Page 107 of At First Spark
“Of course you do,” she replies, turning toward her car. “You always did know how to stay busy.”
I don’t respond. I just watch her leave, and even after her car disappears down the road, that uneasy feeling lingers longer than it should.
That’s what I don’t like. Not the fact that she showed up. Not even the way she looked at me like she was trying to figure something out. It’s the timing, the coincidence of it. The way everything else already feels like it’s shifting just beneath the surface, and then she walks back into it like she belongs there, like she never really left.
I drag a hand over the back of my neck, exhaling slowly as I push off the side of the truck. This is nothing. It has to be.
Kenzie was never—
I cut the thought off before it finishes because that’s not entirely true. She wasn’t nothing. She just wasn’t something I kept. There’s a difference. And I made that decision for a reason.
Beckett finds me ten minutes later, leaning against the side of the building like I’m trying to outrun my own thoughts.
“She still following you around?” he asks.
I glance at him. “You see her?”
“Hard to miss,” he says. “Girl’s got presence.”
That’s one way to put it.
“She’s passing through,” I say.
Beckett snorts. “Yeah. And I’m retiring next week.”
I don’t respond because I don’t actually believe that either.
The rest of the shift drags. Every quiet moment gives my brain too much room to work with and it keeps circling back to the same place.
Lark.
The way she looked at me this morning. The way she didn’t pull away. The way she said she wasn’t leaving and meant it.
And I don’t know what to do with it yet.
Except…I don’t want to let it go.
By the time I get a break in my double shift, the sky has shifted into that soft, late afternoon light that stretches everything out just a little longer than it should.
I don’t head home right away, don’t even think about it. Instead, I turn the truck toward town.
The inn is quiet when I pull up. Too quiet. My pulse stumbles once before I catch sight of her through the front window. Moving. Focused. Exactly where she said she’d be. Relief hits harder than it should.
I push the door open and step inside. She doesn’t look up right away, too focused on whatever she’s working on.
I lean against the frame, watching her for a second longer than I should. Watch the way she shifts her weight when she’sthinking, the way she brushes dust off her hands without really noticing, and the way she hums under her breath—quiet enough that I don’t think she realizes she’s doing it.
It should feel like observation. It doesn’t. It feels like… something closer to recognition.
Like I’ve seen this before. Not her exactly—but the shape of it. The way she fills a space without trying. The way she makes something half-finished look like it’s already becoming something whole.
And for a second, I forget I’m just supposed to be passing through this part of her life.
Yeah, this is a problem because I shouldn’t notice things like that, shouldn’t care, but I do and have since the first night she stayed in my house.
“Still working,” I say.
She startles just slightly, glancing up.
