Page 75 of Lost Then Found
I don’t think I want the answer.
So I just keep riding. Eyes on the horizon. My mouth outh shut.
And my heart wide open in all the places I swore I’d closed off for good.
**********
By the time we reach the main house, Hudson is already there, perched on the porch steps beside Wren. His face is still pink from the wind, hair sticking up in places, his grin wide as he talks animatedly to her.
Boone shifts behind me, and I take that as my cue to get off this damn horse. I move carefully, swinging my right leg over, gripping the saddle horn as I slide down. My boots hit the dirt, and I take a second to steady myself, knees a little weak, body still humming with residual tension.
Boone swings down next, landing solidly, all muscle and ease. He gathers Springsteen’s reins in one hand, running a palm down his neck, his voice easy, unreadable. “Gonna take him back to the barn. I’ll be back in a few.”
I nod, watching as he walks away. His strides are slow, unhurried, his broad shoulders rolling under his flannel with each step. The late afternoon sun catches the curve of his jaw, the strong line of his back. My fingers twitch at my sides, like some part of me still remembers what it felt like to reach for him.
“Lark? Is that you?”
The voice makes me turn, and suddenly I’m being wrapped in a hug, a warm, familiar one that still smells like vanilla and fresh linen.
Molly.
She’s holding a casserole dish in one hand, a stack of Tupperwarecontainers balanced against her hip. Loretta is behind her, dark hair swept into a loose bun, her sharp brown eyes scanning me with a knowing kind of amusement. She’s in her fifties now, still as sturdy as ever in her faded jeans and worn button-down, the same no-nonsense woman who’s kept this ranch running on a full stomach for as long as I can remember.
Molly squeezes me tighter, and for a second, I let myself sink into it. Because if Alice was the one who raised me, Molly was the one who reminded me I wasn’t alone.
Molly Wilding was warmth. That’s what I remember most about her.
When I was little, Molly was the one who braided my hair before dinner, her fingers quick and sure, pulling my wild blonde waves into something neat. She always had a way of making it feel like love, like safety—like I belonged there.
When I was nine, she taught me how to bake, letting me stand on a stool next to her in the kitchen while she measured out flour and sugar. She’d let me lick the spoon after mixing the batter, laughing when I got chocolate on my nose. “That’s the best part,” she’d say with a wink.
When I was twelve, she was the one who held me after my first heartbreak, when a boy at school promised me something he didn’t mean. She let me cry into her shoulder, smoothing my hair and telling me that some boys don’t know how to hold onto a good thing when they have it. “But the right one will,” she promised.
And when I was eighteen, standing in this very driveway, crying as I told Boone goodbye, she was the one who found me afterward. Who pulled me into the kitchen, put a warm plate of food in front of me even though I swore I wasn’t hungry, and told me I was going to be okay. Even though I didn’t believe her.
Now, as she steps back to take me in, her eyes are as knowing as they were back then. “Well, would you look at that,” she murmurs, shaking her head like she can’t believe it. “I always knew you’d find your way back here, baby girl.”
I pull back just enough to look at her, taking in the crinkles at the corners of her light brown eyes. Boone’s eyes. Hudson’s eyes. “You haven’t aged aday.”
Molly grins, her free hand cupping my cheek for just a second before she steps back. “You always were full of it.”
Before I can say anything else, Loretta steps up and pulls me into a hug of her own.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” she drawls, her thick Texas accent just as rich as I remember. “If it isn’t our little bird, back on Wilding Ranch.”
I laugh, squeezing her back. “I guess some things don’t change.”
She pulls away, eyeing me like she’s making sure I’m real. “You look good, darlin’,” she says, nodding in approval. “Too damn skinny, though. I reckon we’ll fix that tonight.”
Hudson steps up beside me, and Molly’s eyes land on him, her face going soft in a way that almost guts me. She looks at him like she’s seeing a miracle, like she’s trying to soak up every detail—the brown eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw, the way he stands just a little too cool for a twelve-year-old.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she murmurs, pressing a hand to her chest like she needs to steady herself. “Would you look at you?”
Hudson shifts on his feet, looking between me and Molly, unsure. “Uh, hi?”
That snaps her out of it. She shakes her head, lets out a breathy laugh, and plants her hands on her hips. “Now, is that any way to greet your long-lost grandmother? Come here, sugar.”
Hudson hesitates for half a second before stepping forward, and Molly wraps him up in a hug so warm, so full, that I swear I can feel it too.
