud.”
A knot of anxiety forms in my chest.
“You don’t have to make it less than it is,” he continues. “Or explain it away so it makes more sense.”
His gaze holds mine.
“I’m in love with you, Lark. And you love me,” he says.
Not a question. Not an assumption. The words don’t scare me the way they should.
“I do,” I say.
No doubts in my mind.
“And I’m not asking you to choose between your life and me,” he says. “I’m asking you to let me be part of it.”
The simplicity of that breaks something open in the best way. I close the distance fully this time.
“And you are,” I tell him softly. “You already are.”
Chapter Thirty-three – Holt
The morning after the fire feels uneasy. That’s the first thing that gets under my skin when I step out onto the porch with a mug of coffee gone lukewarm in my hand and look across the property. The sky has cleared overnight, the hard edge of the storm scrubbed out until all that’s left is pale blue and damp air and sunlight stretching itself across Otter Creek like the land didn’t just lose part of itself.
The remains of the barn sit at the far edge of the pasture, blackened and half collapsed, the frame twisted in places where the heat bit deepest. Smoke no longer rises from it, but the smell still hangs in the air faint and bitter, woven through the cleaner scent of wet earth and trampled grass. Every time the wind shifts, it carries the reminder back to me.
We were lucky. That’s what everyone kept saying. Deputy. Marshal. Mac. My mother, though she phrases it differently because Claire Wright has never once in her life believed luck should get credit for what she considers answered prayer and human stubbornness.
I know what they mean. I just don’t know what to do with it.
Luck doesn’t cover the image of Lark inside that barn, smoke around her, face streaked dark, one hand curled around Rook’s collar while the fire climbed the back wall behind her. Luck doesn’t touch the sound of wood giving way over my head. Luck doesn’t explain how close everything came to ending in a way I wouldn’t have survived, regardless of whether my body did.
The porch boards creak softly behind me. I don’t turn right away; I know the sound of her steps now. Lighter thanHadley’s, more measured than my mother’s, still carrying that slight hesitation that says she never fully enters a room without first deciding what version of herself it needs.
Lark stops beside me, close enough that I feel the heat of her before she says anything. She’s wearing one of my sweatshirts again, sleeves pushed to her forearms, her bandaged arm (which she hadn’t even noticed was injured while she was taking care of me) held just a little differently than the other, no matter how much she tries to act like it doesn’t hurt.
Neither of us speaks for a second. We just stand there looking at the same stretch of land, the same damage, the same undeniable proof that nothing can go back to what it was before.
“Coffee’s cold,” she says finally.
I glance down at the mug in my hand and huff out something close to a laugh. “You’ve been here five seconds and already criticizing me.”
Her mouth curves slightly. “I’m observant.”
“That’s one word for it.”
It should feel easy, this exchange. It almost does. The ease is there, but so is everything underneath it. The memory of yesterday. The note. The fire. The knowledge that Kenzie will be in custody still doesn’t make the world feel any safer. Maybe because some damage keeps living after the threat is gone.
The phone rings just as I’m about to step back inside. Something tells me I can’t ignore it for five minutes and then come back to it.
Unknown number.
I hesitate for half a second, then answer.
“This is Holt.”
“Hi, Holt. It’s Deputy Harris.”
