He pulled away. “We need to talk about Jet and Wade, but I think I need to get back into the kitchen, or all the doughnuts will be gone and I’ll have nothing for your grammy or my family.”
“Let’s go, Johnny.” Lark gave him a playful look as she started for the door, laughing outright when he asked, “Johnny?” behind her in the most adorably confused tone ever.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
“Right here?” Cash asked, and he pulled into a parking space.
“This is as close as we’re going to get,” Lark said.
The sun had set an hour ago, and Cash and Lark had made the hour-long drive from the house in Dog Valley to the fifty-five-plus community in Coral Canyon, laughing and talking about his cousins and the day they’d experienced.
Cash couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such full days, and it felt like he and Lark had been flirting and dancing around each other, holding hands, confessing feelings, and attending church together for two years instead of two days.
He put the truck in park and looked over to Lark, the orange glow of the streetlights easily illuminating her face. “What else have they said?” he asked, and his heart felt full to the brim with love for his cousins…and affection for Lark.
He couldn’t believe he’d nearly started crying at lunchtime, but looking at everyone sitting at the table at a meal that he’d prepared and invited them to had warmed him so completely. Cash had truly felt part of a family in that moment, for the first time in a very long time, despite the cousin nights and theother ways that his family—half-siblings, aunts and uncles, and cousins—had shown love to him.
For some reason, the fact that they’d shown up, no questions asked as to whether he could cook or not, had changed something inside him profoundly. He still had bits and pieces of Lark’s prayer flowing through his mind, and she’d revealed so much about her character and faith in less than sixty seconds.
He’d seen his family converge on someone and wrap them up in the middle of a huddle-hug only one previous time in his life, and that had been for Bailey McAllister at Bryce and Codi’s wedding. But standing there in his comfortable space and having all of his adult cousins swarm him had testified to Cash that he’d needed to be home in Coral Canyon. He still wasn’t entirely sure why, but he now knew he belonged.
“Nothing much more,” Lark said. “Kassie still wants the recipe for the meatballs, and Corinne wishes she’d left her family dinner to come for lunch.” Lark handed his phone back to him. “Oh, and Cole says he feels really bad he missed it, and he does want to stay at the house tonight.”
Cash took his device and reached for the paper plate that held two jam-filled doughnuts for Lark’s grandmother. “That’s okay, right? I mean, I’ve let him stay in the house plenty of times. He just sleeps in the guest bedroom across the hall.”
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Lark said. “You’re the one in charge of the house, Cash. I’m the visitor.” She unbuckled and turned to get out of the truck.
He didn’t believe her for a moment, but he did the same while she collected the containers of meatballs and mashed potatoes they’d brought for her grammy from the backseat. It didn’t seem like much, and Cash had a much bigger container of doughnuts for his family.
He and Lark walked side by side down the sidewalk toward the condo buildings. “My grandparents live here,” he said. “But over on the other side.”
“Oh, do they?” she said. “Maybe Grammy knows them.”
“We’ll have to ask. My grandma’s still social, but my grandpa is pretty quiet, and he’s had a lot of health problems lately.”
Lark reached over and took Cash’s hand in hers, and besides her lifting his face to look at her in the bedroom earlier today, he thought it was the first time she’d initiated the physical contact between them.
“Your hands are cold,” he murmured.
“That’s because it’s negative ten degrees out here.”
He smiled despite the grumpy tone Lark had spoken with. “Wyoming’s not for the weak-hearted,” he said.
Lark led him to the back side of one of the buildings, and thankfully, they didn’t have to climb any stairs. Cash could have done it, but he wastired, having gotten up early, and he really had been working all day long, either with his hands on the food, or with his mind on the sermon and then Lark, or displaying his charming personality with all of his cousins and their different demeanors.
Entertaining certainly was hard work, and he still had two visits to get through.No, three,he told himself, as he’d still be awake when Jet and Wade arrived later tonight.
Lark knocked on the door and tried the doorknob but found it locked. “Grammy? It’s Lark.”
A bump came from inside the condo and the sound of a raspy woman’s voice, but it still took several long seconds before her grandmother opened the door. Lark beamed from ear to ear, and Cash had never seen her quite like this.
“Grammy,” she said, and she released his hand, shoved the bag with the containers of food in it at him, and practically threw herself into her grandmother’s arms.
“Oh, my girl,” her grandmother said, and she hugged Lark tight as well.
Cash’s heart ached at the display of loneliness that Lark let him see. She was strong too, and she said she talked to her mother often, but she really had been alone in college, taking care of herself and worried about her grandmother.
