Page 135 of At First Spark
“What time?”
“Late enough that normal people were in bed.”
Kenzie knows exactly where the main farmhouse is. She knows the whole property. That shouldn’t be new information. It still hits like a warning shot.
Hadley must see something in my face because some of the easy humor falls away. “She didn’t get out. She didn’t talk to anyone. But it was weird.”
Weird.
That word feels insultingly small for the shape of the dread settling under my ribs.
I drag a hand over my jaw and look toward the window, toward the stretch of wet grass between my place and the larger house in the distance. Everything out there looks so normal in the morning light. Fences. Trees. The lane curving out toward the road. The calm of it feels like a lie now that I know she was sitting out there in the dark watching.
“She ever do anything like this before?” Hadley asks quietly.
I take too long to answer. Because yes and no are both wrong.
Kenzie’s chaos never used to look like this. It used to be smaller. More personal. A dozen late-night texts in a row when I didn’t answer fast enough. Showing up at a bar when she knew I was there with friends. Turning every boundary into a dare just to see whether I’d hold it.
“She liked attention,” I say finally. “And she didn’t love hearing no.”
Hadley huffs softly. “That’s a very polite way to describe a woman parked outside our mother’s kitchen at midnight.”
I don’t answer, because there isn’t a better one that doesn’t involve language Mom would absolutely hear through the walls by some supernatural gift mothers have.
Hadley folds her arms across the table. “You need to tell Lark about the house.”
“She already knows Kenzie’s in town.”
“That is not the same thing.”
The problem is that every new detail feels like handing Lark one more reason to pack up and prove she was right not to trust any of this. Not me. Not the farm. Not the impossible, reckless thing between us that somehow started feeling real before either of us said it out loud.
And still keeping things from her is its own kind of lie. I push my breakfast away half-finished, appetite gone.
Hadley notices. She reaches across and taps the container lid with one finger. “Mom is going to know you stopped eating after three bites.”
“Mom knows too much.”
“She carried you for nine months. It’s in the manual.”
I stand before the conversation can turn into whatever version of sisterly emotional ambush she has planned next and take my plate to the sink.
“I’m going to the inn.”
Hadley makes a small, displeased sound. “You’re also sleeping sometime before that.”
“I slept.”
“Which means you passed out in a chair for an hour after shift. That doesn’t count.”
I rinse the fork and set it down harder than necessary. “I'm good.”
Hadley grabs the trash, gathers the empty cups, and heads for the door with the self-satisfaction of a woman who knows she’s been useful and plans to hold it over my head later.
At the threshold, she pauses and glances back.
“Hey.”
