The Comfort of Favorite Things (A Hope Springs Novel) (20 page)

She shoved the filter handle to secure it and hit the button to start the machine, thoughts of their encounter at the house refusing to go away. But at least it gave them something to talk about, she mused, watching the espresso cup as it filled. “So Frank’s a friend? A client? Are you in construction?”

“You could say that,” he said as the machine finished and she shut it off.

Lord save her from men. “If you’re going to be all cryptic,” she said, handing him the clear glass, the espresso topped by a beautiful crema layer, “you can get your coffee in a can at the Dollar General. And if you tell me you’ve drank that swill—”

“A time or two,” he said with a nod, his eyes blacker than coffee and twinkling. “If I’m with folks who offer. If that’s all they have.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Did he drink it because he wanted it, or was he actually that nice? She wasn’t even sure Thea would be, and she was the nicest person Becca knew. Hell, she wasn’t sure she’d had that much niceness in her before it had been beaten out.

“So, Manny,” she said, crossing her arms. “Is that short for something? Manuel?”

“It is,” he said, and held her gaze as he sipped.

The small cup’s double wall of glass served as insulation, so he didn’t have to use the handle at all, but he did, sort of mashing it between his thumb and the rest of his fist. And that was when she saw his knuckles and the scars running across them like a railroad track.

She wanted to ask him what they were, but her head was full of the sound of Dez’s whip, and the tracks he’d left on her shoulders and down her spine like hash marks used for counting. He’d called it a brand, said she should be proud to be marked as his.

She supposed it was better than having had her skin burned with a branding iron. Or a lit cigarette.

“Would you like to go to dinner?”

“With you?” She blurted it out without thinking and wanted to kick herself in the ass. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right.”

His mouth pulled to the side, and she really hoped it was because he was
enjoying the coffee, and not because he was laughing at her. “Yes. With me.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s what people who are interested in each other do.”

“I never said—” Then she stopped because one of his eyebrows went up. He was right and she was a liar. “Look. I can’t be interested in you, and you really shouldn’t be interested in me. I’m flattered—”

“No you’re not.”

What was wrong with him? “Excuse me?”

“You’re scared. You think I’m a jerk, which I can be,” he said with a shrug, downing the rest of his espresso then frowning into the cup. “Most of the time I’m not, but it happens. And you don’t want to make a mistake, or get hurt again, or risk the progress you’ve made getting over your past. You don’t even want to think about your past, and if you decide to date again there’s really no way around it because—”

“Okay. Okay.” Sheesh. She’d heard all of this in therapy. “I’ll go to dinner with you.”

“Because you want to?” His head was still tilted downward, one hand in his pocket, the other holding the cup. But he did lift his gaze to meet hers. “Or did you say that to shut me up?”

“Can it be a little bit of both?” she asked. It was easier than admitting the truth.

A smile started up at the corner of his eyes. “It can be anything you want it to be.”

“Does that mean it doesn’t have to be a date?”

“No. It’s definitely a date.”

She blew out a long audible breath.

“You make it sound like the end of the world.”

“Some dates have turned out to be just that. For the women.”

“You watch a lot of crime TV?”

“And there you go. Being a jerk.”

“I’ll be more careful.” He stepped closer to give her the empty glass, holding on to it just long enough that their hands couldn’t help but touch. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Next time I’ll make you a latte,” she said once he’d let go. “And draw you a big fat middle finger in the foam.”

“Now see? That’s what I like to hear,” he said, as he headed for the door. “Next time. Has a nice ring to it.” Then he pushed it open and walked out, leaving Becca standing there, and staring, and so very hungry for things other than dinner.

Having arrived at Bread and Bean earlier than usual, Dakota found Ellie in the shop’s kitchen baking bread. He’d known she was there before poking his head in. The smells coming out of the other room had made him regret skipping breakfast, as did the third cup of coffee he’d finished five minutes ago. He needed to eat, and had just decided to break for an early lunch, when Thea walked in through the front door.

She headed straight for her table and her laptop, a frown on her face as she booted it up. Then she dug in her messenger bag for a legal pad, and jotted some notes, checking the calculator on her phone as she did. She looked more tired than usual, as well as more frazzled, and obviously she had something on her mind as she still hadn’t noticed him. Or maybe she had but was too caught up in whatever was going on in her head to have time for hello.

He started to go back to work on the shelving unit, not sure why lunch seemed less pressing now, but that meant the electric sander, and he was just about to ask if it would bother her when she heaved a huge sigh and collapsed, laying her head against her arms on the table.

He left the sander where it was and headed for the coffee pot and cup number four, asking the lame, “You okay?”

It took her a minute to respond, as if she didn’t have the energy to lift her head, but finally she did, shaking it as she used both hands to hold her bangs away from her face. “I had a meeting with an attorney earlier. To go over some numbers. Finances, taxes, stuff like that.”

“For the business?” he asked and she gave him a pretty vague shrug. “Didn’t it go well?”

“Why do you ask?” she asked, her mouth twisted sardonically.

“Because you look like you’re in over your head,” he said, then turned back to the coffee pump.

“I have a ton of stuff to do today is all,” she said, then added, “Is it that obvious?”

Probably best not to mention how shredded she appeared, the circles under her eyes, her topknot that had fallen down the back of her head. The streak of dirt on the front of her top. “You want a cup?”

“Sure. Not that it will help.”

This time she leaned her head back and closed her eyes. He glanced over once while her cup filled, thinking what she needed was a nap. “You getting any sleep?”

“Apparently not enough if you’re asking,” she said, adding, “Thanks,” when he handed her the drink.

“You just look a little rough around the edges is all.” He blew across the top of his cup then sipped, sucking back a sharp breath at the burn. “Like you’ve got a lot on your mind.”

She sipped more slowly, then set the cup down and gestured toward her makeshift desk. “It’s not on my mind as much as it’s in a spreadsheet and financial statement I’m not sure I’ve got it in me to decipher.”

“Want some help?” he asked, pulling up a milk crate and flipping it over to sit before she answered.

“Because this is high school, you mean? And you whizzed through Mrs. Agee’s accounting class? Or was that Mr. Meyer’s algebra? Neither one of which I would’ve ever gotten through without you.”

“Left brains. Right brains. We all have different strengths.”

“Says you with the engineering degree you’re not using.”

“Are we going to talk about me now?”

“I think we should. I mean look at me. What the hell do I know about running a business? I’m Muriel Clark’s unwanted kid. I barely graduated high school. I worked in fast-food joints until I was twenty-one and able to work clubs. Then I met Todd, who looked
so
much like you that I put on blinders—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Seriously? “Hold on just a minute now. Are we back to that ruining thing again?”

Her hands weren’t quite steady when she brought her coffee to her mouth, sipping then shaking her head. “It’s not that. It’s just . . .”

“What? It’s just what?”

“I missed you,” she said, slamming her cup against the table and sloshing coffee onto her legal pad and one of his arms. “Shit. I’m sorry.” She scrambled to move the paper, using the edge to scrape some of the spill onto the floor, while Dakota pulled up the hem of his shirt to dry his arm.

“It’s okay,” he said, then caught her staring at the skin he’d revealed, and the scar that had been a part of him for so long, he’d forgotten it was there. He finished with his arm then covered the damage, not sure if he wanted to answer the questions he knew she had, or get back to her missing him. Six or a half dozen . . . “Spit it out.”

“What happened?”

“I ran into another guy’s sharpened toothbrush in the shower.”

He left it at that. He didn’t want to explain the circumstances or the aftermath or how much the stitches had hurt or the wound breaking open and bleeding in the yard and his ignoring it while doing pull-ups adding to his crazy-man rep. And when Thea finally did react, it wasn’t what he’d expected at all, which made him wish he’d asked her about missing him instead.

She reached over, not to lift his T-shirt and look closer, but to brush his hair away from his face. Her fingernails scraped along his temple and his scalp above his ear, and his hair went right back to covering his forehead so she did it again. Shivers traveled down his spine as if riding on razor blades, the emotion in her eyes too stark for him to avoid.

He felt her desperate ache to make things better as if the words had come out of her mouth, and so he said those that were trying so hard to get out of his. “I missed you, too.”

She leaned her elbow on the table then, propping her head in her hand, her eyes damp, her fingers now toying with the ends of his hair. He sat where he was, wanting to touch her, too, but more afraid of what would happen if he did than if he remained unmoving.

But almost as soon as he had the thought, she straightened and pulled away. “I have to go. I have an appointment for lunch. And my whining about all these numbers is keeping you from work.”

“Actually, it’s keeping me from grabbing some grub. I’d been on my way out when you came in.”

“You should’ve gone,” she said, getting to her feet and waving him toward the door.

He shrugged. “You looked like you needed a friend. Or at least an ear.”

“I needed both. Thank you. And,” she said, her tone strangely shy, “please don’t cut your hair.”

“You like it, huh?”

“I do.”

“I’ve worn it long since getting out,” he said, standing and flipping the milk crate back into place. “I figure if it worked for Samson . . .”

Gathering up her legal pad and laptop, she laughed. “Just don’t get sucked in by a Delilah.”

“Not going to happen.” Besides, he was pretty sure his temptress had a different name.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

H
er meeting with Ian Payne on her mind, Thea left Bread and Bean and drove across town to Two Owls Café on the corner of Second and Chances. Facts and figures and the idea of taking on another business had her drowning, and flailing while she did. Why in the world did she think she could manage a second shop when her first wasn’t even off the ground and the reputation of the second was more than she’d ever be able to live up to?

Todd talking again. And here she’d been so successful lately at blocking his disparaging remarks like they were browser pop-ups. She wasn’t sure why doing so seemed easier these days. Possibly because after many months of uncertainty, things were finally looking up. She wasn’t sure if that was because the women in her life were showing obvious signs of healing, or because of how much better she was feeling with the best friend she’d ever had back in her life.

It had taken her a while to come to terms with the truth, but as wonderful as it had been to see Indiana again, nothing came close to the comfort of Dakota being part of her days. And it made perfect sense when she viewed the past from the now and admitted that hanging with Indiana had been a means to an end. At least at first, until she’d gotten to know her. And, yeah. She’d tried to gloss over it since, not wanting to accept what a jerk she’d been as a teen.

Selfish, self-centered, self-involved. Those had been her three most noticeable—and obviously intertwined—traits. She’d been the only one interested in how she turned out, so it made a perverse sort of sense. Then she’d met Dakota, and for many months they’d been selfish together. She’d given him what he wanted, and she’d gotten the same in return. Then they’d started spending time together outside of bed, and time in bed talking.

That was when everything had changed. He’d been a senior. She’d been a freshman. Indiana, in eighth grade, had still been a middle-schooler, so they didn’t see each other as often as they had the previous year. It had been harder to use Indiana as an excuse for showing up at the Keller home. Fortunately, the Keller parents paid little attention to their kids’ comings and goings, and if they were there, sent Thea upstairs, ostensibly to see their daughter.

Making the turn onto Second Street, Thea reached over to aim the A/C vent at her face. Her palms were damp, her nape, too. Perspiration bloomed between her breasts. Damn Dakota Keller for making her sweat, and from no more than the memory of those long intimate nights. The dreams and desires. None of which they’d ever believed would come true.

It would be good to see Indiana today, though she wasn’t as thrilled to be having lunch with Kaylie and Luna. It wasn’t like her to be social. She was, in fact, one of the least social people she knew. At least that’s the way it was now. Before Todd, she’d been the life of the party. He’d liked that about her. Her outgoing nature was a big part of why they’d hooked up.

It was part of why she’d hooked up with Dakota, too. She hadn’t been the least bit shy about going after what she wanted, even when it had meant using Indiana to get to him. Still, it had been worth it. For all of Dakota’s claims that their last night together had kept him sane in prison, their entire relationship had kept her from being completely stupid and quitting school.

She didn’t think she’d ever told him that.

After parking and exiting her car, she headed toward the café’s porch, only to be intercepted by a waving Indiana. “Thea! Back here!” Detouring away from the sidewalk and onto the well-worn footpath through the yard, Thea met Indiana halfway, where they stopped to share a big hug, Indiana’s cloud of dark hair smelling of sunshine.

“I’m so glad you could get away,” Indiana said, linking their arms. “Between the shop and now the house, I wasn’t sure you’d be able to.”

Thea laughed, aching so badly to ask her friend if she was her guardian angel, but not wanting to put Indiana on the spot. Who else could it be, really? “You realize I’m not the one doing the work, don’t you? I’m not even supervising. I’ve got one of your brothers seeing to things on the hill and the other taking care of everything in town.”

“And you have my complete sympathy,” Indiana said as they walked. “Being at the mercy of one of those two would be enough to drive me to drink. But both? At the same time?”

“Guess it’s a good thing I gave up alcohol. Then again . . .”

This time it was Indiana laughing, her joy infectious, the diamond in her wedding ring set flashing in the sun. “Come on. I’m dying for you to meet everyone, though I guess Luna is the only one you don’t know.”

Obviously Kaylie had told Tennessee they’d run into each other at the park, and Tennessee had shared the news with his sister. That was the way it worked with the Keller siblings. At least with those two, which had Thea wondering how tight their bond had grown during Dakota’s absence, and if he sensed some of that now and felt left out, or as if he didn’t belong, or wasn’t needed, because of it.

Once Thea and Luna had been introduced, and their six degrees of separation narrowed down to their having Angelo in common, Kaylie pulled foil from the casserole dish in the center of the table, while Indiana uncovered the salad bowls, and Luna poured the iced tea. The three chattered and jostled comfortably, their movements showing off the simpatico of their friendships.

Not for a moment did Thea feel like a fifth wheel. The three’s interaction wasn’t quite that of Thea and the women she lived with, but then their situations were hardly the same. Thea’s lunch partners were happily married. They didn’t spend their days looking over their shoulders, their nights in the dark waiting for their locked doors to shake.

They didn’t look at fresh deli soup and a variety of real cheese as a splurge. They didn’t live hand-to-mouth, day-to-day, and yet they, too, were survivors. Suddenly Thea wished Ellie and Becca and Frannie were here to see their future. They would have this, all of them, one day. Thea would see to every bit of it.

“Here you go,” Kaylie said from across the table, handing her a basket of bread. “Take one and pass it on. There’s butter, honey, and Dolly’s fresh strawberry jam.”

Thea pulled aside the napkin, her eyes going wide as she reached for a roll and bounced it in her palm. “I have never in my life seen a hot roll this size. This one could serve as a softball.”

“It’s my foster mother’s recipe,” Kaylie said, pouring a drizzle of dressing onto her salad. “They were one of the best parts of growing up in this house.”

Thea stopped in the act of splitting open her roll. “I didn’t know that about you. That you’d grown up here.”

“I did. I came back and bought the place a little over three years ago. And thanks to Luna,” she said, passing the dressing to the other woman, “I was able to reconnect with my birth father. Then when I wanted to put in the garden at the back of the lot,” she added, waving in that direction, “Tennessee got in touch with Indiana.”

“It was the first time we’d seen each other in years,” Indiana said, stirring sweetener into her iced tea, and surprising Thea with the admission. She’d assumed the siblings had been the rock each needed. And she wondered if Dakota knew of the rift. “After everything that went on with Dakota, we drifted apart. Both of us feeling guilty, I guess.” She shrugged, then she smiled and nodded towards Luna. “This one here managed to find Angelo again on her own.”

“It was completely unexpected,” Luna said, with a laugh, the sun catching on chunks of her sharply cut and very black hair. “But I really like how it worked out.”

“I can imagine.” Thea had met Angelo. He was definitely a catch. She set aside Indiana’s confession to ask, “How did you know him?”

Luna gestured with her salad fork while she chewed, then said, “His younger sister and I were best friends in school. She was killed in a car accident at the beginning of our senior year. It was the same accident that eventually took Oscar, Indiana’s husband’s brother.”

Thea’s stomach dropped. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, please. Don’t worry about it,” Luna said sweetly. “Anyway, I bought the house that had belonged to the Caffey family, and Angelo found out. I went by after closing, and looked up, and there he was on the porch.”

“And they lived happily ever after,” Kaylie said, the three women laughing again. This time Thea joined them, though she wondered how much of what any of them felt was less joy than relief at having recovered from their emotional ordeals.

Luna’s next words gave credence to her thoughts. “We’ve laughed about it a lot, and still do, as you’ve no doubt noticed. We’ve got sort of a survivor’s club thing going on here.”

Thea stabbed her fork into her vegetable lasagna, coming up with a zucchini slice, then asking, “Can I throw my hat in the ring for membership?”

“Is this about your seeing Dakota again?”

Thea shook her head in response to Indiana’s question. She wiped her napkin over her mouth, then sat back, looking from one woman to the next. She had never told anyone the full story of her years spent with Todd. But these three women had made it. They had gotten beyond their tragedies, or at least learned to live with them. And that was exactly what Thea wanted for herself and the others she lived with.

“My ex kept me locked in our condo for nearly two years. The last two we were together. He chose what I would wear, what I would eat. Who I would see. What I would say when I saw them. He made me into someone that wasn’t me. He hurt me during sex, then soothed it all better. I thought I could save him, you know. Being there for him. Listening. It had to be me, no one else. Turns out he couldn’t be saved. Big surprise.”

Then she took a deep breath and reached for her tea, feeling bizarrely relieved—though considering her earlier thoughts about the others, was her relief really that strange?

Seemed she did fit in.

“Oh, Thea,” Indiana said, tears filling her eyes. “I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea.”

“But you got out?” Luna asked, completely somber. “And you’re okay?”

“I’m out, but I’m not sure about the okay part,” she said with a strained laugh. “Though I am working on it. Every freaking day.”

“You’ll get there,” Kaylie said, reaching across the table to take hold of her hand. “I promise. Just look at us.”

“How did you do it?” Thea asked, blindsided by the rush of charged emotion she felt at learning the bits and pieces the women had shared. “Get past the, well, past?”

“We didn’t. Not really,” Indiana said. “We are all our past.”

“She’s right,” Luna added. “You don’t need to move beyond it, as long as you don’t look back. There’s no need. You’re not going that way.”

Dakota was sitting on the top of the cottage’s front steps, a longneck in his hand, when Thea’s Subaru turned off Three Wishes Road into his driveway, and came to a stop behind his truck. She’d been scarce today around the shop. He’d talked to her this morning, then she’d disappeared for a long time around lunch. He’d heard her again this afternoon, but just briefly. More girl chatter before she’d come to fetch some paperwork from her desk. He’d had his table saw going, so no chance to say hello.

He’d missed that. Saying hello. Saying anything that came to mind and having her listen. Having her say what she was thinking without walking on eggshells, afraid the wrong words would break him. It had taken him weeks after arriving in Texas to convince his siblings they didn’t need to couch things
just so
to keep from hurting his feelings, or risk him spiraling into some deep dark place. But Thea hadn’t bothered. Probably one of the reasons it was so easy to love her—

Aw, hell.

He brought his beer to his mouth and tried not to pay attention to the way she looked walking toward him. It wasn’t easy. Instead of her usual knee shorts and baggy tanks, she had on those pants that stopped midcalf—in black—with sandals and a black-and-white striped shirt that was a little bit classier than a T. She also had on big pink sunglasses. The same color as the polish on her toes. Huh. First time he’d noticed that.

What he was noticing and in a very big way was her hair. Since the day he’d walked into Bread and Bean and seen her there on the floor, she’d worn her hair in a loose topknot thing that usually fell one way or the other, and always had pieces sticking this way and that like a rooster’s tail. It was cute. He imagined it was cool. And it was completely Clark. She’d shoved it out of the way similarly in school, and hadn’t taken it down in bed.

It was down now. And it was a lot longer than he’d realized. Almost to her elbows. With the wispy bangs that hung in careless points to her brow in some places and nearly into her eyes in others. It was laid-back hair. Messy hair. But cut to be so, and he liked it. Seeing it catch the breeze and blow around her shoulders, watching her reach up to clear it from her face, looking at the way the sun glinted off the lightest of the strands . . .

Yeah. He shouldn’t have had a fourth beer. Then again, he’d had no idea she was going to stop by. She hadn’t stopped by once since he’d lived here, and had only come to breakfast at his invitation. Besides, he was only on his way to being lit, not yet all the way there. He’d be okay, having her here, the unexpected temptation showing up when his guard was down and he was more vulnerable than he liked to admit.