Page 128 of At First Spark
That earns me another of those low, unguarded laughs I’m still not entirely used to hearing from him, the one that sounds more like the Holt everyone says used to fill every room before life sharpened his edges.
He stands, offering me his hand without a word. I should not love it so much that I take it for granted the way I do.
The kitchen is cold at first, the house not fully awake yet, but it warms quickly as coffee starts, cabinet doors open, and the familiar rhythm of a morning takes shape around us. Holt moves with the ease of habit, grabbing mugs, setting a pan on the stove, and opening the back door with one hand so Rook can barrel into the yard, as if he’s been denied freedom for years instead of a single night.
I lean against the counter and watch him without trying very hard to hide it.
The broad line of his shoulders beneath a faded navy T-shirt. The way he reaches without looking and always finds exactly what he needs. The little half hum under his breath when he cracks eggs into the pan that tells me some piece of the easier man he used to be still lives under all the steadier, more careful parts he built later.
Holt slides a plate in front of me. “Eat.”
Normally, I would tell him not to tell me what to do. Normally, I’d use the argument to hide behind. This morning I just sit and do it, because the quiet domesticity of eggs and coffee and rain-washed light across the floor feels too fragile to bruise on purpose.
“Hadley’s coming by later,” he says. “She texted at six thirty with an unreasonable number of question marks, which usually means she thinks she’s being subtle.”
I look down at my coffee to hide the smile.
“About the inn?” I ask.
Holt’s mouth curves. “Mm. Among other things.”
There’s comfort in the ordinary shape of that sound. In the fact that after everything—the storm, the fear, the tracks at the inn, what happened between us—the world still insists on breakfast and sisters and dogs that need drying off after bad decisions in puddles.
It would be easier if life separated itself into clean compartments. Work here. Fear there. Love somewhere else entirely.
By the time I leave for the inn, the skies have cleared enough to let pale sun through the thinning clouds. The roads are still wet, tree limbs down here and there, puddles gathered in the usual low places where the town forgets to drain properly. Holt doesn’t come with me. He can’t. He’s due at the station in an hour, and there are chores left undone from last night’s weather besides.
We stand on the porch a second longer than either of us needs to, the damp wood beneath our shoes still cool from the rain. Rook circles once between us before settling at Holt’s side as if to make a point.
“You call if anything feels off,” Holt says.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
I look up at him, really look. At the seriousness in his face, the lack of performance in it. He isn’t trying to be dramatic. He isn’t trying to impress me. He’s standing there with his entire heart too close to the surface and asking me to be careful because he doesn’t know how not to.
“I know,” I say again, softer this time.
He hesitates, then reaches for me the way he does everything else—with intention. Fingers brushing the inside of my wrist first, then closing lightly. Not a grip. A touch. A promise disguised as one.
It would be so easy to kiss him. So easy to choose softness over caution, just for a second. But this morning doesn’t belong to softness.
So I step in just enough to press my forehead briefly to his chest, let myself steal one beat of steadiness from him, then step back before I can change my mind.
His hand catches at my waist for the space of a heartbeat and then lets me go.
At the inn, the storm’s aftermath is everywhere. Wet porch boards. Leaves plastered against the siding. Mud tracked near the side gate where the deputy had walked the property last night before the rain ruined any chance of preserving what was left of the prints. Nolan’s truck is there already, parked in its usual spot, and irritation flickers through me automatically before I can decide whether it’s fair.
He’s standing in the front hall when I enter, shirtsleeves rolled, tape measure clipped to his belt, a yellow legal pad spread across the same table where so much tension has already gathered in the past week. The place smells damp and old andnewly raw, the rain having driven moisture into every fragile thing we’re trying to save.
“You’re late,” he says without looking up.
I shut the door behind me. “Good morning to you too.”
He finally glances over. Whatever he sees in my face makes his expression shift in a way I can’t fully read.
“You look rested.”
