Page 116 of At First Spark
She doesn’t react to the edge in the word. Just listens.
“Michael had a finance brain and a polished smile and exactly the kind of confidence my mother trusted.” The memory leaves a bad taste in my mouth; one I thought time had dulled more than it apparently has. “He started as a consultant. Then he became a sounding board. Then he became indispensable. At least according to her.”
“And according to you?”
I stare down at the grain of the wooden counter under my hand. “According to me, I was grieving and angry and too tired to see what was happening until he was already standing in the middle of it.”
Because that was how it happened. Not in one dramatic betrayal. Not with a shouting match or a single devastating reveal. It happened in a hundred smaller moments. Michael slowly becoming part of every conversation, every contract, every decision. Michael stepping in to “help” until I no longer knew where his influence ended and mine began. Michael telling me my father’s way of doing things was sentimental at best and irresponsible at worst. My mother agreeing with him more often than not.
The day I realized they were right only in the sense that they wanted the same thing was the day I knew I had to leave. Staying meant becoming someone I didn’t recognize.
“He wanted the business,” I say. “Not me. Or maybe both, for a while. I don’t know anymore. But by the end, it didn’t matter. The version of life they were building didn’t have room for me unless I agreed to be reshaped to fit it.”
Bailey’s face softens. “So you left.”
“I stayed longer than I should have,” I say. “Then I found the file.”
Her brows draw together slightly.
“What file?”
I let out a slow breath. “The inn. My dad kept everything. Photos, tax records, old renovation estimates, notes in the margins of printouts that went back ten years. He’d kept all of it in a box in the storage room at the office. Michael had it labeled archived so no one would trip over it.”
The old anger flashes hot and immediate, enough that I have to set my coffee down before I spill it.
“When I opened it, every note in his handwriting felt like a dare,” I say. “Like the only way to keep any part of him from disappearing under what they were turning his business into was to come here and do the thing he never got to finish.”
Bailey is quiet for a second. “That seems like they were trying to make him disappear,” she murmured.
That word has been used against me so many times that it almost sounds harmless now. Nolan. My mother. Michael before either of them. The idea that anything emotional is automatically lesser. That wanting something and being professional about it can’t coexist in the same person.
It’s a lie. One I’m tired of defending myself against.
By the time Hadley rejoins us carrying three books she absolutely does not need and one candle she claims “emotionally spoke to her,” I’ve stopped feeling like I’m balancing on the edge of something. Not steady exactly. Just less alone in it.
The rest of the afternoon moves in scenes instead of hours. Lunch on the patio behind the bookstore with too manyfries and not enough shade. Hadley insisting I try on a dress in the boutique next door “for absolutely no reason that involves my brother,” which means the reason absolutely involves Holt. Lila taking a phone call from Dean and rolling her eyes with so much affection that it almost hurts to look at. Ivy sitting cross-legged on the grass with Rook, feeding him tiny pieces of chicken while explaining in a low voice why certain flowers at the nursery won’t survive the heat this far into summer.
For a few hours, I let myself be here. The spell breaks the second my phone buzzes again. Not my mother this time. Nolan. I almost let it ring out. Almost. But he’s at the inn, and the job still matters no matter how much the rest of my life has started leaking around the edges of it.
“What?
The answer comes out sharper than I intend.
His voice on the other end is controlled enough to make me instantly suspicious. “Someone’s been here.”
I straighten in my seat, every easy ounce of the past few hours gone in an instant. The patio around me blurs slightly, voices and traffic and cutlery dropping to background noise.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there are footprints near the back of the carriage house that weren’t there this morning. And someone moved the tarp off the west-side materials stack.”
My pulse kicks hard.
“Did you see anyone?”
“No. But the latch on the side gate was open.”
The image comes fast and ugly—someone at the edge of the property, close enough to touch what’s left of the place, to look in, to decide something.
