by Alison Kent
“For eight years. All but the elementary school ones. Those I spent…other places.”
Elementary school. That would put her here at about age ten. Where had she been the years after he’d left for boot camp and she’d been whisked away from Dawn? Where were those other places? And why had she taken Ernest Flynn’s last name? He’d been their neighbor in Austin. Mitch couldn’t imagine Kaylie remembering him, she’d been so young. But the name change explained why he’d had no luck in finding her. He’d been looking for Kaylie Bridges all this time.
“Guess it’s nice to be back and catch up with old friends.”
“Actually, I haven’t had time to see but one yet, and that by complete accident. I ran into her working at the newspaper office when I placed my help-wanted ad.”
“So I’m getting a jump on the competition, huh?”
“You are. Pays to have friends in high places,” she said as she led him from the kitchen into what he supposed was the original dining room. “I’d planned to gut most of the first floor and convert it to one large eating area, but Ten talked me into a better use of the space.”
“Ten?”
“My contractor, Tennessee Keller,” she said, walking him out of the room into the main hallway, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. “He suggested using the two rooms on either side of the dining room”—she pointed to both—“just cutting entrances between them and connecting them that way.”
“A sort of maze, then?”
“In a way, yes.”
“Is it a better use? For you? For your business?” And then he shut his mouth because what she did here with her property was none of his. He wasn’t sounding like a potential employee, but more like…an overly concerned father.
“It is, though I did have to think about it.”
He stopped himself from saying I’m sorry before saying, “It’s not my place. I had no right to ask.”
“It’s okay. I don’t mind. If you end up being part of what I do here, I’d like your input. I want this to be a team effort. And I want it to be fun.”
He couldn’t be a part of it. Even wanting to, he couldn’t. He had too much to atone for and she had no reason to give him that chance. He would make the most of today because he could never come here again. The deception was already knotting his gut, and this was only one hour out of one single day. He stepped away from her to look into the two rooms she’d indicated, needing to breathe, to close his eyes for a second and tighten the noose of his control.
He wanted so badly to take her in his arms, to show her the tattered photo he’d had in his wallet for twenty-three years. To tell her how often he’d taken it out while on his bunk in the desert, how he’d talked to her about his day, his mission, the friends he’d lost to enemy fire and to PTSD.
He hated her mother even more than the system for keeping her from him, when all he’d done was straighten out his life to give his family a better one.
“What do you think? Will the connected rooms work better than tearing out walls to make one big one?”
He came back to where she was waiting, her dog lying beside her, patient, its chin on its paws. Mitch pointed toward the front of the house. “Include that front room up there, too, and you’ll have additional seating and no real wasted space on this floor. Unless you had something else planned for the…I guess it’s a parlor?”
He looked to her again, watched as an enormous smile spread over her face, her mouth going wide and her eyes catching the light shining through the stained glass on the doors at the hallway’s end. “Just this morning I decided I wanted to add the parlor to the build-out. Glad to know the idea makes sense.”
“Well, I’m not your contractor.” He’d feel guilty as hell if his comments pushed her to a decision that might not be the right one.
“No, but you’ve been in the business a long time. I’m just starting out.”
“What did you do before this?” he asked, though he knew. He’d hung on Luna’s every word, replayed them over and over in his mind.
“I owned a bakery in Austin. The Sweet Spot. Brownies were our specialty. My specialty. I actually learned to bake them while living here. It’s a wonder the other kids and my foster parents didn’t each weigh a thousand pounds.”
This wasn’t his business. Not any of it. Yet it was so hard to hear her say these things, to have her share them so openly and not want to ask for more. She owed him nothing. He owed her everything. But none of that was able to stop him from asking, “Foster parents?”
“Winton and May Wise. They took me in when I was ten, and I only left at eighteen because I had to. I mean, I could’ve stayed, I guess, gotten a job here. But since the state paid my tuition and a big chunk of my expenses, I moved to Austin for school. And I worked to put away money for the future.”
“Austin. You went to UT?”
She nodded. “Took me six years to get my degree, but that’s what happens when you have to make doughnuts and bear claws at three a.m.”
He wanted to tell her how proud he was of her, what an accomplishment it was to work one’s way through school, but he couldn’t tell her that. Just like he couldn’t pull her close and breathe the scent of her hair. Just like he couldn’t take this job.
“It wasn’t easy, but it’s been so worth it.”
He shouldn’t have come here. He should’ve stayed in Gruene where he belonged. He should’ve left well enough alone; he had a good life. But it was a life with a big fat hole in it. Something he’d been ready to live with until the day he died. Or so he’d thought. Because looking now at his beautiful girl, his smart, ambitious, green-eyed girl, he felt the hole deepen to expose the core of who he was.
He cleared his throat. “So you’ll be open for lunch, what? Five, six days a week?”
“I’ll start out at five, then add to that if Two Owls demands it.”
“Two Owls?”
“After Winton and May. Just seems fitting. They were two of the wisest people I’ve ever known.”
Were. “Then they’re…”
She nodded. “Winton passed on a few years ago. May more recently. I was actually able to come back here and buy this place because of them. They took care of a lot of kids over the years, but May stayed in touch even after I’d graduated. She told me once that I was the daughter she would’ve wanted if she could’ve had children of her own.”
“Sounds like they were as lucky to have you as you were to have them,” he said, his heart crumbling in his chest like crushed bread crumbs. He should’ve been the one to make all of this happen for her. Him, not strangers. Even though they’d loved her, they couldn’t have loved her as much as he did.
“I know. I was lucky.”
“They left you this place?”
“No, but they named me in their will, or May did, since Winton was gone. The inheritance made it possible for me to buy it. She’d had to sell it after he was gone, so I bought it from the current owners, and…I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You didn’t come here to hear about my life.”
That was the only thing he’d come here for. “Don’t think a thing about it. It gives me an idea of who I’d be working with.” But he wouldn’t be working with her. It was just a truth that needed to be said.
“Well, good. Because I think we’d be a good fit. If you were in the market for a job. And could put together casseroles that weren’t all Italian or Tex-Mex,” she said, adding a self-deprecating laugh and a questioning arch of her brow.
“I cooked in the service and did a short stint in a hospital cafeteria. I can make a one-dish meal out of anything.”
“Do you have a résumé? Not that you’re looking for a job.”
He found himself smiling. “If I were applying for the position, I’d be happy to e-mail it to you.”
She reached into the back pocket of her jeans and handed him her card. “My e-mail’s not on here, but my number is. If you decide you’re interested, call me. Or—wait. I’ve got a pen i
n the kitchen. I’ll write down my address. Make it that much easier for you.”
He followed her through the house, flicking the card with his thumb, giving it back to her when she picked up the pen she’d left on a pad on the counter. While she jotted her address, he glanced at the sketches she’d made.
“What do you think?” she asked moments later.
He looked up as she returned the card, tucking it into his shirt pocket and grinning. “Sorry about that. I’m not usually a snoop.”
She waved away his comment. “I was working on this earlier. The layout of the eating areas. It’s rough, because I won’t know if my measurements will need adjusting after the construction is done.”
“Can I borrow your pen?”
“Sure,” she said, handing it to him.
Flipping to a new sheet, he quickly drew a rough floor plan of the rooms he’d walked through. He’d seen houses similarly converted into restaurants and had a good idea of what she was going for. But having a self-serve buffet line instead of a waitstaff delivering orders required a different traffic flow.
He pointed to an area on the sketch representing the front door and foyer. “You’ll use the door as it is now for your entrance, yes? And you’ll put in a parking lot of some sort off to the side of your driveway, I imagine. People will come down the main hall to what? The original dining room? Is that where the buffet will be?”
He looked up, saw her studying his design, her brows knitted, eyes darting from the top of his drawing to the bottom. “You’re right. I need a better space for the buffet table. I’ll have to rethink the seating in that room.”
“Or you build out your kitchen, taking over the room here,” he said, using her pen as a pointer to indicate what he thought might’ve been a solarium. “Use that space for the food service. You wouldn’t want it open into the main prep area, so maybe just cut an entrance there,” he said, slashing two lines over the one for the wall. “Limit access with swinging saloon doors. Staff can easily get in and out with the pans, but it won’t invite customers into the kitchen itself.”
She crossed her arms, her gaze going to the window over the sink as a truck pulled to a stop on the street beside her driveway and a tall kid in black got out and began unhitching a ladder from the rack in the bed. She looked back to the pad. “If I did that, there would also be less disruption to those sitting in the original dining room from those making their way down the buffet line.”
“And the heat from the braziers and the warming lights will be contained in the smaller space. Vented properly, it won’t be an issue for the diners walking through.” He added the last as the ladder banged against the side of the house next to the kitchen window. “Sounds like your contractor’s not wasting any time.”
“The shutters are a mess. And that’s Will, one of Ten’s crew.” She raised her gaze to his. “You secretly want a new job, don’t you? Or a second job. I know you do. C’mon. You can tell me.”
Oh, she made him want to laugh, to grab her up and swing her around the way he’d done when she was a toddler. But all he could do now was smile, and hope he could keep holding it together until he was out of her sight. “What I can tell you is that I need to get going or I’ll never get back in time for my shift tonight.”
“Okay then. You have my card. You’ve heard my sales pitch. I want to say hello to Will, so I’ll walk you to your truck. Just let me know if between here and there you change your mind.”
Mitch smiled, happy he’d have another five minutes to spend with this girl he loved, because they would have to be his last. He wanted to ask her so many things: Why had she taken Ernest’s name? How many homes had she lived in? What did she remember of that day their lives had changed? Had she ever wondered about him? Did she hate him?
He reached his truck before she was finished talking to Will. They were friendly together, but he didn’t pick up on anything more and was glad. The kid had an edge to him, something that raised Mitch’s hackles when he didn’t have a right to judge whom Kaylie kept company with, did business with. Slept with, he added, and cringed. He’d given up his rights when he hadn’t insisted Dawn marry him, or at least name him as father on their baby girl’s birth certificate. That’s probably why this Will was making him itch. Mitch saw too much of his cocky younger self and recognized trouble.
He opened his door, reached for the sunglasses he’d set on his dash, and fished his keys from his pocket, waiting. Kaylie finished up and headed toward him, her dog tagging along, his smile as wide as hers. Mitch dropped his gaze to the ground and gripped his keys in a fist. “I never asked,” he said as she reached him. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“Magoo.” She scratched the top of his head. “He’s my best friend. And he’s supposed to be my security system, but I’m not sure his tongue qualifies as a deadly weapon.”
“He’s got the teeth for it. I’ll bet he’d use them if you were threatened.”
“I try not to advertise that fact, but yeah. I feel pretty safe with him around.”
“You’ll still get an alarm system?” He had to ask. He couldn’t leave her like this, unprotected, and never see her again without asking.
“Of course. And sooner rather than later. I had a bit of a scare the other night. Turned out to be nothing, and Magoo was there, but since there’ve been vagrants—”
“You’re staying here? The place is empty.” He didn’t like the sound of this. He didn’t like it at all.
“I’m only roughing it until the construction’s done. I’ll move in my furniture at the same time as that for the café. I’m thinking of it as an adventure.”
And all he’d be thinking about was her here alone. A second truck arrived then, nosing to a stop in front of Will’s. The sign on the door said Keller Construction. Kaylie waved at the man climbing down from the cab, then held out her hand to Mitch. “A pleasure meeting you, Mitch. My help-wanted ad is running in this week’s Courant. If you want to talk more about the position, you know how to reach me.”
He hated letting her go. Her hand was so small in his, making him think of the way she used to reach for him, raising both arms, wiggling her fingers until he’d lift her and toss her over his head and catch her as she’d giggled and screamed.
Clearing his throat, he gave her a nod. “Appreciate your time. And best of luck, not that you’ll need it. You’ve got a great place here. The perfect location. A fairly unique concept.”
“Thank you, but I’m sensing a lack of enthusiasm.”
“I just hope you don’t get taken advantage of.”
“By all these men, or by my customers?”
“I was thinking customers, but now that you mention it…”
She laughed. “Thanks again for stopping by, Mitch. If you decide against applying for the job, I hope we can stay in touch.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Who was that?” Ten asked, his gaze following the progress of Mitch Pepper’s truck as the other man drove away.
More than his gaze. His frowning gaze. Strange, because he hadn’t even met the man, and she hadn’t thought him the type to jump to conclusions based on…what? The way Mitch looked? The way he dressed? “A friend of Luna’s. She sent him about the cook’s position. I told you the other day he was coming, when we talked about Dolly Breeze.”
“Huh,” he grunted, his gaze still pinched as it followed Mitch’s progress down the narrow road. “He from around here?”
Now she was the one frowning. “I’m not sure where he lives, but he works at the Gristmill in Gruene.”
“I see.”
“Really?” She was pretty sure he wasn’t seeing anything but red for some unfathomable reason. “What exactly is it that you see?”
“You’re not sure where he lives? Did he apply for the job? Fill out an application?”
Okay. This was getting ridiculous. She turned to him, arms crossed, wondering what had made him decide she needed a keeper—or worse, that she was a poor judge of people. “I
f I decide I’m interested in hiring him, I’ll get all the information I need…though, now that I think about it, I didn’t ask for much when I hired you, did I?”
“That’s different.” He bit off the words, looking toward the house, away from her, fighting some internal battle.
“Is it? Tell me how you doing one job for me is any different from him doing another one. Or how Carolyn and Jessa vouching for you is any different from Luna vouching for Mitch.”
“He’ll be in your house, working alone with you…” And then he stopped, letting the sentence trail as if realizing the absurdity of what he was saying.
But just to be sure…“Sounds to me like what’s been going on this past week. Except it hasn’t been Mitch I’ve been working alone with.” She didn’t want to alienate Ten, not after the work they’d already put in as a team, but she had to clear the air. “Word of mouth, trust, handshakes. Those are the things I’ve looked forward to, coming back here. Having you second-guess my business decisions, well…it’s just not going to work. You know that, right?”
“Sorry.” He raised a hand, then ran it back through his hair. “I have somewhat of a suspicious nature.”
“Somewhat. Is that how you describe it?” She needed to let it go. He’d apologized, and she wasn’t one for harping, but she was curious…about Ten, about what had brought on his overreaction, about the things he stirred in her each time they were together, things that had nothing to do with his renovating her house.
“Ignore me,” he said, shading his eyes as he watched Will come down his ladder. “I was snakebit in the past, a onetime thing, or so logic tells me, but that filter’s hard to get rid of.”
She could understand that. “Logic doesn’t take intuition into consideration.”
“No, it doesn’t, but since I didn’t meet your Mitch, I don’t think intuition’s at fault here. It’s just me and my issues with trust. I had a good friend, and he hurt my family, and I’ve had trouble kicking the rush-to-judgment habit.”
“If he hurt your family, he wasn’t a good friend,” she said when he drifted off, but his admission pushed her further. “Were you suspicious of Will? When you took him on? You said he was a new hire. Did he get the prying eye of your microscope, too?” She let that sink in, added, “Did I?”