Page 129 of At First Spark
The comment hits too close to the truth.
“I slept.”
“That’s usually how that works.”
The dryness in his voice would be easier to tolerate if I couldn’t also hear the edge under it. Whatever happened between us before—whatever shape it had when I left—is bleeding into the work now, and I hate that more than I know how to fix.
We work for the next several hours with the kind of focus that only comes when two people are trying very hard not to think about anything but the task at hand. Nolan handles contractors and supply calls. I start in the front parlor, pulling damp wallpaper from the lower sections where the storm found its way through a seam in the old frame. Dust clings to my hands. The room smells like mildew and old plaster and stubbornness.
It should be enough to keep me occupied. It almost is. Then the bell over the front door rings.
I look up from the scraper in my hand, expecting Bailey or Hadley or maybe the deputy. Instead, Kenzie walks in like she’s entering somewhere she’s already decided belongs to her.
Everything in me goes still.
She is prettier than I expected, and that annoys me on principle. Dark hair skims her shoulders, white tank beneath a leather jacket that feels absurdly out of place for midday in a damp coastal town, mouth set in a smile that says she knows exactly what she’s doing by being here.
But it’s not her appearance that unsettles me. It’s the way her eyes move immediately. Cataloging. The front desk. The scattered renovation plans. The open ledger beside my coffee cup. Like she’s looking for something specific.
Nolan steps out from the back hall at the same time, and for one weird suspended second, all three of us just exist in the same ruined room with too much history that doesn’t belong together.
Kenzie’s gaze lands on me first, then deliberately drops to the handwritten renovation schedule spread across the counter before returning to my face.
“Well,” she says. “This is charming.”
I slowly set the scraper down before I accidentally use it for something that would derail the rest of my life.
“Can I help you?”
Her smile sharpens slightly. “I was actually hoping to help you.”
Nolan’s eyes narrow immediately. “And you are?”
She turns toward him with bright, easy interest. “Kenzie.”
He doesn’t offer his name back.
Interesting.
“Lark,” Kenzie says, turning toward me again, “I’ve heard so much about you.”
That gives me the choice of either acknowledging Holt outright or pretending not to understand her implication.
I choose a third option.
“That sounds unfortunate.”
For one fraction of a second, surprise flashes across her face. Then admiration. Then something uglier.
“I like her,” she says to Nolan like I’m not standing right there.
Nolan’s mouth does not move. “You shouldn’t.”
Kenzie laughs softly, delighted.
“Oh, I definitely should.”
My skin crawls.
