Page 178 of At First Spark
“What I want is to stand beside you while you build everything you came here for. And selfishly, I want to be part of it too.”
For one long second, the world is very quiet, then Lark smiles in that slow, beautiful way that always looks like she feels it before she allows it all the way to the surface.
“Well,” she says softly. “That’s inconvenient.”
I laugh. She steps closer, close enough that our hands press between us, and tips her head back.
“I’m in it too,” she says.
No flourish. No dramatic confession. Just truth offered plain and steady.
I kiss her there in the yard with the ruined barn at our backs and the future not yet built in front of us, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, the thing I feel most isn’t fear. It’s peace.
Epilogue – Lark
One year later
Standing at the edge of the front lawn, nursing the drink Bailey insisted on for "celebratory nerves" (even though I'm totally chill), the inn doesn’t feel like a fragile work of art any longer.
The structure rises behind me, steady and whole, every line restored with intention instead of desperation. The wraparound porch has been sanded smooth and repainted, with the original trim brought back to life in a way that feels like honoring rather than replacing. The windows reflect the late afternoon light, clean and bright, the glass catching the movement of people gathering on the lawn and along the walk.
It doesn’t look like something that's about to fall apart. It looks like something that fought its way not to.
Voices drift across the yard in overlapping threads—laughter, conversation, the hum of a town that has fully inserted itself into something I once thought I had to build alone. String lights stretch overhead, already glowing faintly as the sun dips lower, the warm bulbs softening everything into something that feels less like an event and more like a moment.
My moment. Ours. I take a slow breath, letting it settle all the way through me.
“This is the part where you pretend you’re not about to cry.”
Hadley’s voice slides in from my left, perfectly timed and completely unhelpful.
I glance at her, arching a brow. “I’m not going to cry.”
“Mm,” she hums, sipping from her drink like she’s deeply unconvinced. “That’s what people say right before they absolutely do.”
I ignore her…mostly. She grins, looping her arm through mine anyway, her energy exactly the same and completely different all at once. There’s still that bright, quick spark to her, but there’s something steadier underneath it now, something that wasn’t there before everything happened.
Or maybe I just know how to see it now.
“You did this,” she says, softer this time.
I look back at the inn, taking it in the way I’ve done a hundred times over the last few weeks, checking for flaws, for things I might’ve missed, for anything that still needs adjusting. But today… Today , I don’t see what’s unfinished. I see what stands.
“I didn’t do it alone,” I say.
Hadley bumps her shoulder into mine lightly. “You kind of did.”
I shake my head. “No.”
My gaze drifts across the lawn, finding the familiar faces that have filled this space without ever asking permission to matter. Claire is directing someone to the food table, as if she’s been running events here her entire life. Bailey, already halfway through a conversation with a group of guests who look like they walked in for a quiet evening and got swept into something bigger. Lila and Ivy stand near the porch steps, Rook prancing around their feet, Ivy’s hand resting absentmindedly on the railing as she smiles at something Rowan says, the ease between them soft and settled.
And then—him.
Holt stands just off to the side, one hand tucked into the pocket of his jeans, the other holding a bottle he hasn’t taken a sip from in at least five minutes. He’s not in uniform, not in anything that marks him as anything other than what he is here—part of this, part of me, part of something that doesn’t need explanation anymore.
He catches my gaze like he feels it. His mouth curves slightly, not a full smile, not for anyone else, just enough for me to see it from across the distance.
Something in my chest shifts.
