Page 109 of At First Spark
Lark smirks and says, “I can see that about you.”
“Yeah, then there was a fire at my parents’ farm,” I say. “Nothing big. But I was there.”
“And?”
“And I didn’t know what to do, like I was frozen on the spot.”
Her expression doesn’t shift into pity, so I keep talking.
“I watched everyone else move like it mattered,” I say. “Like they knew exactly how to fix it.”
“And you didn’t.”
“No.”
I exhale slowly.
“It was as if suddenly I felt like the current version of me was taking up space, taking away the air they needed to breathe. I didn’t like that version of me.”
Her gaze holds mine.
“So you became someone else.”
“Yeah. Someone my family and the town could be proud of.”
She doesn’t respond right away, just watches me, like she’s seeing something new. Something she didn’t expect. And for a second, I wonder what that looks like from her side.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
“For what?”
“For risking your life to save others.”
I shake my head slightly.
“What you do matters, Holt. You matter, always did.”
We eat our meals, the tone of the evening changing as we chat about the renovation and how much work she has left, and some of the things that happen in Coral Bell Cove throughout the year. Lark gets excited when I mention the million festivals the town holds, especially the annual Christmas parade. I’d do or say just about anything to keep the smile on her face.
When we finish eating and I’ve paid the bill, I don’t take her straight back to the inn. Not yet. Instead, I drive past the turnoff toward the overlook. The one place in town that feels just far enough removed from everything else.
Lark doesn’t question it, just watches out the window of my truck as the bay passes by.
Once we get to the gravel path that juts out over the bay, we sit there for a while not talking. Not needing to. And it doesn’t feel like silence.
It feels like something settling.
Like all the noise I carry around—calls, expectations, the constant readiness for something to go wrong—just…quieted. Not gone. Just not louder than her.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she says eventually, letting out a deep sigh as she takes in the salty air.
“I know.”
“Then why did you?”
I glance at her knowing she deserves the truth.
“Because you needed something that wasn’t the inn,” I say.
