The Second Chance Café (A Hope Springs Novel Book 1)

by Alison Kent

  It was girl talk, punctuated with waved hands and wide eyes and nodded understanding. It was comfortable, natural, familiar when familiarity made no sense. Yet as their bond blossomed, Kaylie opened up, as if a door shut tight for years had flung wide. “Depending on how much news is getting out, you may not know that I used to live here.”

  “In Hope Springs?”

  “In this house. I came here when I was ten.”

  “You must’ve lived with the Wises,” Luna said.

  “Did you know them? Would I have known you? We’re about the same age, I think, but I’ve forgotten most of the kids I grew up with.”

  But the other woman was already shaking her head. “I went to a private school. And I only know of the Wises from hearing their names come up in conversation.”

  “Do they come up a lot?” Kaylie asked, wondering why they would, in what context. Wondering if anyone ever talked about her, about what had happened. Who might know more than she did and could answer questions, or point her to where she could find them.

  “No, but they were very well thought of. I know Dolly Breeze was good friends with May, and Dolly’s heavily involved in the local craft scene. She’s the one I heard talking about your café.”

  “May Wise is the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t know where I’d be today if my caseworker hadn’t sent me here.” She wrapped both hands around her coffee mug and stared down into her drink. “My first few foster homes didn’t exactly work out. Most of that was my fault, I’m sure. I was confused and angry and I missed my parents terribly. And I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

  “Don’t worry about it. You must’ve entered the system fairly young, if you came here when you were ten. I can’t imagine much of anything being your fault.”

  Kaylie shrugged. Her logical side knew Luna was right, but her logical side wasn’t the one that woke up with nightmares. “Part of coming back here is about finding out what happened with my parents to send me into foster care.”

  “You don’t know?” Luna asked, having gone still, her gaze caught on Kaylie’s.

  “I remember enough of the specifics.” She wasn’t going to talk about the knife, or the body on the kitchen floor, or the blood on her toes. “But I don’t know where either of my parents are. Why they never came to get me.”

  “You haven’t heard from either of them?”

  She shook her head. “Not in twenty-three years.”

  “So you’re taking matters into your own hands.”

  And hoping her hands were big enough. “Something like that.”

  “I feel like I should wish you luck,” Luna said, with just enough hesitation for Kaylie to sense her discomfort, as if she didn’t want to cause more pain than Kaylie had already endured. “I’d be more of a basket case than I already am if I hadn’t had my parents to keep me sane.”

  “I had May and Winton. Only for eight years, but those eight years were everything. And please don’t feel bad telling me how close you are to your parents. You should be. You’re supposed to be. And I’m glad for anyone who has that.”

  After that, the conversation returned to her plans for the café. While talking about the casseroles May had served in an effort to stretch a dollar, Luna told her about Dolly Breeze losing her husband, and that to make ends meet, the older woman had gone to work for a local contractor, Ten Keller.

  “Word has it that she keeps him on his toes,” Luna said.

  “Did I tell you he’s doing my renovations?”

  “No, but I assumed he would be.”

  That gave Kaylie pause. “Why the assumption?”

  “Ten Keller is pretty much the local go-to guy for such things.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “You mean personally?”

  Kaylie nodded.

  “He’s single. He’s hot.” She said it with a grin. “He takes care of those around him. Why he hasn’t been snatched up is always a topic of gossip. At least in the circles where people do that sort of speculating,” she said and added a wink.

  Circles and hot topics and gossip about men. Things Kaylie had little experience with. The fact that she found talking about them to Luna so comfortable caught her off guard. Since when did she have conversations that weren’t about work?

  Was it Luna who made it so easy, or was this more of the magic of the house? As she got up to set her coffee mug in the sink, she gave the other woman an interested “Hmm,” because she didn’t know what else to say. And then a knock on the door saved her.

  “Good morning.”

  She hadn’t heard his truck arrive, and Magoo had apparently decided Ten didn’t need to be announced. That dog, making his own rules. Kaylie turned. Behind her, Luna murmured something, but she had room for nothing but Ten and the way her kitchen warmed.

  Stepping from the breezeway into the mudroom, he reached down to scratch the top of Magoo’s head, his gaze caught on Kaylie’s, asking…for permission to enter? To forgive him for being so bold with his plans for her house, and for the unsettling look in his eyes? Not to hold his preservationist heart against him?

  He held up a white bag with the Butters Bakery logo. “I come bearing breakfast.”

  Oh, good. A distraction. She waved him all the way in. “And I happen to have a fresh pot of coffee.”

  “Sugar and cream?”

  “Coming up,” she said, noticing as she turned to serve him that Ten wasn’t alone.

  He followed the direction of her gaze. “This is Will Bowman. I’m putting him to work on your shutters. Will, Kaylie Flynn, and Luna Meadows.”

  “Good to see you again, Ten,” Luna said, skimming him with a smile before settling on Will and staying there. “Hello, Will.”

  Kaylie didn’t blame her. Will was tall, lanky, his limbs almost too long, like those of a swimmer meant for speed. His hair was black and cut short except where it fell forward over his eyes. Rock-star hair. And rock-star eyes, sapphires sparkling beneath coal lashes.

  “Nice to meet both of you,” Will said in a voice too civilized for someone decked out in biker boots, dark jeans, and a long-sleeved T-shirt the color of his hair. His gaze traveled the kitchen, avoiding Luna’s, and even Kaylie could see by the tic in his jaw what it cost him.

  “Coffee, Will?” she asked, setting Ten’s cup in front of him on the island where he’d pulled up a bar stool to break open the bakery bag.

  “Sure, thanks, just black.” He took the stool next to Ten’s, then took the doughnut Ten handed him, biting off a hunk as if he were a lion and the doughnut fresh meat.

  “Will here’s been out of pocket for a while,” Ten said, and the side of Will’s mouth clicked up to reveal a dangerously deep dimple. Kaylie swore she heard Luna sigh. “Figure a week on a ladder will help him find his balance.”

  Or cause him to fall flat on his face.

  Will must’ve seen Kaylie’s flicker of doubt. “Keller here’s a big believer in on-the-job training.”

  “Hasn’t let me down yet.”

  Kaylie had hired him. She had to trust him. “As long as the job gets done and no one gets hurt, I’m staying out of this one.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt,” Luna said to Ten, laying a hand on his arm before turning to Kaylie. “I’ve got an appointment I’ve got to get to, so I need to go. But we’ll talk more soon?”

  “Yes, and thank you for everything.”

  “How about lunch next week?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Great. We should go to the Gristmill. I can show you my old restaurant stomping grounds.”

  “I’d love it.”

  “I’ll get out of your way then. Again, nice to meet you, Will. And, Ten, I can’t wait to see what you do with the house.”

  “Well, you won’t have to wait long,” Kaylie said, loving it when both Ten and Will looked her way. “Did I not mention that I want to open Memorial Day weekend?”

  “That’s just under three months,” Ten said
, frowning.

  “And I’ll be paying a very nice bonus if you can get it done.”

  “A bonus, huh?” He narrowed his eyes, holding her gaze while he popped a bite of doughnut into his mouth.

  “I think that’s my cue to get busy.” Will hopped down off his stool, dusted the doughnut crumbs from his hands, and then finished his coffee, his gaze on Luna as she left, as if giving her a good head start before following.

  “That was…interesting,” Kaylie said, though it hardly seemed an encompassing enough word for the tension Will and Luna left like smoke in their wake.

  Once the screen door bounced shut, Ten said, “As long as she knows I can only vouch for him as a new hire. She’s on her own for the rest.”

  Good to know she wasn’t imagining things. “What did you mean about his being out of pocket for a while?”

  “Nothing to worry about. Just that he’s been out of work,” he said, dunking the last of his doughnut into his coffee. “His people skills are kinda rusty, but a friend I’d trust with my life sent him my way, so I thought I’d give him a leg up.”

  Kaylie watched him cock his head to the side and bite into the soggy cake pastry. She wondered what he would think to learn the gossips loved him. Then she wondered if he already knew. “Luna mentioned you take care of people.”

  His brow came up as he lifted his mug to his mouth. “I didn’t know you and Luna were friends.”

  “We just met this morning,” she said, toying with the crumbs from her Danish, uncertain what to make of his look. “She came by to talk about the café.”

  “You two didn’t waste any time, did you?”

  “Getting to know each other?”

  “Getting around to men.”

  Was he teasing? Accusing? Just making conversation, or wanting to know? “We were talking about my plans for the house, and your name came up as my contractor. That’s all.”

  “Me taking care of people doesn’t sound like my name coming up as your contractor,” he said, and sipped his coffee again.

  “Is that why you came by the other night?” she asked without meaning to. Having him aware of her curious nature seemed a bad idea for some reason.

  “You think I was taking care of you?” he asked after a long moment of doing nothing but looking her over, her hair, her nose, the freckles that dusted her chest above her very modest décolletage.

  Yeah. A bad idea. She wished she hadn’t rinsed out her cup. She needed something to do with her hands. “Or Magoo, at least.”

  At the sound of his name, the dog wagged his tail, the thump-thump against the floor the only sound in the suddenly still room, bringing a smile to Ten’s face. “No, Kaylie. I didn’t come to check on Magoo.”

  She hadn’t wanted to hear him say that. She didn’t know how the implication that he’d come because of her made her feel. She looked after herself. She had for the last ten years. The idea of a man, this man, Tennessee Keller, thinking her knife and her dog and a life spent braced for bad news wasn’t enough…

  What was she supposed to do now? “That’s good, because he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself.”

  “I’m sure he is.”

  “Anyway.” She sat straighter, brushed back her hair, hoped an escape route would fall into her lap, and found one in a box on the kitchen counter. “I picked up several flooring samples yesterday, so we should probably look at those.”

  Ten laughed and started gathering up the detritus of their impromptu meal. “Then let me get Will set up taking down the old shutters, and we’ll do just that.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Hands at her hips, Luna leaned against the back bumper of her car, staring at the wooded lot across the street from Kaylie’s house. She wanted to walk into the thick stands of trees and let them close around her, to lose herself along with this big truth only she knew.

  Was she really going to do this? Tell Kaylie’s father where she was? Upset his life and his daughter’s, too? Did she even have that right? Both seemed to be making their way, and happily so, but what if they would be happier together?

  What if Kaylie could share with Mitch the sort of relationship Luna had with her father? She counted on him for so much. His support had allowed her to make her own way, to learn from her mistakes as well as her success. How could she keep Mitch and Kaylie from the same, knowing what she did about the hole in both of their lives?

  She surged away from her car, balled her hands into fists, and groaned, because taking off into the woods would ruin her new suede boots. And tramping through the trees wouldn’t do anyone any good anyway. “To tell or not to tell. That is the question.”

  “I’m happy to offer an ear if you need one. Unless you find it nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune on your own.”

  At the sound of Will Bowman’s voice, Luna turned. He’d come up behind her silently, headed, she supposed, for Ten’s truck, parked at the edge of the street. He was wearing sunglasses that covered his beautiful blue eyes, and she wanted to ask him to take them off, but kept herself from being that obvious by biting down on her tongue.

  His black hair, stirred by the breeze, had fallen forward. He reached up to rake it back, lifting his chin as he did, and she was caught again, as in the kitchen, by the shape of his hands, his fingers long, his palm large and square. Dark hair feathered along his wrist from his forearm hidden beneath the long sleeve of his black pullover tee. Her fingers itched to touch him there, and she didn’t know why.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said when she took her time answering.

  She looked back to his face. “You didn’t. Not really. I’m more embarrassed to be caught talking to myself.”

  “I do it all the time, so it makes perfect sense to me.”

  “Good,” she said. “Because I’m not making any at all.”

  “The offer of an ear is still open,” he said, and cocked his head. “Though I understand the slings and arrows thing if you’d rather not.”

  She didn’t even know him, and yet, almost as much as the volcano of frustration rising inside of her, his sincerity, when he stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged, made her want to tell him everything. About Mitch. About Kaylie. About her own accident from so long ago. About losing her best friend and still being burdened with keeping Sierra’s secrets safe.

  “Are you close to your parents?” was what finally came out of her mouth, and she wanted to grab it back, to apologize for being so forward, until she took in his expression.

  His mouth pulled into a smile. Dimples appeared in both cheeks, crow’s-feet at both temples, which told her his eyes were smiling, too. And that he was older than she’d originally thought. That had her wondering what in his life had gone so wrong that he was working for Ten. And then he answered and she lost what she’d thought a fairly stable balance.

  “Who said I have parents? Maybe I was hatched from an egg sprinkled with fairy dust. Or brought up by wolves.”

  Something led her to believe in the possibility. Something about him that brought to mind magic. And, boy, wouldn’t magic come in handy right about now. Because magic was the only thing that would’ve tamed the volcano. She had to tell someone or explode into ash and flames. “I have a friend, a man I used to work with. He had a child years ago with a woman he never married. While he was overseas in the service, his child’s mother got in trouble with the law. The child went into the foster care system. He didn’t know about any of this until long after the fact.”

  “Are you the child?” he asked when she finally stopped to take a breath. “And you don’t know if you should tell your father who you are?”

  “Why would you think that?” she asked, finding it strange that he’d go there before anywhere else.

  “When someone has a friend with a problem, a lot of the time it’s not a friend at all.”

  True enough, she thought, and smiled. “No. I’m not the child. In this case, it really is about a friend.”

>   “You know both parties?”

  “I do.”

  “And you don’t know if you should stir up the past and put them together.”

  “I don’t. The past is…messy. Very messy.”

  “Are you asking for my opinion?”

  She found herself nodding. “I guess I am.”

  He turned to lean against the car beside her, arms crossed as he glanced over. “Are you close to your parents?”

  Her smile widened. She felt it in the muscles of her cheeks. “They’re my very best friends. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

  Which was why this conversation was one she should be having with them—not with a man she didn’t know. Except her parents were aware of Mitch Pepper’s story and couldn’t be any more impartial than she was.

  Will looked away, his gaze focused somewhere in front of him. “If you’re trying to re-create what you have with your family for your friend, don’t.”

  “Why not? Isn’t that a perfect reason?”

  “Perfect for you, sure. But it’s not about you. It’s about two people who’ve made their own way for a lot of years. What’s the impact to their lives going to be if you upset the status quo?”

  It sounded so obvious when put like that. “So I shouldn’t tell either of them? Even if I know they’re looking for each other?”

  “Are they? Actively? Or are they just giving lip service to wanting to find the other because it’s what society expects?”

  This had been such a bad idea. She was more confused than ever. “You’re saying what they claim to want might not be what they want at all?”

  “You’re the one who knows them,” he said, and shrugged. “You’re going to have to be the one to figure that out. I’m just a boy who was raised by wolves.”