The Sweetness of Honey (A Hope Springs Novel)

by Alison Kent

  Just then, Tennessee pulled into the driveway behind Robby’s car, and flashed his brights as always. And though we were blocked by a hedge, Robby wasn’t having any of my jumping away. He moved slowly, pulling his hand from my shorts, his mouth from beneath my shirt, moving his leg from between mine but only after pushing his knee hard up against my spread thighs until I groaned from how good it felt to have him there.

  And then Tennessee honked. “I need to get the pizza.”

  “We’ll finish this later.”

  But we didn’t. Not that night. Dakota had heard Tennessee honk, and he reached the car before I did. For the rest of that night, Robby and I had a chaperone, though he made certain I sat beside him when we crowded onto the couch. Made certain, too, that his hand was on the cushion beneath my very short shorts.

  I could barely swallow the pizza I managed to chew. I had no idea what movie we watched in that room lit only by the TV. For two hours I knew nothing but Robby’s fingers, and the growing dampness in my panties, and the fear of Dakota realizing why his sister and his friend were sitting so close.

  I’d been wrong. So very wrong. Robby Hunt was very threatening. He was not safe at all.

  And I loved it.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The new year, fresh with its starting-over, clean-slate, what-happened-in-the-past-stays-in-the-past promises, was, so far, sucking as badly as the old. And not just the most recent old, but all of the olds Indiana had told good-bye since she was fifteen. At least her year was sucking, all two weeks. It didn’t help that she’d put on five pounds since Christmas, and all of it cake.

  Two Owls Café was thriving. The work on the Caffey-Gatlin Academy was almost complete. Same with Luna and Angelo’s barn renovation. Those Keller Construction projects had been well under way before she’d hired her brother to remodel her cottage and erect the greenhouses for the annex on Three Wishes Road. Of course they came before hers.

  But now the rain was mucking up everything. The part of the property cleared had yet to be filled and leveled, and resembled a series of tar pits; clumps of the gooey mud clung to her boots from her earlier walk around the site. The thought of Hiram seeing what she’d done to the place where he’d lived . . . No, he hadn’t kept the place in pristine condition, but it had been his home. In its current incarnation, it wasn’t even fit for the bees.

  Any day now they’d be packing their bags and flying the coop, er, hive.

  She didn’t have time for this. She wasn’t in a big hurry, but she was busy with her farm in Buda, and spring wouldn’t be delayed. So why was she spending so much time fretting over a tiny little cottage, and an annex that was less about heirloom vegetables than it was about being closer to Kaylie and Tennessee?

  Why, too, was it so hard for her to come out and admit that particular truth? Couldn’t she just tell her brother and sister-in-law that she was tired of being alone? That she loved them dearly and wanted to be close? After so many years on her own, she wanted more? Shared holidays and quick cups of coffee and shopping trips and a smile and a wave when they passed on the street?

  And nothing was happening with her search for Dakota either. Or at least, not happening the way she wanted it to. Kaylie’s investigator delivered regular reports, but those reports did nothing but depress her further. Her brother had worked for six months in Seattle, but left no forwarding address. He’d been in Portland, in Boise, in Missoula, Montana.

  He’d fished for salmon. He’d built houses. He’d felled trees. He’d roasted coffee beans and even pulled espressos as a barista. He’d wrangled cattle. Dakota. The high school baseball star who’d loved him some muscle cars. On horseback. Wrangling cattle. Some things really did need to be seen to be believed.

  She wanted to know where he was now. She needed to know. She ached with it. She had to make sure he was okay, that she hadn’t ruined his life, because for thirteen years she’d been unable to get beyond the certainty that she had. That he hated her for what she’d done. Even though he didn’t know what she’d done. Nobody did.

  But she knew.

  “You’re all wet.”

  She looked up from where she was sitting on the back steps outside the cottage’s kitchen door. Will’s appearance wasn’t surprising, though she hadn’t heard him arrive. “Thanks,” she said. “I wasn’t aware.”

  “You’re also muddy.”

  She glanced down at the goop stuck to the vamps of her boots. “Again. The obvious. I appreciate having it pointed out.”

  He crossed his ankles and dropped down to sit beside her.

  Company loving misery? “And now you’re all wet and also muddy.”

  “I’ve been worse,” he said, and shrugged, leaning back on his elbows.

  Worse. Oh, good. They could talk about him instead of her having to examine even more of her life. “Are you ever going to tell me about it? Prison?”

  “Probably not.” He straightened his long legs out in front of him and crossed his ankles. “It’s one of those things no one else needs to know.”

  “Yeah,” she said, because he’d come closer than she liked to reading her mind about her past with Robby.

  “I do wonder sometimes what in the hell I was thinking.”

  “I doubt you’re the only one to ever feel that way,” she said, deflecting whatever questions he might ask by adding, “I had no idea this acreage was in such bad shape. I should’ve done more research, but I jumped because . . .”

  He let his head fall to the side, his hair falling, too, and looked at her. “Because the mountain wouldn’t come to Muhammad.”

  She huffed, unable to stifle a grin. “I’m assuming you mean Tennessee.”

  “If you’d called me, I would’ve come.”

  The words fell between them, tumbled around, bounced, and demanded their due. “This can’t happen, you know. I mean, I’d thought it might . . .”

  “But you really didn’t want it to.”

  Was he right? “I don’t know you. You won’t let me know you.”

  “And Oliver Gatlin will.”

  “It’s not about Oliver. Not really.” Except . . .

  Hadn’t everything been about Oliver Gatlin since that first morning on Three Wishes Road? Or maybe even sooner. Since they’d brushed against each other at Luna and Angelo’s reception? Even that night there’d been something there. She’d gone home with it, the feel of his arm, his scent. The picture of him talking to Angelo and Harry Meadows.

  “You can tell yourself that,” Will said, “but the truth would be along the lines of, ‘It’s all about Oliver. Really.’”

  She hadn’t meant to fall in love with him. That family . . . She would never fit in, and she didn’t need Merrilee, with her pearls and her pumps and her handbag that had cost more than Indiana’s Camaro, to tell her that particular truth.

  She’d bring Oliver the same trouble she’d caused Tennessee and Dakota. The same trouble she’d brought down on Robby Hunt. He was no innocent, but if she’d been content to be who she was at fifteen . . . If she hadn’t been swept up in the exotic unknown that had been Thea Clark . . . She couldn’t hurt another man. She just couldn’t.

  He’d told her to never be sorry . . . “Will—”

  “Don’t. Just be honest,” he said, pulling his knees toward his chest, and sitting forward to drape his wrists over them. “If anything, be honest.”

  He stared at the muck between his boots, his hair wet where it hung in thick hanks from his bowed head. Had someone been dishonest with him? Had he been the one who hadn’t been truthful? Was he being dishonest now, feigning this dejection that had her wanting to reach for him, to soothe him, when she knew her instincts were right?

  Why couldn’t she take him at his word? Why was being forthcoming so difficult with him? “The day we met, at Kaylie’s place. Do you remember that?”

  The corner of h
is mouth teased upward. “I was unloading some two-by-fours, I think. Had them on my shoulders and walked around the side of the house. There you were, talking to Kaylie and Ten. I think that was the first time you’d seen him in a while.”

  “It was. I was pretty caught up in all that emotion.” And it rose in her now, the same rush of so many things she’d had no idea what to do with.

  “But it didn’t keep you from noticing me.”

  Noticing him. When did she not notice him? He walked through a door, he exited his truck, he appeared from around the side of a house unexpectedly. He was impossible not to notice, but his charisma wasn’t enough. He was off in a way she would never be able to deal with long-term. And she was too old for short-term to be an option.

  She looked down at her lap, her skirt soaked nearly through, her thighs beneath the fabric of her tights covered with chill bumps, though she didn’t think she was cold. Wet, yes, but this was Texas, and January didn’t always require warm clothes. “You didn’t say much. With your mouth, anyway. But your eyes . . .”

  “I’d been out maybe a week? First there was Kaylie and Luna. Then you.” He reached down and swiped his palm over the toe of one work boot, then swiped it across the walkway cement to clean off the gunk. “Keeping my mouth shut is probably what kept me out of trouble those days.”

  “And now? You’ve been out, what?” She counted back to the previous March. “Ten months? What keeps you out of trouble now?”

  She waited for the obvious response: he stayed out of trouble to keep from going back in. But he surprised her, saying instead, “I’m in more trouble now than you can imagine.”

  “Will—”

  And then he threw back his head and laughed, water from the leaves of the backyard trees, their limbs creating a canopy over the cottage, dripping onto his face, and him not seeming to care at all. As if the possibility of bark or bugs or waterlogged bees falling into his open mouth hadn’t occurred to him, when she couldn’t think about anything else.

  Except what sort of mess he’d gotten himself into. “Can I do something? Can I help?”

  “Trust me, Ms. Keller. You’ve done more than you can possibly know.”

  She was caught too off guard to find any sort of response.

  “But yeah,” he said quickly. “If you want to do something, you can listen.”

  “Okay,” she said, pulling her skirt over her knees and huddling in on herself.

  “You’ve got a brother here who, I’ve got to say, is nuts about you moving to Hope Springs, even if he hasn’t told you.” He held up a hand when she started to interrupt. “And I know you want to find the one who walked out of your life, but don’t forget about Tennessee.”

  “I would never forget about Tennessee.” She frowned. How could he even think that?

  “Good. Now make sure he knows that,” he said, catching and holding her gaze. “Don’t let everything be about Dakota.”

  “It’s not,” she said, but didn’t argue further because she couldn’t do so and know she wasn’t telling a lie.

  He nodded. Whether he believed her or not . . . “That’s all. I just wanted to say it before I split.”

  Splitting didn’t sound like he was headed to work. And then it hit her, her pulse blipping, though she shouldn’t have been surprised. “You’re leaving Hope Springs.”

  “Eventually. Manny’s working on finding me another job. It’s time to move on.”

  “Because you’re still bored?” Please not because of me. Please. “What about your loft?”

  He shrugged as if he hadn’t counted on her question. “If I decide to come back, I’ll have a place to lay my weary head.”

  “Will—”

  “Do me a favor,” he said, his hands on his knees as he readied to stand. “Be nice to Gatlin. I think he needs it worse than I do.”

  “We’re friends,” she said, because she was not going to talk about Oliver. “Just like you and I are friends.”

  “No,” he said, his accompanying laugh sharp. “I don’t think so.”

  “You can think what you like,” she said, and braced for his argument.

  But he didn’t argue. He reached for her instead, pulling her to him, settling his mouth over hers, and urging her lips apart. She stiffened, her eyes open, shocking herself with her lack of response. Oh, how far she’d come with knowing herself and what she wanted.

  Whom she wanted.

  He was laughing to himself when he let her go and stood, looking down to where she sat, still stunned. “See? That’s how you kiss a friend. Remember that the next time you kiss Gatlin.”

  Though Indiana had hoped to spend Valentine’s Day in Buda, away from the only man the day brought to mind, too much was happening on Three Wishes Road for her to abandon Hope Springs, which put her across the street from the Caffey-Gatlin Academy—where Oliver’s car was parked in the newly poured front lot.

  Oh, she couldn’t avoid him forever. And she wasn’t even sure avoiding was what they’d been doing since Christmas, but a month and a half made for a really long silence. Especially between two people who purported to be friends. Friends had one another’s best interests at heart. Friends stayed in touch. Friends were whom one turned to in times of need, even if that need was as simple as a cup of coffee and a laugh.

  Their friendship was one of the reasons she’d missed her brothers so much. Oh, they’d had the same garden-variety spats as most siblings eventually did, but she’d been able to count on both without fail. The failure had come later, her failure, her fault.

  What she did know was that neither Thea nor Robby had been a true friend, but it had taken too long for her to realize that particular truth. Sad, really, when she’d lived with the two best examples of what friendship meant that she’d ever known.

  Tennessee was better than anyone she knew at caring for others. Problem was, he wasn’t so good at caring for himself—much like she wasn’t so good at caring for herself. Much like Dakota hadn’t thought of himself at all when he’d picked up that baseball bat.

  Huh. And she’d always wondered how many things they had in common . . .

  Having parked and left her car, she headed for the front steps and climbed them to the porch. Two boxes sat at her door, both UPS deliveries. She picked up both, recognizing the one from Amazon as the latest Jo Nesbø novel she’d ordered, but the other . . . She pushed into the house, setting the boxes on the kitchen countertop.

  Inside the white cardboard were two layers of Bubble Wrap, and inside the Bubble Wrap two layers of thin brown paper, like that from a grocery bag, but lightweight and imprinted with the logo of the sender—Lockets and Figs—with whom she was unfamiliar. Once she pulled that paper aside, she found the box.

  It was white and square and about the size of her palm. The top fit snugly to the bottom and was held in place by a flat bow of silver ribbon. She pulled both ends, then lifted away the box top to be met with cotton padding and a tiny bifold card. The outside was engraved with the same logo as the box and the paper.

  But the inside . . .

  With the box in one hand, the card in her other, she walked to the small bistro table she’d bought to have in the house and sat. Her hands were shaking when she opened the card to read it again, her heart in her throat causing her much breathing grief. She blew out a breath like she would a whistle, and forced her eyes to examine each word.

  “The bee is more honored than other animals, not because she labors, but because she labors for others.”

  Saint John Chrysostom

  That was it. No salutation. No signature.

  It didn’t matter. She knew whom it was from.

  She didn’t recognize the name of the jeweler, but the piece itself told the tale. The delicate chain was made of tiny, lacelike links, and the dainty little bee dangling on the end was, she was certain, crafted of onyx and topaz and d
iamonds and gold. It was gorgeous. It was extraordinary. It was too much for a gift between . . . friends.

  No off-the-shelf baubles for Oliver Gatlin. Uh-uh. She’d bet her whole crop of honey this piece had been custom-made. Meaning he’d commissioned it weeks ago. More than likely before the wedding and the reception and all the in-between cake.

  And he’d given her a Patchwork Moon original for Christmas, which had her wondering how original it really was. Had he bought it off the shelf in the Austin boutique that sold Luna’s wares? Or had he made the request, even though Luna rarely took on special orders?

  Two months ago he’d thought enough about her to buy these gifts, to have at least one of them specially designed, and considering the colors in the scarf, quite possibly both, and at some cost. Yet she’d only seen him in passing since Christmas, when she’d left him sitting in his car in front of Luna’s loft after gorging on the desserts he’d paid for.

  That day in Butters Bakery . . . The things they’d left unsaid . . .

  Once she’d made it upstairs to the reception, she’d stood by the loft’s windows, blinking back tears, and watching until he’d pulled away. She’d only been able to see a sliver of his car’s roof, and she’d had to stand on tiptoe to peer down at the street. He’d sat there in the idling vehicle for ten minutes, then burned rubber when he’d left.

  Only when he pulled away had she realized she was shaking. Her hands, her knees. Her heart that wanted so badly to break. How had she let herself get so weak that she completely let down her guard?

  This was frightening, and it tore her up because what she felt for Oliver cut to the core of who she was. Who she’d been since fifteen and her course set with the opposite sex. Robby’s assault had happened almost half her lifetime ago, and yet it ruled every choice she’d made since. A part of her knew she’d given too much power to that one boy, and that one night.