Page 115 of At First Spark
I end up in the back with Ivy and the pastries, Rook sprawled across the seat between us like he absolutely belongs here. Hadley claims shotgun. Lila takes the driver’s seat after one quick argument with Bailey about navigation that is clearly part of a routine neither of them dislikes enough to stop repeating.
The ride into town is loud in the easy way I’m still getting used to. Not overwhelming. Just full. Hadley talks with her whole body, turning halfway in her seat every time she has something to say, which is often. Bailey edits the running commentary with the dry precision of someone who’s known her too long to let exaggerations stand. Lila laughs low and often, the kind of laugh that sounds lived-in, and Ivy cuts in every now and then with one quiet line that settles better than anything else said before it. I listen to most of it. Then, slowly, I stop just listening and start answering.
The first stop is more coffee. The second is Bailey’s bookstore because apparently no trip into town can happen without it. The place is quieter this early, sun cutting through the front windows in wide golden bands that catch dust and paper and the soft edges of old wood shelves worn smooth with time. The bell over the door rings when we step in, and something in me settles the second I smell the familiar mix of books, coffee, and sea air drifting in from outside.
This place feels like a refuge.
Hadley disappears toward the front display with a dramatic gasp over a new romance release. Lila heads toward the children’s section, already muttering something about a book Dean promised he’d remember to pick up and definitely forgot. Ivy wanders toward the back with Rook pacing loyally ather heel, one hand trailing lightly over the spines of books as she passes.
Bailey lingers near the register beside me, rearranging a stack of bookmarks that do not need rearranging.
“You can breathe in here,” she says quietly.
I glance at her, but she doesn’t look up from the display.
“Was I not?”
“You were,” she says, “but more like someone forgot to let it fill your lungs.”
That earns a short laugh out of me before I can stop it.
Bailey finally looks over. “There she is.”
Something about that phrase catches me wrong and right at the same time. Because my father used to say it whenever I came back to myself after getting too quiet. There she is, Little Lark. Usually, when I’d spent too long sketching by myself at some jobsite or had gotten angry enough to retreat into silence and needed a hand pulling me back without it feeling like a rescue.
I look away before the ache gets too visible. Bailey catches it anyway.
“He said that,” I say, keeping my voice low. “My dad.”
Bailey’s hand stills on the edge of the register. “There she is.”
I nod once.
The silence between us stretches, but it doesn’t turn uncomfortable. The women in this town have a way of letting silence hold without making it a burden. It’s one of the things I’m still learning.
“He sounds like he knew you,” she says.
The answer rises so quickly it surprises me.
“He did,” I say. “Or he tried to. Better than anyone else, anyway.”
Bailey waits and doesn’t rush me. The store murmurs around us—pages turning, Hadley laughing at something from the next aisle over, the low rustle of movement deeper in the stacks. Safe sounds. Steady ones.
“My mother likes certainty,” I say after a moment. “Or the appearance of it. Plans. outcomes. What things should look like to other people. My dad…” I glance toward the window, where the light catches the display table near the front. “He liked possibility. He liked old things and second chances and projects that made no financial sense if you looked at them too hard.”
Bailey smiles faintly. “Sounds familiar.”
“It should,” I say. “That’s why he wanted the inn.”
The inn is the last dream of his that never got finished. The one thing he kept circling back to, no matter how many other contracts came through, no matter how many times my mother told him it was impractical or too expensive or too much trouble for a man with a family and employees and responsibilities that required less imagination and more common sense.
My throat tightens without warning. I make myself keep talking before I lose my nerve.
“After he died, my mother didn’t just take over the business. She corrected it. That’s how she framed it.” The bitterness in my own voice catches me off guard. “Cleaned it up. Made it sustainable. Which mostly meant taking everything he loved out of it and replacing it with smaller jobs, safer numbers, no risks.”
Bailey leans one shoulder against the register and folds her arms loosely. “And your ex.”
I laugh once, low and sharp. “My ex was useful.”
