by Alison Kent
Ten glanced over his shoulder, then down at her, nudging her off the hood. “Go on. Talk to Luna. I’ll be here.”
She kissed him before she hopped down, opening her arms for her friend as they reached the end of the driveway together. Luna rushed forward and held her and rocked her and cried. “This is all my fault,” she said, while still in Kaylie’s embrace, pulling back to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
Kaylie understood Luna’s guilt, but not over the fire. “Of course it’s not your fault. The fire department is pretty sure it was a wire and a very sorry squirrel.”
Luna gave a sniveling laugh. “Not the fire. My ruining things between us.”
“You didn’t ruin things between us,” Kaylie said, realizing how profoundly she meant every word. “You were honoring your friendship with Mitch.”
“But not my friendship with you,” Luna said, and squeezed Kaylie’s hand.
Kaylie squeezed back, forgiving. “You would have. I know that. You would’ve told me when you could.”
“I wanted to tell you. I knew I needed to. But I had to tell Mitch first. I’ve known him my whole life. He was so devastated to lose you.”
“Luna, it’s okay. I understand totally why you had to tell Mitch. I would’ve done the same thing,” Kaylie said, giving voice to a truth she’d come to accept while processing the secret the three people closest to her had kept. “And I think I needed to hear it from him. Not you. Not even Ten. Hearing it from Mitch…it was the best way.”
“Ten did that, you know. Had Mitch drive you to Austin.”
She nodded. It was who Ten was. He would have insisted a wrong be made right. That tenet was the cornerstone of his life. And then she remembered…“I lost the scarf. I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Luna said, actually looking relieved. “I’m glad it’s gone.”
“What?”
But Luna was nodding. “It wasn’t right. And it wasn’t salad. It was sadness. Some of the greens edging toward blue. I could see it. It was my punishment, but you wouldn’t have to know.”
And this was why Luna’s weaving was brilliant. She put herself into her art, while Kaylie baked brownies…and ate her creative efforts. “Then I’m glad it’s gone. I don’t want a scarf that makes you sad. I want the scarf we talked about in Gruene. The scarf that makes me think of that day. And of Ten.”
“Ten?”
“The dulce de leche of his hair. And the coconut sprinkles where he doesn’t know he has gray. And the pecans. His eyes are that color of brown. And the cayenne…” She stopped, shivered. “You were right about him being hot.”
Luna’s face broke into a huge smile. “So when I thought you were coming up with a recipe for brownies, you were coming up with a recipe for Ten?”
“I was,” she said, and she didn’t even blush.
“I’m glad, Kaylie. I’m really glad. You two are perfect as one.” Luna gave her a quick hug. “I’m going to go. You’ve got a lot to deal with here and I don’t want to get in your way.”
“You’ll never be in the way. We’re friends.”
“And I’m so glad we are,” Luna said, smiling as she ran back to her car.
Kaylie had just returned to Ten, waving Luna on her way, when Mitch’s truck turned off Second onto Chances.
“Crap on a cracker,” Ten muttered, more to himself than to her.
“Hey, you.” She shoved him, but playfully. “That’s not very nice.”
“I’m not a very nice man,” he said, crossing his arms and glaring down.
“You’re the nicest man I know. Which is why you’re going to wait here while I talk to Mitch.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. And don’t be grumpy about it.”
“I’m allowed to be grumpy. You just lost your house.”
“But that’s not what you’re being grumpy about.”
He twisted his mouth before saying, “I’m grumpy because I don’t like that he lied to you.”
“Luna lied, too, and you weren’t grumpy about her.”
He didn’t have anything to say to that. So she rose up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Let me do this, and then we can go talk to my insurance guy. See how long it’s going to be before I can get a check.”
“Am I sensing some impatience here?”
“You’re sensing a lot. If I know what’s ahead, the crash won’t be so bad when it comes.”
“I was wondering about that, too.”
She took a deep breath, reached out, and squeezed his arm. “I’m trusting you’ll be here to catch me when I fall?”
The look in his eyes took her breath away. “I’ll be here always.”
CHAPTER FORTY
He’d tried to stay away. He’d really tried. Last night he’d been on his way home from Bent Bailey’s Bar, having eaten a late burger with Morris Dexter, when he’d seen the ladder truck headed down Second Street, sirens blaring, lights cutting swaths of color through the night. His gut had tumbled, his heart pounding furiously through the U-turn he’d taken on two wheels.
He’d detoured across town to Chances Avenue just in case the alarm had indeed come from Kaylie’s, not wanting to hit the blockade meant to keep onlookers away. His father’s intuition was telling him that it had. The fact that he hadn’t been a parent to her didn’t matter. His little girl was in trouble, and he couldn’t stay away. Not then. Not now. He’d had to come back, see what she’d lost, if the damage was irreparable. Find out if she was done with Hope Springs and moving on. Moving out of his life.
Last night, when he’d pulled up with the other cars behind her Jeep and parked at the end of the long line, he’d seen her in Ten Keller’s arms and realized she didn’t need him at all. In trouble or not, she was all grown up, and he was just excess baggage.
He’d stayed anyway, watching the firefighters battle the third-floor blaze. He knew from the hours he’d spent in the house that those windows had been in her bedroom. The thought of her asleep, waking to smoke, all alone…
Unless she hadn’t been alone. Unless Ten Keller had been with her.
Looking at the two of them now, he thought that might’ve been the case. And his personal issues with the other man aside, he couldn’t deny Ten cared for Kaylie. After seeing them together the last few weeks, he’d easily come to that conclusion. And he liked that it wasn’t a case of lust. Or lust only, because any relationship worth its salt came heavily seasoned with physical longing. But Ten’s attentiveness went beyond sharing Kaylie’s bed. And the look in her eyes when she took him in said everything Mitch needed to know about her feelings.
It made him happy, knowing she’d found someone. That after all this time, she wouldn’t be alone. It didn’t do anything to ease his guilt over abandoning her in the first place, but he could live with himself if she was well settled, and happy. And maybe one day she’d forgive him. Maybe one day they could share a cup of coffee and she could feed his father’s hunger with tidbits of her life. Maybe. One day.
Hands in his pockets, his throat and nostrils raw from breathing the sour air, he kicked at a chunk of charred two-by-four that had somehow wound up in the street. When he looked up again, Kaylie was walking toward him. He rubbed a hand over his bristled hair, stuffed it in his pocket again, tried to smile but it came out stiff, so he dropped it. He wasn’t feeling much like smiling anyway.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t talk to you last night,” she said, her hands in her pockets, too. “I was pretty much a basket case.”
So she’d seen him. Noticed him there. Somehow that helped. “How’re you doing now?”
She shrugged. “I keep laughing. It seems so inappropriate. I guess it’s shock, and when it wears off I’ll fall hard. But I really am sorry about last night.”
“Don’t apologize. I wouldn’t have expected you to be anything but a basket case.” He paused, uncertain at first where to go, choosing the straightest route in the end. No detours. No beating around the bush. He wasn’t here for any of
that. “I wasn’t sure you’d want to talk to me anyway.”
She was slow to answer, as if weighing her words, measuring them against all he’d done, past and present. Against this moment and where they would go from here. “I do. But I think we’re going to need a lot more time than we have right now.”
“Yeah.” It was all he could say because of the hope suffocating him.
“Listen.” Her gaze fell to the driveway, her shoulders hunched. She turned both feet out, standing on the edges. Turned them back. “I wasn’t able to save the letters. I grabbed Magoo and my laptop and that was about it.”
“It’s okay—”
“No. It’s not,” she said, her head coming up. “I hadn’t read them yet. I couldn’t. I was waiting…I don’t know why I was waiting, but I was going to read them. I wanted to read them. Desperately. But now I can’t,” she said, catching back a sharp inhalation. “And I hate that more than you can know.”
He wanted to go to her and soothe her and he had no right. “Kaylie, it’s okay. They weren’t important.”
“They were important to me. They were all I had of you,” she said, and on those words, her voice broke. Tears welled, spilling, and she sniffed and swiped the back of her hand beneath her nose.
He dug into his pocket for the handkerchief he always carried and offered it to her. She took it, dabbed gently at the damp skin beneath her eyes, then her nose, folded it into a tiny square and rolled her palm around it.
“They were just pieces of paper.” He tapped a finger to his temple. “Everything I put down is still up here.”
Her gaze searched his face, imploring, that of a little girl looking to understand something too big for her reach. “Tell me what was in them. I want to know what I missed, what you were thinking.”
His own throat worked, aching. He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed over them with a finger and thumb. She’d said they didn’t have time for all the things needing to be said. She was right. So he chose just a few. Words he hoped would allow her to forgive him. Aid him in forgiving himself.
“I wrote some late at night in the barracks. In Germany. In Kuwait.” He shrugged. “Other places. I told you how hot it was, and how the sand itched in my cammies like crazy. How glad I was you were inside where it was cool and your skin wouldn’t get burned. How I wondered if, when you did go outside, you freckled.”
She scrunched up her face. “As you can see…”
He kept himself from reaching out and drawing his finger down her nose. It wasn’t easy. He’d done it so many times when she’d been a child. And she’d wrinkled up like she was doing now. He wondered if she remembered. If any part of her was waiting for that teasing touch that had always made her laugh—
“What else?”
There were so many things. “Some guys and I had leave during Oktoberfest once. We ate until we were sick, and drank until we were sicker. Never knew I could down that much beer,” he said, grimacing at the memory of his stomach roiling. “There was this little girl, no more than seven or eight, wearing a dirndl like her mom. Perfect little fräulein. She was sitting in a corner, coloring, while her mom slung steins. I remembered how you and I would sprawl out on the floor in your room, a box of crayons spilled between us. You always claimed the pages with ponies and puppies—”
“And I always colored them pink.”
He nodded. “She was coloring cats. Blue. I sat across from her and picked up a pink crayon. She looked at me and turned her book so I could color the dogs,” he said, watching Kaylie’s throat work as she swallowed. “She didn’t speak English, but I told her all about you anyway. How you liked pink. And puppies. How your mother tried to braid your hair, too, but you liked it in your face. You said it felt like pony hair.”
The wind grabbed at her ponytail then, tugging loose hairs she swiped back and tucked behind her ear. He made a fist to keep from helping her. “It still looks like pony hair. It’s beautiful.”
“It will look a lot better once I replace my brush and blow dryer. Ten’s comb—” She stopped herself, as if admitting to him, her father, where she’d spent last night might meet with his disapproval. His heart grew two sizes, and he found himself smiling when she asked, “What else?”
Breathing deeply, he glanced over her head toward the black and blue of her house. “After my discharge, before Harry convinced me to settle here, I rented a room in a bed-and-breakfast for a while. A friend of Harry’s owned it, and she needed the booking, but still cut me a really nice deal. It was big house like yours, but white. And two stories. I had a corner room upstairs. Big dormer windows. Huge canopy bed. Hand-knotted rugs. Doll would love it.”
A smile and a nod. “Sounds just like her, but it doesn’t sound like you.”
“It wasn’t me. But I didn’t even know who I was then. What I was going to do. Where I was going to go. Christmas rolled around, and I was still there. I’d go to work with Harry at the farm, this was before the Gristmill, then come back and spend the night in the window seat, listening to your favorite cartoons on TV. The Grinch and Charlie Brown and Frosty. Mr. Magoo. I figure that’s where your dog got his name.”
“It is. I got him from a shelter when he was about six weeks old. He had the ugliest scrunched-up face.”
“I wrote to you a lot when I was there. When I’d been overseas, the letters were as much for me as anything. I wanted to save them and read them to you when I got home. But it was different, writing to you when I was back and didn’t know where you were.” She thought she’d been a basket case last night; she should’ve seen him then. “It’s probably a good thing they burned. A lot of crap in there I would just as soon you not know. A lot I would’ve never said to you in person. Probably wouldn’t say now.”
Her face screwed up in confusion. “But you already said it to me. You wrote it down.”
“I should’ve said it into the bottom of a bottle and left it at that.”
“Mitch—”
“Like I said, the letters aren’t gone. The exact words, maybe, but all the things I wanted to share with you, all of that’s still upstairs.” He jammed his hands to his hips, done with the past, putting it away. Either they moved on from here, or they didn’t.
Silence fell between them then, comfortable rather than strained. Kaylie was the one to finally break it. “I’m glad. I would hate not to hear your stories. And I’d like to hear more. Soon?” She gestured over her shoulder to where Ten waited. “Right now I’ve got to go. I’ve got a meeting with my insurance agent in Austin.”
“Sure. You need someone to watch Magoo?”
He could tell by the light in her eyes that she loved that he’d made the offer. “He’s at Ten’s place. We’ll be back before supper. But thank you. For thinking of him.”
He nodded. “Walk with me to my truck?”
She fell into step beside him, standing back when he opened the door. He thought for a moment about getting in, driving off, waiting until a better time to show her what he’d come here for. But he had now. He might not have later. And so he reached across the seat for the cigar box.
“I found this in my things the other day. When you were born, a bunch of guys I knew gave me these. I know you wanted a box like this for your café. If you can use it, it’s yours.” He handed it to her without looking up, watched her trembling fingers as she reached out.
She took the yellowed box from his hands, her throat working. He saw it through her eyes, the edges frayed, the label rubbed and worn. He’d wiped it down the best he could, but he hadn’t wanted to get it wet, and he knew it still smelled of musty tobacco. He never had smoked but the one. The rest he’d kept.
When he’d returned to find his possessions in storage, he’d hunted through Dawn’s mess until he had his hands on the box. And then he’d sobbed, remembering his little girl being born, regretting his mistakes that had cost him everything.
“Oh, Mitch,” she said, coming to him, the box crushed between them, the fabric of his shirt wadded in her f
ree hand, her tears soaking through to his chest. “Oh, Daddy.”
Mitch nearly crumpled where he stood. It had been so terribly long since he’d heard those words. A lifetime. Forever. It had been even longer since he’d held her while she cried. And she hadn’t felt like this then, grown-up and a woman, independent. She’d needed him then. To soothe her bruises. To tell her everything was going to be all right. She didn’t need him now.
But dear God, did he ever need her, his tears making a soggy mess of his face and her soft pony hair as he let go of the weight of the past. “Can you ever forgive me, Kaylie? For leaving you alone?”
“You didn’t leave me alone. You left me with my mother.”
He shook his head. “I knew what she was like. I knew she’d go back to using. She didn’t have it in her to stay sober. I wanted away from her. But I wasn’t thinking. I should’ve made arrangements for you in case something happened. I wasn’t surprised that something did. Just what it was.”
“Why were you with her? If you didn’t love her?”
“I thought I did. I was a kid, what did I know? We had a good time together. We partied, hung out.”
“Slept together.”
“Yeah.”
“I wasn’t planned, was I?”
This was one thing she needed to know. “Don’t think you weren’t wanted. You were always wanted. By both of us. We loved you to death. We just didn’t know how to love ourselves.”
She wiped her eyes as she stepped away. “Do you realize how little I know about you? Other than what I’ve learned from Luna, and from working with you. And now these stories. I want to know the rest. I want to know it all.”
“I’m not sure the rest is worth knowing.”
“It is. And I want you to tell me everything. And I still want you to cook for me. If I can get the house rebuilt. And even if I can’t…”
He couldn’t stop himself. He reached out and brushed back her hair. “I’ll come cook for you anytime, daughter. You tell me what you want, and I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”