by Alison Kent
He spun on her then. “What exactly am I going to do if I stay in Hope Springs?”
“Whatever you want to.” She was waving her arms again. This time Thea backed out of the way. “Go into business for yourself.”
“Doing what? Using what money? What credit? I got nothing, Indiana. Nothing.” And admitting that in front of both of these women was one of the lowest moments of his life. “Don’t you get that? Is that so hard to understand?”
Tears welled in her eyes. Her mouth trembled. “Tennessee and I can help you. What do you want to do? You’ve got a degree. Do something with it.”
“That degree on my résumé . . .” Was he the only one who got the joke? “Isn’t there some saying about lipstick and pigs?”
“It’s not that hard to turn a bad situation into a good one, you know,” Thea said.
Yeah right. He looked at her, all covered up and inaccessible, hiding, really. That’s what it was. “Is that what you’ve done? You and all the women you’re supporting?”
Her eyes flared. Her nostrils, too. He expected any second to see smoke coming out of her ears. “We’re doing just fine, thank you. Not that it’s any of your concern. And not that my circumstances have anything to do with yours.”
“You sure about that, Clark?” he asked, goading her and unable to stop. What a joke, pretending they could avoid the past. It was alive in this very room, clawing at them both, angry and hurtful and refusing to let go.
Thea was barely civil when she said, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just go there.”
“Go where?” Indiana asked, looking from one to the other. “What am I missing?”
“Listen—”
“No,” Thea said, raising a hand to cut him off. “You and your sister finish this up. I’m in the way.” She gave Indiana a hug. “It’s good to see you. We’ll do lunch soon and catch up properly?”
“Absolutely.”
“I’ll see you at the shop,” Dakota said because he couldn’t deal with leaving things this way.
“Can’t wait,” she said, the roll of her eyes adding another tangle to the knot of Dakota’s gut.
Once she was gone, he leaned against the counter across from the sink where his sister still stood, and dragged his hands down his face. He was too tired to think. Too fed up with being tired to even know what he was doing. Something had to give. Something had to change.
He looked at his sister and saw the girl she’d been in high school. Her dark hair. Her freckles. Her innocence that he’d very nearly let get ruined. “I’m sorry I wasn’t in touch. I’m sorry you had to send a PI to find me.”
“I missed you. I needed to know you were okay. I needed you in my life.” She stepped forward and laid her palm on his cheek. “I love you.”
Then she turned and left the kitchen, left the cottage, and moments later, left the property on Thea’s heels.
Dakota grabbed his keys, his lukewarm tacos and cold kolaches, made sure the coffee pot was off, and headed out the door. He slammed that one so hard the front room window rattled. Then he slammed the one in the truck so hard he set off the alarm. “Shit.”
Why in the world had he told anyone he was thinking of hitting the road? He’d never told anyone previously. He’d finished a job and vanished, given his notice and gone. Sure, this was different; he was working for his brother. Turning in his resignation wouldn’t be as simple as it had been in the past.
Tennessee would’ve asked the same questions. He’d have gone to Indiana. That part Dakota could understand. He owed his siblings more than he’d given them the last time he’d split. But Thea was different. She was a job. He was a contractor. He didn’t owe her a thing. Except he did. He owed her all.
She was why he was still in one piece and for the most part sane. And he was going to tell her that when she said he’d ruined her? Not likely. Though, he mused with a self-deprecating snort, she was very possibly the reason he was alone. Meaning she may have ruined him, too. That was when his snort became a laugh, because what a waste. Of years. Of trying not to think of her when he was with other women.
The idea of being meant for one single person didn’t work for him. He didn’t buy into all that woo-woo crap. Besides, he and Thea weren’t involved beyond their working relationship. The years they’d spent together, he realized as he pulled to park behind Bread and Bean, had been one of those moments out of time. It had mattered then. It wasn’t meant to be repeated. That’s just how things worked. Just how it was.
It couldn’t be any other way.
Checking to see that he hadn’t missed anything in the cab, he slammed the truck’s door and headed for the bed and his toolbox.
“Hey, dude.”
Dude? He glanced toward the chocolate shop next door. The woman who worked there, the one with the chunks of colored hair, was walking toward him. “By ‘dude’ I guess you mean me?”
“Yeah, sorry. I don’t know your name.”
“Ditto.”
“Right. I’m Lena Mining. I work at Bliss,” she said, gesturing that direction with her thumb.
“Dakota Keller.” He held out his hand. “I work wherever my brother sends me.”
She frowned, as if parsing out his words, but she did shake his hand. “Your brother. So he’s the boss? The one I’d want to talk to about a job?”
“You can talk to me.”
She thought about that for a moment, then asked, “Do you only do commercial work? Like the stuff here for Bread and Bean?”
“Nope,” he said, unlocking his truck box and setting his tape measure inside before retrieving the case for his saw. “We do it all,” he added, hearing the snap of a smartphone camera and turning. “Can I help you with something?”
She turned her phone toward him and showed him the photo of the sign on his door. “Just grabbing your contact info.”
“I think I’ve got a card somewhere if you want it. Probably on the visor. Or the glove box.”
“This I won’t lose, but thanks,” she said, turning away with a frown, then turning back with a quick, “Nice to meet you.”
“You, too,” he said, thinking this job had put him in the path of some of the most interesting women he’d ever run across in his life.
Needing a break from the drama of Dakota Keller, as much as she needed something new to read, Thea had parked in front of Bread and Bean once she’d arrived in town. Instead of going inside, however, she’d started walking. She was hungry and wished Butters Bakery sold more than sweets, but it was either a cookie or a chocolate bonbon from Bliss. She opted for the cookies, one oatmeal raisin and one peanut butter, figuring at least she’d get some fiber and protein with her sugar and fat.
The cookies kept her busy for the several blocks walk to Cat Tales. The new-and-used bookstore was one of her favorite discoveries after moving to Hope Springs. She could understand why the resident tabby found the place the perfect home. Browsing the shelves gave her time to think about the morning’s failed breakfast with Dakota and his sister, and to remember how, during their early teen years, she’d shamelessly used her friend to get to her brother.
She’d loved being around Indiana because she was so . . . normal. Even with weird hippie parents as examples growing up, Indiana had never been brainwashed by their propaganda. She’d always thought for herself, known what she wanted, and gone after it. Thea had envied that. She’d been absolutely without goals—except Dakota.
At first, it had been a conquest thing; every girl she’d known had had a crush on Dakota Keller. Later, she’d wanted him for a grippingly honest reason: never in her life had she had a better friend. She’d been able to talk to him about things she wouldn’t have felt comfortable saying to his sister. She’d told him the truth about her problems at home, her problems at school—all of which she’d hidden behind her bad-girl façade. Not once had she worried he’d use
her confessions against her, or throw her admissions into her face.
Then again, he’d been just as forthcoming talking to her.
That had been then.
Now just being in the same room with him was enough to make her want to crawl out of her skin. Or to be less dramatic . . . the comfort was gone. Completely. He made her nervous. He made her sweaty and itchy and jumpy. If he’d been anyone else, she would’ve left him to his work and written a check when it was done.
But Dakota Keller had always been one of her favorite things. And she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed having access to his ear and his shoulder until she’d looked up from her blueprint that first morning and found a grown-up version of the boy she’d known looking down.
Why did things have to change? Why did his choice to go after his sister’s attacker have to screw up everything they’d had? Except she’d been equally at fault, hadn’t she?
She hadn’t gone to see him in prison.
She hadn’t tried to find him after his release.
She hadn’t trusted her instincts when they’d screamed that Todd would never be Dakota, even though they’d shared the same body type, the same coloring, the same dry sense of humor . . . even if the temperament she’d thought similar, well . . . Could she possibly have been more wrong?
Yes, Dakota had it in him to be violent. But not like Todd. Never like Todd.
Enough.
The day was paint-by-numbers gorgeous, and the sun tempting, so she veered off the sidewalk and through the entrance to the small city park she’d walked by earlier. She had a new-to-her Megan Chance novel to read, and indulging in a few pages now before having to see Dakota again was just what the doctor ordered.
So what if she was self-medicating?
Heading for the closest bench as she flipped through the book, she looked up just in time to avoid a collision with a woman pushing a stroller. The little girl waving her arms in excitement was probably a year old, though Thea was really bad with ages. The woman—
Thea found herself smiling. “I know you.”
Frowning, the little girl’s mother looked over. “You do?”
“I’m sorry. That was so rude. I’m Thea Clark,” she said, her book closing on one hand as she offered the other. “I’m opening Bread and Bean on Fourth Street.”
“The coffee shop, right?” The woman shook Thea’s hand warmly. “My husband’s firm is doing work for you I think.”
“Right. You’re Kaylie Keller.”
“Yes. Good grief.” Kaylie pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I’m usually much better at introductions. Motherhood has made mush of my brain. I’m so sorry.”
“I started us off on the wrong foot,” Thea said, following Kaylie to the bench where they both sat. “My fault.”
Nodding toward Thea’s book, Kaylie said, “I guess you’ve been to Cat Tales.”
Thea waved it casually. “I needed something to take my mind off the construction.”
Kaylie frowned. “It’s not going well?”
“Oh, no. Everything’s fine.” Way to go. Stepping without looking again. The woman’s husband was doing the work, for goodness sake. “I’m just hearing hammering and sawing in my sleep.”
Kaylie laughed, reaching into her daughter’s diaper bag for her chirping phone. “Having gone through a Keller Construction project myself, I can totally relate.”
Tennessee had remodeled Kaylie’s three-story Victorian, turning the bottom floor into Two Owls Café. That was how the couple had met. That was when they’d fallen in love. Thea knew all this from gossip, but there was absolutely no correlation to Dakota building out Thea’s espresso bar.
None at all. “I need to get back, but can I ask you something? Before I go?”
“Sure.” Kaylie scanned the text message, then blanked her phone’s screen and tucked it away. “What is it?”
How best to put this . . . “Do you know why Dakota’s thinking of leaving Hope Springs?”
“What?” Kaylie’s gaze narrowed. “Leaving? Dakota?”
And once more with the big mouth. “I thought you probably knew. He mentioned having told Tennessee. I just assumed . . . Sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I’m glad you did,” Kaylie said, bending at her daughter’s shout to retrieve a toy dangling against the stroller. “Tennessee doesn’t usually keep secrets from me.”
“I’m sure he has a good reason,” Thea said, though she wasn’t sure of anything of the sort.
“Oh, I’m sure he does. Like wanting to deal with it on his own because he doesn’t like to rely on anyone.” Kaylie rubbed at her forehead again. “That seems to be a family trait with the siblings.”
Because they’d had no one else to rely on growing up. “Have you met their parents?”
“Actually, no. They’ve been overseas since Tennessee and I married. I’ve heard plenty of stories, though.”
“Then you probably understand why said siblings tend to think they have to figure things out on their own.”
Kaylie shrugged. “Tennessee and I almost never disagree, you know? We get along so perfectly it’s frightening. But when we do, ninety percent of the time it’s because he doesn’t want to talk about his brother when I ask what’s going on with him or how he’s doing.”
Thea frowned. “You mean with the work?”
“With anything. With everything.” Kaylie glanced over. “It was Indiana who hired a PI to find him. Not Tennessee. Did you know that?”
Thea shook her head absently, brushing at her bangs the wind had teased into her eyes. “Does Tennessee feel bad about that? Like he should’ve been the one to do it or something?”
“I don’t know. He won’t say.” Kaylie pressed her legs together, her hands laced tightly in her lap. “I imagine on some level he does, though once Indiana told him, he was onboard. He insisted on paying half the expenses.”
“That’s got to be good.”
“It is. And I know he loves him. There’s just something between them that seems to need settling,” she said with a sigh, then shaking her head. “For some reason they can’t get there. I can’t figure out why.”
Thea had a feeling . . . “Is it Indiana’s assault?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“I imagine that’s hard for them to deal with. Having been there at the time it happened. Not knowing and unable to stop it.” Her chest tight, Thea glanced toward the playground as a boy James’s age flew giggling off the end of the slide. “And it’s got to be even worse for Indiana, seeing her brothers butting heads over something that happened to her.”
“I think about that all the time,” Kaylie said, shuddering, on the verge of tears. “It keeps me awake nights, when Tennessee and I have argued. I just don’t know how they can do this to their sister. This rift . . . These men . . . They’ve got to repair it before it ruins the rest of their lives.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dakota stared at the chalk outline of the barista station he’d drawn on Bread and Bean’s floor, his thoughts split into two columns. One a list of things he needed to say to his sister. The other, twice as long, the explanations he owed Thea. Across the top of the mental page he’d scrawled the question of the day: What in the hell is wrong with you?
He wasn’t ready to say that inviting Thea to breakfast had been a mistake. He was glad she and his sister were once again on each other’s radar. If nothing else came of this morning, there was that. What he hated was Thea being caught in the middle of his issues with Indiana. She’d been his sister’s friend, if not as close as some, and yeah, because of him, they’d fallen out of touch.
One more thing to add to the list of wrongs he needed to make up for. It was going to take the rest of his life.
At the sound of the front door opening, he glanced over his shoulder to see Man
ny walking in. Dakota didn’t even give the door a chance to close or Manny a chance to speak before he jumped. “Please tell me you’ve lined up more help for Tennessee.” Knowing he could leave after this job was probably the only way he’d get through it.
“I’ve got a couple of guys I’ll be able to send him to talk to. If you’re sure about this.”
Dakota stayed where he was, arms crossed, as Manny made his way to the makeshift coffee station, stepping through the chalked lines of Dakota’s visual aid, and helped himself to a cup. “I am,” he said, though even he noticed the hesitation and doubt that had Manny staring at him over the edge of his cup as steam from the coffee rose like a fog between them.
“Not quite sure I heard that right,” Manny said, then blew over the surface and sipped. “Did you say you’re still thinking about it?”
Funny man. “What I’m thinking about is the placement of the barista station you’re standing in the middle of,” he said, nodding toward the sketch he’d made on the floor.
“Didn’t you hash all this out with the owner?” Manny asked, frowning as he glanced from the station’s shell sitting across the room to the chalk dust his feet had stirred up.
“We’re working from the original contractor’s specs, but I’m wondering if Becca might want more room.” He stepped to the other side of the drawing and faced the door. “We could give her another foot without impeding the flow of traffic.”
Manny sipped again, then shrugged. “Works for me, but then I’m just the manpower guy. You want me to have Tennessee talk to these guys now, or are you not ready to hit him with the fact that you’re leaving?”
“He knows,” Dakota said. “Might as well set up the interviews.” Then through the front door’s glass, he caught a glimpse of Thea on the sidewalk. Nothing else mattered after that. “Give me a minute, will ya? There’s a bag with a couple of kolaches in the kitchen if you need something to go with your coffee.”
“Thanks,” Manny said, turning that way as Dakota headed for the door, his heart hammering, his throat tight.