Renegade: A Taggart Brothers Novel (11 page)

Turning the mixer on high—and hoping it masked the note of disappointment in her voice, she said, “Right now, I’ve got to get my kids in school, find a job . . .”

P.D. nodded. “About that. I might have an idea, if you’re interested.”

But before she could say anything more, the door to the kitchen opened and Kari stomped inside.

“That man sent me to get you,” she said, her arms tightly crossed, her expression thunderous.

“What man?”

“Jace. He needs you outside.”

Before Bronte could ask any more questions, she stormed through the door again.

Embarrassed by her daughter’s behavior, she turned to offer an apology to P.D., but P.D. was laughing. “You’ve got your hands full,” she murmured, then gestured to the pans. “The oven’s hot. Do you want me to put these in while you see what Jace needs?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“How long do they need to cook?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Bronte hadn’t realized how steamy the kitchen had grown until she stepped outside. A balmy breeze buffeted the grass and teased at the strands of the willow tree. The air was warm, hinting at the hot, dry summer that was around the corner.

Bronte paused on the stoop, automatically searching for her daughters. Kari—whose bad mood clearly extended only to Bronte—was standing next to several teenagers near the old barn. She was twisting and untwisting a lock of hair around her finger while she peered under her lashes at Tyson, Jace’s hired man. Something he said made her laugh. The kid must have had superpowers, because when he held out a shovel, Kari took it. Then, still laughing, she began using it to pry hunks of weed-choked sod out of the flower bed.

Will wonders never cease?

It took a little longer to find Lily, but finally, Bronte saw her huddled in the corner of the tree house, her chin on her knees.

“Do you want to come down and help, Lily?” Bronte said, her hand shading her eyes.

Lily shook her head, her gaze darting over the crowd below.

More than anything, Bronte wanted to rush to her daughter’s side and encourage her to mingle, but the rigid line of her back was a sure sign that now wasn’t the time. Once again, Lily had shyly crawled back into her shell. Even Barry, dressed in his Scouting regalia, couldn’t seem to tempt her to join him on the grass. So he scrambled up the ladder, sitting next to her.

Bronte’s enthusiasm drained from her, leaving her limbs clumsy and heavy as she descended the rickety steps and circled the house. What must Lily be thinking? That Bronte had invited all these strangers to the house? Too late, Bronte realized that most of the workers were men. To be surrounded by a sea of people she didn’t know—especially those of the opposite sex—must be overwhelming to her. But thankfully, Barry seemed to know what to say because Bronte saw her daughter’s lips tip in a shy smile. Maybe she needed a friend right now, rather than a mother.

Sighing, Bronte rounded the house, then came to a standstill. She’d guessed that the cement truck had been brought in to replace the front steps, but what she hadn’t foreseen was the complete overhaul that was being made.

The entire front porch had been removed, the roof above supported by a network of two-by-fours temporarily nailed to the wall and stakes pounded into the ground. Everything else had been dismantled to make way for a much wider staircase, a sitting area, and a wheelchair ramp. Even as she watched, a thick stream of concrete was being pumped into molds made of plywood and two-by-fours.

Jace was carefully overseeing the process while Elam and a younger, more mischievous version of Jace smoothed it into place with shovels. Was that Brodey . . . no, Bodey?

Jace must have sensed her regard because he turned, then grinned at her. And that smile—that damned, no-holds-barred smile—caused a stampede of butterflies to take wing in her stomach. Sinking his shovel into a pile of concrete, he walked toward her, sweeping the hat from his head and wiping at the moisture beading his brow before replacing it again.

“Hey, there.”

Her knees grew weak at the warmth of his tone. There was something . . . intimate about his greeting. As if the two of them shared a secret that no one around them would ever know.

What had she done after she’d fallen asleep?

“Hi.”

“Did you sleep well?”

She nervously folded her arms, one hand casually straying toward her hair to make sure that it hadn’t escaped from the braid.

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. Thanks.”

He was looking at her closely, his eyes rich with warmth and a spark of something more. Bronte braced herself, sure that he was about to let her know how much she’d embarrassed herself by falling asleep and then . . . what? Had she snored? Drooled?

Dear sweet heaven above, she hadn’t grabbed him, had she?

“What do you think?”

It took her a second to realize he wasn’t referring to last night at all, but to the new stoop.

“You really shouldn’t have, Jace—”

“You don’t like it?”

“No. Yes!” She gazed at the project and could already envision what it would look like finished. Not only would it be safer for Annie to negotiate, but there would be room for chairs and a table so that her grandmother could come outside and enjoy the sunshine. “I think it’s . . . fantastic! I just . . .” She bit her lip and said truthfully, “I don’t know how I’m ever going to repay everyone for all they’ve done.”

Jace laughed. “You don’t have to do a thing, Bronte. Folks have been wanting to help Annie for years, but she wouldn’t hear of any of us stepping in to lend her a hand when, in her words: ‘There were other folk needing it more.’” Little lines appeared at the corners of his eyes. “Everyone figured they could blame you if Annie got mad, so it wasn’t hard for the folks in charge to get a few people to come help.”

“A few? There’s probably fifty people here.”

Jace nodded, his own gaze sweeping over several groups of Scouts pulling weeds, giggling girls scraping and painting the wooden trim around the windows, and the clusters of men shouting and hammering on the roof as loose shingles were removed and replaced.

“We wouldn’t have had nearly so many if it weren’t for you.”

Her brows rose. “Me?”

He nodded imperceptibly to a spot behind her and she twisted to find Kari glaring in their direction.

A wave of guilt washed through Bronte, dousing the warmth Jace had inspired. But that guilt was quickly submerged beneath a healthy dose of pique. Damnit, she was the adult in this situation, not Kari. She and Jace hadn’t done anything but share a kiss.

So why was Bronte feeling so defensive?

“We probably would have had only a half dozen people here if it weren’t for the rumors.”

Bronte’s head whipped away from Kari’s inspection as she was filled with a rush of horror. “What rumors?” she demanded.

Damn, damn, damn. How was it possible that a single stolen kiss could spread through a community like wildfire?

Jace leaned toward her, close enough that his breath stirred the sensitive tendrils of hair near her ear, but not close enough for Kari to think that Jace was being anything but “friendly.”

“That Annie’s beautiful granddaughter from Boston has come to visit.”

Bronte braced herself, waiting for the rest of the dire rumor. But when Jace backed away, it was clear that he had nothing more to add. Nothing but a wicked grin and an intimate sweep of her frame, head to toe, then up again.

Then he was turning back to the men directing the cement.

It took several minutes for her to realize that Jace was keeping to his promise. To anyone who watched them, he was nothing more than her friend.

She turned and hurried toward the side entrance so that she could finish the cookies. But she paused when her phone chirped in her pocket. Sighing, she retrieved it, seeing that she had a text.

Sit w/ me @ lunch?

A frisson of sensation caused gooseflesh to pebble her skin. Glancing behind her, she saw Jace striding toward his truck. He looked back at her for only a second. One hot, hot second. Then he bent over the toolbox built into the vehicle’s bed.

Bronte glanced at Kari, who had finally gone back to her chores, then the wary curve of Lily’s smile as Barry sat beside her and handed her a sticky dandelion.

She should concentrate on them. Only on them.

Even as the words popped into her head, Bronte knew it wasn’t enough. For too long, she’d focused all her energies on Phillip and her kids. She’d starved herself of every scrap of joy, knowing that there was none to spare. But now that she’d been given a morsel of kindness—a tiny bit of hope—there were parts of her that were waking from her self-imposed
stasis. As her mind and her soul returned to complete sentience, she was consumed with a raging hunger to feel.

To
feel.

Happiness, joy, anger, and yes, even pain. She didn’t want to numbly stumble through life any more. For the first time in years, she wanted to make her own decisions. She wanted a house that was a home, not a museum. She wanted kids who laughed out loud, argued at the top of their lungs without fear of reprisal, and tracked dirt in from the yard. Damnit, she didn’t want a job. She wanted an education and a career.

Her fingers hovered over the glowing keypad of her phone.

Most of all, she wanted to be courageous enough to admit that
friend
was only a small part of the description she wanted applied to her relationship with Jace.

As soon as the thought appeared, the inner voice she’d grown to hate began its incessant nagging, telling her that she was making a mistake. It was too soon to even
think
about dating or even a close friendship with someone of the opposite sex. But as the familiar warnings began to flood her head, her fingers were already flying over the illuminated letters.

Is that good idea?

Seconds later, she had her response.

I’ll B friendly.

Bronte laughed out loud.

CU there.

B
RONTE
had no time to wonder if she were playing with fire. As soon as she stepped into the kitchen, the buzzer on the oven rang. She quickly checked on the biscuits, taking the pans from the oven and replacing them with a sheet tray of cookies.

“Those look wonderful,” P.D. remarked as she leaned close to inhale the heady combined scents.

“When they’re cool, I’ll put another layer of glaze on top. If I’d had more than a single orange, I would have used fresh-squeezed juice for the glaze. But these will do.”

“Yum. And the cookies?”

“Oatmeal raisin. Normally, I’d freeze the dough in a log and slice off pieces to bake.” Bronte grinned. “When we were kids and Annie made these, the dough would rarely make it to the oven. We would sneak into the kitchen and cut off hunks of frozen dough and eat it raw.”

P.D.’s expression became thoughtful. “Do you suppose you could leave out the egg and put the raw dough in ice cream?”

The buzzer signaled that one batch of cookies was done.
With the ease of years of practice, Bronte removed the pans and replaced them with yet another batch.

“I don’t see why not.”

Since Annie didn’t have a cooling rack, Bronte placed folded newspapers on the Formica, then covered them with brown paper grocery sacks that had been stacked in her grandmother’s drawer for such a purpose.

“What are you doing now?” P.D. asked curiously.

Bronte laughed. “One of Annie’s tricks from her own mother. If you place the hot cookies on the brown paper and newspapers, it draws the heat out and lets them breathe like a cooling rack. When I was a teenager, I thought it was part of the recipe and insisted on doing it at home. Even after Annie explained it was simply a makeshift tool, I put them on the brown paper if I had it handy. Somehow, it seemed to intensify the scent of the cooling cookies for me.” She shrugged. “It’s probably in my head, but I do it anyway.”

“Mind if I try one?”

“Of course not. I’m about ready to finish the biscuits, so I’ll get you one of those as well.”

Using a large spoon, Bronte scooped up the glaze, then drizzled it over the biscuits in diagonal stripes. When she’d finished, she cut one from the corner and put it on a small plate then put the cookie to the side.

“Is that all you make? Cookies and biscuits?”

Bronte shook her head. “I’m one of those people who bakes to relieve stress. Bread, cake, cookies, pies.” She grimaced. “The last few years, my neighbors have loved me. I’ve been baking more than my family could ever consume.”

P.D. took a bite of the cookie and smiled, closing her eyes. “Mmm. This is what childhood should taste like.”

Bronte wondered at her odd turn of phrase:
should
taste like.

Then P.D. pinched off a corner of the biscuit. She took a bite, then made a silly, happy face. “To borrow a phrase from Elam . . .
Wow!
”

Bronte laughed. “I bet he says that a lot, with your cooking.”

P.D. put the plate on the counter and leaned back, peering at Bronte in a way that made it clear the wheels in her head were turning.

“You’ve done these from memory. Do you have other favorites?”

“Sure. I’ve got a whole recipe collection if you want to look at it. Jace said you were looking for new dishes for your restaurant.”

P.D. nodded. “I’m always looking for those, but . . . what I’m really looking for is a baker. Mine is quitting to have a baby.”

She waited expectantly, but Bronte wasn’t sure what help she could give in that regard. She didn’t know anyone in Bliss.

“How would you like the job, Bronte?”

For several long seconds, Bronte stared at her blankly.

“You’d have early hours, so you wouldn’t be able to see your kids off to school, but you’d be home well before they returned in the afternoon. Your shift will start around four in the morning and you could leave as soon as everything is ready, hopefully before the busy lunch hour. You’d be in charge of the fresh bread for the day. Each table is given a variety of three small loaves on a cutting board when the diners sit down. The buns for our burgers and sandwiches are already handled by an artisan group in Logan, so you won’t have to worry about those. But I’d like to do a rotation of desserts throughout the month: pies, tarts, cakes, homemade ice creams with unusual add-ins, cheesecakes, and cobblers. I’d need you to help with those. If you join us, I think we should add a selection of cookies as well. It would be a unique homey touch to the menu. I can’t pay a whole lot, but it would be over minimum wage and benefits would be included. There’s also some take-out and catering involved with Vern’s—something I’d like to build even more. So if the demand on your products is high, you’ll receive a portion of the sales as a bonus at the end of each project.”

Bronte stared at P.D., sure that she’d blacked out and this whole scenario was a hallucination brought on by her worry. But when P.D. lifted her brows questioningly, Bronte realized that there was a more logical explanation for the offer.

“Did Jace put you up to this?”

P.D. shook her head.

“Then why?”

“Honestly?” P.D. asked.

Bronte nodded.

“I’m desperate. My baker is leaving in a couple of weeks. When Jace mentioned eating one of your cinnamon rolls, I thought I’d come by and talk to you about helping out temporarily.” She grinned, grabbing her biscuit and biting off another piece. “But after seeing and tasting your work, I knew I had a permanent candidate for the job. And,” she drawled temptingly, “come fall semester, you might even be able to squeeze in a class or two at Utah State after your shift.”

A tingling began in the tips of Bronte’s fingers, spreading out through her whole body, filling her with an effervescent joy—one that she hadn’t felt in oh so long.

“You’re sure about this?” she asked, just in case. The beeper on the stove began its insistent alarm, but she ignored it.

P.D. had closed her eyes to savor the rich, gooey center of the orange biscuit. But she opened them to say, “Oh, I’m sure. I know you need to get your kids settled in school and Annie will still need regular visits. I’ll give you some time to settle in, but be at Vern’s bright and early a week from Monday. That way, Marta can work with you for several days to make sure you’re settled.”

Bronte held out her hand. “It’s a deal.”

After the two of them sealed the arrangement, P.D. took a pan of biscuits in each hand and carried them outside.

Bronte waited until the screen slammed behind her. Then turning away, she uttered a squeal of delight and did a quick victory jig.

She had a job.

She had a job!

*   *   *

AS
Jace had suspected, the lunch break became more of a party than a meal. He snagged a couple of lawn chairs for
Bronte and him, then scooped a cold Pepsi from a plastic tub that had been filled with ice and assorted sodas. Although he stood with a group of friends and their wives, he kept one eye on the house until Bronte walked outside carrying plates of cookies. She was immediately surrounded by the younger kids. Clearly, they weren’t willing to wait with the adults, who were sidling down a long line of squat black pots filled with roasted chicken, Dutch oven potatoes, roasted vegetables, and Helen Henderson’s killer cherry chocolate cake. Sawhorses covered with lengths of plywood served as makeshift tables, and as the minutes ticked by, more cars appeared—primarily women this time—carrying picnic salads and Crock-Pots filled with baked beans.

As Bronte laughed and set the cookies with the rest of the food, a van pulled up next to the barn. Jace recognized the band that played at Vern’s on the weekend.

Bronte’s expression was bemused as she took in the activity around her. In the space of a few hours, the flower beds had been weeded, raked, and edged. The flaking trim on the house had been scraped away and repainted, the roof was repaired, and the new stoop was well on its way to completion. There would still be work to do inside, but a week’s worth of hard labor had been completed in a couple of hours.

“It’s looking pretty good, isn’t it?”

Bronte looked at him, wide-eyed, and for the first time he saw a spark of joy in her dark blue eyes.

“I can’t believe it. I thought I’d be spending most of the summer just getting the yard in shape.”

“Come on, let’s get you something to eat.”

Mindful of the way that Kari followed their every move with a none-too-subtle death glare, Jace made sure that he kept at least a foot of space between them as he began introducing Bronte to her neighbors. He figured the names would all run together after a while, but they’d all remember Bronte. Then, he led her down the line, introducing her to Helen and Syd. Helen immediately took Bronte under her wing. Before Bronte knew what had happened, Helen had
organized a group of women to come help her deep-clean the house the following weekend, filled up her plate, poured her a cold drink, and ushered her to the waiting lawn chairs.

Jace slid into the chair next to her, and when Helen moved on to help P.D. set up extra tables, he chuckled softly. “You have now experienced the full power of P.D. Raines and Helen Henderson. When the two of them put their heads together, there’s no stopping them.”

Bronte regarded her heaping plate with bemusement, then looked up to say, “Did you know she offered me a job?”

Jace twisted the lid off his drink and gulped the soda down, then said, “Who? Helen?”

“No. P.D.”

Jace’s brows rose. “Really? Doing what?”

“She wants me to take over as her baker.”

Jace laughed, realizing the source of her good mood. He was sure that having a job lined up was a huge relief.

“Are you going to take it?”

“I’ve already told her I will.”

“You’ll be great.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

Her smile spread over her face like sunshine, and Jace felt his breath catch. God, she was beautiful. More than ever, he wondered how difficult her life in Boston must have been the past few years, if the promise of a job and the help from a few neighbors could chase away the haunted expression in her eyes.

He gestured to her plate. “You’d better eat. You’re going to need your strength.”

*   *   *

THE
rest of the afternoon passed quickly. Jace was pleased with the way that Bronte was welcomed into the crowd. He watched as she laughed and chatted. One of the women worked as a secretary at the high school and she told Bronte what she needed to do to get her kids enrolled. Another was an elementary teacher who reassured Bronte that the curriculum in
Boston was similar to that in Bliss, so Lily should be able to ease into one of the current third-grade classes.

With each assurance, some of the emotional weight seemed to lift from her shoulders until he had a glimpse of the woman she must have been before a dissolving marriage and the pressures of shielding her children from the fallout had begun to weigh on her.

Jace tried to remind himself that they were simply
friends
. But the term had never really fit—and it certainly didn’t fit now. With each minute that he spent in her company, his attraction to her increased. More than anything, he longed to reach over and touch her. But Kari had taken a seat only a few yards away with some of the other teenagers. She watched him with the intensity of a nineteenth-century chaperone intent on guarding a virgin bride-to-be. Lily, who had been coaxed down by Barry to investigate the creek and the outbuildings, had alternately spent her time with Barry or clinging to her mother. But now, she was back up in the tree house again. Barry must have shoved some of his ranch toys into his pockets because the two of them had dragged a blanket up the ladder and were galloping plastic horses over the folds.

So he contented himself with watching Bronte, memorizing the brown and green flecks in her eyes and the slope of her cheek. He realized that she crossed her arms when she was nervous and unconsciously bit her lip when she was thinking.

When the crowd of people began to disperse, Jace knew that was his cue to leave as well. Kari’s steely gaze had eased from outright anger to suspicion, and he wasn’t about to push his luck. But as he scanned the area for his little brother, his gaze fell on the glider beneath the porch eaves.

Unable to resist the temptation, Jace took his phone from his pocket. As soon as he’d unlocked it, he tapped the texting icon and sent a message to Bronte.

What R U doing tonight 11:00?

He saw her straighten from where she was clearing the last of the food and utensils from one of the tables.

Why?

He turned away, afraid that the intensity of his need to be alone with her again would be telegraphed into the very air around them for everyone to see.

How about another ride on the glider?

There was no response. The urge to turn and look at her was nearly overpowering. Finally, her answer popped into view.

I’ll B there.

Jace nearly cheered aloud. But tamping down his joy—as well as the flood of longing that swept through his body—he typed one last message.