by Alison Kent
“You know,” she said, considering him. “The way word of mouth works here, I could’ve saved the cost of the ad.”
“Guess you were too young to have known that when you lived here before.”
“Too young, too involved with school.” She chopped her stick through the grass again. “Too busy making sure not to do anything to cause the Wises to want to send me away.”
“From what you’ve said, I doubt doing so crossed their minds.”
“That doesn’t mean it didn’t cross mine.”
Fair enough. “Maybe you could ask some of the people who knew you back then about your parents.”
“I don’t think they’d know them. I wasn’t living here when I was taken from my mother.”
“What about your father?”
“I don’t have a clue where to start looking for him. I don’t even know his name.”
“It’s not on your birth certificate?”
She shook her head. “I’ve thought back, trying to remember what my mother called him, but all I knew him as was Daddy. Even Ernest called him Daddy.”
“Ernest?”
“He lived across the hall from us. He was a widower, well into his seventies I’m sure, with a grizzled white beard that always fascinated me, since his skin was so black. Ernest Flynn.”
“You took your last name from him.”
Magoo came running up then as if remembering his ball. Kaylie cocked her arm and threw it, this time toward the house, canting her head for Ten to walk back with her. “I knew in high school that as soon as I was old enough I was going to change my name. I thought about asking May and Winton if they’d mind me taking theirs, but decided against it. They’d given me so much already. Then I thought about Ernest. I was five the last time I saw him. While the police and paramedics dealt with my mother, he held me in his lap on the apartment building’s stairs. He was crying as loud as I was when the social worker took me from his arms. I remember that moment as clearly as if it were yesterday.”
And she laid it all out as if describing a day at the zoo. “Sounds like he was a good friend.”
“I’ve been lucky. I’ve had some of the best. Part of me says I should leave things alone, let those relationships hold me. Ernest. May and Winton. Saul Golden, the man who gave me my first bakery job. He passed on before I could go back and thank him for the time he’d taken with a curious eighteen-year-old who knew everything about brownies but little else.” She reached for his forearm to stop him. “You like brownies, don’t you?”
“Love ’em,” he said, doing his best to ignore the warmth of her fingers.
“Good. The first batch I bake in the new kitchen will be all for you.”
“That sounds even better than the bonus you put in my contract.”
“Please. It’s just brownies.”
But it wasn’t. It was Kaylie’s heart and soul. It wasn’t impersonal money, or a case of scotch whiskey he could buy for himself. It was Kaylie thinking of him, baking for him, putting herself into a gift for him. “Thank you. I’m a big fan of chocolate.”
“Too bad you never stopped by the Sweet Spot. Chocolate was our specialty.”
“Chocolate what?”
“Chocolate everything. Cookies and cakes and pies.”
“And brownies.”
“The very same brownies I get to bake here,” she said, her gaze leaving his to return to the house.
His followed, and he took in the multitude of windows that would require hours of work to keep clean, the roof he’d replaced once already but that had suffered additional limb damage since. The flower beds were crap, though he knew she had plans to hire a landscaper, and there was an acre of wooded yard to maintain.
It was an amazing house. An amazing burden. And he was really glad he hadn’t known it was for sale. He would hate to have taken it away from her.
Wake Up and Smell Two Owls’ Chocolate Brownie
we got your coffee right here, joe
8 ounces unsalted butter
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate
8 ounces semisweet chocolate
3 extra large eggs
1 tablespoon espresso powder
1 tablespoons vanilla
1½ cups sugar
½ cup flour
½ tablespoon baking powder
½ tablespoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease or spray with cooking oil and flour a 9 x 13 x 1–inch baking sheet.
Melt the butter, the unsweetened chocolate, and the semisweet chocolate in a double boiler (or in a microwave), stirring often so as not to burn the chocolate. Cool slightly. Stir together in a large bowl the eggs, the espresso powder, the vanilla, and the sugar. Add the warm chocolate mixture to the bowl and cool. Sift the flour, the baking powder, and the salt into a small bowl. Add to the cooled chocolate mixture.
Pour the batter into the prepared baking sheet. Bake 35–40 minutes, or until an inserted tester comes out with a bit of batter attached. Cool completely before cutting.
CHAPTER TEN
Since she’d waited tables at the Gristmill Restaurant in high school, Luna knew the best time to catch Mitch Pepper. He’d been a staple in the kitchen for years, acting as friend, mentor, or guilty conscience—whatever a coworker, most of them younger, might need. Having been around the block, Mitch was a straight shooter. And the particular block he’d been around had everything to do with his aim.
After her late-day meeting at the Austin boutique to talk about Patchwork Moon’s spring scarf line, Luna had made the drive to Gruene and the Gristmill before she could change her mind. Yesterday’s visit with Kaylie had given her a lot to think about, but she still hadn’t decided if she was doing the right thing. It was her conversation with Will Bowman, however, giving her the most grief.
Did she owe the same truth to Kaylie she owed to Mitch, whom she’d known since she was a girl?
Mitch, who’d rocked her to sleep while her parents cleaned up the kitchen after dinner? Mitch, who’d talked her father into letting her keep the dog abandoned in the ditch beneath the sign at the farm’s entrance? Mitch, who’d come to the hospital the morning after her accident and told her Sierra hadn’t made it through the night?
Her mother had wanted to wait until she was stronger. Her father had been unable to say the words. Mitch had been the only one thinking clearly. He’d known she could handle the truth and needed it. Now another truth was eating at her, and no matter what Will Bowman said, Mitch was her priority. He would know what to do about Kaylie.
The restaurant was closed, the kitchen staff going through their nightly routine of food storage and cleanup, the smells of browned butter and cream sauces, grilled beef and fried onions hanging heavy in the air.
Having been a part of this same activity with so many of these same people, she had a lot of catching up to do on her way through the stations to Mitch. She found him sharpening his knives, and because of the thing that had brought her here, she shivered.
“Mitch?” When she had his attention, she raised a hand. “Got a second?”
He looked at her over the dark rims of his half-glasses. “Hey, moon girl. What’s shaking?”
He was smiling, as always, the laugh lines fanning out from his eyes like a map of the life he’d made for himself, each groove detailing the happiness he’d found after all the years he’d spent with none. She hated taking that away from him. Thinking she might be giving him back even more was the only thing pushing her on.
“Could we talk for a minute?” She gestured over her shoulder. “On the patio maybe?”
At that, he frowned, his green eyes behind his narrow black frames so much like Kaylie’s it hurt Luna’s stomach to hold his gaze. He wiped his hands on the towel he pulled from his shoulder, never looking away as he slid the neck straps of his apron over his head. “Everything okay? Something wrong with Harry?”
“No, Daddy’s fine. Mom too. I just need…to te
ll you something.”
“Sounds ominous,” he said, his rough laugh fooling neither of them as he locked away his knives and his whetstone before following her out the back door. She wound her way through the empty tables to the rail that fenced off the restaurant from the river. Mitch followed, leaning a shoulder into a support beam and asking, “What’s up?”
She looked at the moon, a new moon, her moon, and made a wish for a happy ending. “I went to Hope Springs yesterday.”
“Okay.”
What to say? Where to start? “When I was here for Saturday’s craft fair, I heard about a woman opening a café there and thought of you. I know she’s doing her own desserts—she used to own a bakery in Austin—but she’s looking for a cook.”
“Ah, thanks, sweetheart,” Mitch said, the relief in his words doing nothing to salve the pain to come from what she’d learned. “But I’m happy right here.”
“I don’t think it’s full-time. She’s only serving lunch,” she said, and turned in time to see him shaking his head.
“Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have time. Can’t be in two places at once. Lunch-only still means a lot of prep work, and I’ve got to be here at noon, because this place pays the bills.”
“There may not be as much prep work as you think. Just big pans of a single entrée that diners dish up themselves from a buffet.”
“Huh. Cool concept. But no can do. My days are jam-packed as it is.”
“Are you sure? A change of scenery might be nice. A new kitchen. No fish to fillet or steaks to grill. No sauces or desserts or sides.” She should’ve thought this through. Painted the idea as irresistible. Made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Spun him a tale to draw him to Two Owls, one to save her from spelling out the reason she wanted him to visit the café.
But Mitch wasn’t a dreamer. He got things done, wasting no time because of wasting too much already. “I can’t think of a single good reason I’d want to work in Hope Springs. Which means there’s a reason you want me to. So what is it?”
She shook her head, backed away. “Never mind. This whole thing was a stupid idea.” She headed for the far side of the patio and the beer garden beyond. She should’ve talked to her father first. He was Mitch’s best friend, and had an answer for everything. He would know what to do.
Mitch grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving. “You haven’t had a stupid idea since I’ve known you. Something’s up. And I’m not letting you go until you tell me what it is.”
She was frustrated, near to angry, but with herself, not with Mitch. She should’ve listened to Will. She shouldn’t have come here without a better plan, and now she was stuck because he was a pit bull. That’s what she loved most about him. He cared. He worried. He didn’t want those close to him to hurt.
“Luna?”
She stared at her feet, swallowed.
“Luna?”
She couldn’t tell him. Not like this.
“Luna, I swear—”
She spun on him then, coming apart. “It’s your daughter.”
Mitch’s face went beet red, the moonlight blanching the color from his goatee and his hair. He released her, took a stumbling step in reverse, hit the patio’s long cracked wall. “What?”
Luna’s chest grew tight, her eyes damp. “Kaylie. She’s living in Hope Springs.”
All Mitch seemed able to do was pound his head against the wall. Bang. Bang. Denying, disbelieving. “Kaylie? My Kaylie?” Bang. Bang. Bang.
Nodding, Luna tried to find her voice, though the words she spoke came out in a whisper. “She spent eight years there in a foster home.”
“A foster home? And she went back?” Mitch asked, his face screwed in pain, his voice strangled.
“She bought the house where she lived.”
He gulped down a watery breath. “Why would she go back?”
God, but his tears were going to do her in. “It’s a great house. A big Victorian with an acre of trees.”
“And she bought it?”
“Sold her business in Austin and paid cash, I hear.”
“Wow.” He scrubbed both hands up and down his face, then back over the crew cut he still wore. “Just…wow.”
“Yeah. She’s pretty amazing.”
“Is she? Really?” he asked, begged, the words cracking and thick with emotion.
Luna had no words at all. She could barely breathe.
He sank to his heels, rocked back and forth. “Crap. What am I supposed to do?”
“Apply for the job?”
He laughed, his agony etched in the lines on his face. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
“Why not? You wouldn’t have to tell her who you are.”
“I couldn’t do that. No way.” He got to his feet, laced his hands on top of his head, his eyes red, his sorrow keen. “I could never do that to Kaylie.”
“You wouldn’t have to hire on, but you could at least go see her. Go meet her. Get to know her.”
But Mitch was still shaking his head. “Moon girl, I love you for this, but I lost my baby years ago. The woman in Hope Springs…she’s someone else. Someone with her own life. Someone I don’t deserve to have in mine.”
And then he returned to the kitchen, looking a whole lot more worn than when she’d found him ten minutes ago, and breaking her heart with his slumped shoulders and dejected, old man’s gait.
Walking from the lingering heat of the restaurant’s kitchen toward the railing where the patio overlooked the Guadalupe, Mitch stopped to light the cigarette he’d bummed from a busboy when clocking out for the night. He hadn’t smoked in ages. Not since returning to Texas, after four years spent in barracks around the world, to find his daughter gone, swallowed up in a system designed to keep her safe and well cared for.
Giving up cigarettes had been as much about his health as about distancing himself from the monkey riding his back. His employer knew that he’d lost Kaylie to social services. He’d told Harry Meadows, of course, so Julietta and Luna knew, too. But he didn’t want to be reminded of those years, when smoking had given him something to do with his hands besides slamming his fists into faces or walls.
It was the same reason he cooked.
To come to terms with using a knife.
His daughter. Kaylie. Little Kaylie with her strawberry-blonde hair and face full of freckles and the big gap where her teeth would come in…later, when he might be deployed and unable to see if he was going to have to pay for braces.
He sucked in smoke filled with tar and nicotine and wondered what Luna had been thinking, telling him about Kaylie being so close when he’d become so good at imagining her in Seattle, or Minneapolis, or New York City.
To find out she was right here, that she’d grown up and stayed instead of getting away from the Texas Hill Country and all the crap that had ruined her life.
Then again, look at him, living within spitting distance of all he’d lost. He laughed and tossed the rest of the cigarette to the stone floor before thinking better of littering, and retrieving the smoldering butt. He stuffed it in his pocket, watched the water roll, the moon on its surface broken by the ripples, long teasing striations of light.
So his daughter shared his love of cooking. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his mouth at the thought. It felt strange, thinking of Kaylie and smiling. For so long thinking of Kaylie had been the worst sort of pain: Where was she? Who was taking care of her? Were they taking care of her, or was she stuck in a room with five other kids, sharing one big bed and fistfights over toys?
That’s what had got to him the most. That’s when he’d start imagining her being raised elsewhere, by folks who knew all the things kids needed. Like bedtime stories and stuffed pink puppies, lessons on tying shoelaces and help with a toothbrush and comb and piggyback rides.
He rubbed at his eyes, smearing the grit from the kitchen that was stinging them. That Luna. Such a sweetheart. He knew why she’d told him. She wanted him to have what Harry did. She adored
her father, and her father thought being wrapped around her little finger was the best place to be.
It wouldn’t happen. No way he and Kaylie could have the same thing. No way, no chance. The past was the past. He’d had four years to be a father and had made a mess of it. Trying to get that back was a fool’s errand, and Mitch Pepper was done with being a fool.
No matter how badly he ached with the thought of being this close to his girl.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Max Malina was a crusty Brooklynite who’d set up shop in Hope Springs the year Tennessee Keller was born. Ten had probably eaten as much of Max’s cooking as he had of his own, or anyone else’s. Malina’s was open when he was ready for breakfast and when he called it a day. It was only at lunch that he had to fend for himself, which meant most of the time he didn’t bother with more than a protein bar from the stash he kept in his truck. He could see why Kaylie had decided to do something about feeding lunch to Hope Springs. Good call on her part.
Sitting in a booth near the front door of Malina’s Diner, he sipped from his second cup of coffee and wondered why he was here. To meet Manny, sure. But the rest of it? He’d been in a weird frame of mind when they’d spoken the other day, and not in the mood to hear the other man harsh on Will. That didn’t mean Manny was in the wrong any more than it meant Ten’s intuition about his newest hire would play out. But since he was a big part of Manny’s program, he owed the other man the floor. And an explanation. Just not one that involved what he was feeling for Kaylie.
“Is it getting to be too much?” Manny asked, sliding into the opposite side of the booth.
Ten returned his coffee mug to the table and sat back. “Good morning to you, too.”
Manny signaled to the waitress for his own cup, then leaned forward and scowled fiercely at Ten. “Well?”
Fine. He could get down to business, too. “What? Giving these guys a job? Why would you think that?”
“I don’t think that. I’m just asking. Dakota’s been off my caseload for years. And you’ve put in plenty trying to make up for what he did.”