Page 223 of Lost Then Found
I think about Boone, about the way his hand feels wrapped around mine now, and at least I know that hewantsa future with me. I don’t know what it looks like yet, where we’ll end up, what kind of house we’ll live in or how we’ll juggle it all. But I don’t worry about the details.
I just want to spend it with him.
Chapter 24
BOONE
Dear Jack,
When we were kids, I used to make Lark rings out of whatever I could get my hands on. Gum wrappers. Twine from the barn. Paper towel scraps, twisted and knotted until they looked like something you might want to keep. One time, I wrapped a soda tab in duct tape so it wouldn’t cut her. Another time, I carved one out of a branch with my pocketknife—damn near sliced my finger off, but it came out looking half-decent. She wore that one the longest.
She used to ask me why I made them for her, like there had to be some logic to it—some reason a boy would turn throwaway things into tokens for a girl who already had his whole heart in her back pocket.
I remember I told her, “So you don’t forget you’re mine.”
I was nine, Jack. Barely old enough to tie my own boots right, but I meant it. Even then, I think I knew she was it for me.
I think about that now, sitting here on the porch at Old Faithful, the sun starting to come up behind the ridge. The air’s already warming, sky that dusty shade of pink before it gives way to blue. I’m sitting in the place where, hopefully, I’ll give her a real ring one day soon. One that won’t fall apart in the rain or rub her skin raw.
I didn’t know what love was back then, not even close. I just knew I wanted to be her constant. Her quiet. Her always. I wanted to be the reason she feltsafe in a world that never is.
Turns out love hasn’t changed much for me. It’s still the small things. The quiet decisions. The showing up—over and over again. It’s making the bed on her side because I know she won’t. It’s making her coffee just the way she likes it, even when I forget my own. It’s holding my tongue when I want to win and reaching for her hand instead. It’s losing sleep just to hear the sound of her laugh at 2 a.m.—raspy, unguarded, wrapped around some half-told story she doesn’t even finish because we’re both too busy smiling.
It’s standing in the wreckage of who we used to be, hands outstretched, saying—Still. I choose you.
It’s knowing she could’ve built a hundred different lives with a hundred different people—some smoother, some easier. But she wakes up beside me. Every damn day. And that? That makes me the luckiest man alive.
And I’d do whatever it takes to make sure she stays. Not because I’m afraid of losing her, but because life without her doesn’t feel like much of a life at all.
That’s what I’d tell her now, I think, if she asked me why I made those rings.
—B
Footsteps creak across the porch behind me, followed by a couple of familiar voices. Witt appears first, coffee in hand, the smell strong and sharp in the morning air. Duke’s not far behind.
Duke claps a heavy hand on my shoulder, nodding toward Old Faithful. “Gotta say, Boone…this place has come a long fuckin’ way.”
I stand, brushing the dust from my jeans as I turn to look at it. He’s not wrong.
It’s not done, not yet, but we’re close. Closer than I ever thought we’d be when we first walked into this god-forsaken place and found holes in the floor and raccoon shit in the cabinets.
The floors are down, real hardwood that Ridge and I cut ourselves, planed and stained and sealed over a weekend that damn near killed us. I ran the tubing underneath, made them heated because I know how Lark hates walking barefoot in the winter, tiptoeing around the boards because they’re freezing. She wouldn’t ask for it, and that’s exactly why I want her to haveit.
The walls are finally up, not just the framing. Real walls. The wiring—Christ, the wiring—was a fucking bitch. Took the most time, tore up our hands, and made Ridge curse so loud I’m pretty sure it scared off any remaining raccoons living in a hundred mile radius. But we got it done a couple days ago, lights flickering on for the first time without somehow blowing a fuse. There’s insulation that’ll keep the cold out come winter and the heat in during those long Montana nights.
The arched windows are in—took forever to get them delivered, but they were worth it. They catch the morning light just right, flooding the place in gold first thing, and in the evening they frame the mountains like a damn painting. Ridge and I got the heavy wooden doors up last week, solid enough now that when we’re not working, nothing’s getting inside. No more critters, no more wind carrying in half the dirt from the pasture.
We’ve still got a ways to go. The walls need paint—haven’t thought about colors yet, but I’ve got a feeling Lark will have opinions when the time comes. She’s got good taste, always has. I can already hear her telling me the difference between ivory and cream like it’s life or death.
I still need to pick out marble for the kitchen counters and the island. Something clean, maybe with a little veining, nothing too polished. I’ve caught myself more than once imagining her standing at that island, Hudson sitting there, doing his homework and talking our ear off about whatever has his brain spinning that day.
There’s trim to finish and the master bath’s still half a construction zone. Duke thinks we can be done in two more weeks if we really bust our asses. Every time I walk through it now—floors in, lights on, windows casting shadows on real walls—it feels less like a project and more like a home. Hers. Ours. She just doesn’t know it yet.
And I think—Jack should’ve seen this.
I feel his absence in the things I want to show him. In the doorways I build and the walls I put up. In the shape of the world he should still be part of.
Years have passed. And still, I grieve him.
