The Comfort of Favorite Things (A Hope Springs Novel) (7 page)

Yes, the house was spacious. The first floor held Kaylie’s successful Two Owls Café, which meant people in and out half the day. Kaylie’s father Mitch Pepper, and his wife Dolly, were in and out, too. They did most of the cooking and cleaning while Kaylie took care of Georgia May.

And that was the other thing. Dakota had arrived in Hope Springs the day Kaylie had given birth. Meaning she’d come home from the hospital with a new baby and a brother-in-law she hadn’t planned for. It hadn’t been hard to stay out of the way; the size of the house saw to that.

But it had been hard to find quiet time. Most of the time he’d done so when late night had become early morning, and he’d walked through the big corner lot with Kaylie’s dog, Magoo. The lumbering shepherd-chow mix had taken to spending a lot of his time with Dakota, the baby demanding Kaylie’s attention.

With time, things had gotten better, the new family falling into a routine, but when Indiana had married Oliver Gatlin five months later, Dakota had moved to the cottage once his sister had vacated it. Everything in the kitchen was where she’d left it. He figured it wouldn’t take her long to get her coffee. She was back in less than two minutes, dropping to sit by his side.

“Now,” she said, before he could ask her if she wanted breakfast. He thought he might have an egg or two left. “Somebody hired a PI who put in a whole lot of time to find you for me, and someone paid to see that it happened. Why in the world would you think about leaving again?”

“Oliver finally made you see the light, huh?” Because for so long she’d insisted that her husband had been responsible for locating Dakota.

She nodded as she brought her drink away from her mouth to balance it on her knees covered by the skirt of her sundress. The morning sun sparkled off the rock weighing down her left hand’s ring finger. Dakota swore he’d seen smaller bowling balls. “He told me more than once that the man he’d hired was not the one who found you. I wouldn’t listen.”

And her man hadn’t been the one to locate Dakota either. There was a mystery third party involved. “What changed your mind?”

“He took me to meet his PI.” She sipped at her coffee. “The man was convincing.”

“In ways that your husband wasn’t?”

“I thought my husband was trying to keep me from feeling indebted to him for bringing you home.” She said it with a shrug. “My PI hadn’t had any luck finding you, so it just made sense that Oliver’s had. Not once did it occur to me that someone else was looking. Why would it? And you weren’t exactly forthcoming with your version of the events.”

“Hey,” he said, lowering his mug and nearly spitting coffee. “I told you I didn’t remember the man’s name. I’m sure he told me, but”—he twirled a finger—“in one ear and out the other.”

She leaned a shoulder against the railing and gave him a side-eyed glance. “He never told you who he worked for?”

“Nope. No idea if he was local. No idea who hired him. I didn’t ask. I didn’t think I needed to. All he said was that it wasn’t an emergency but my sister needed me home.”

“So you came.”

“I came,” he said with a nod. The timing had actually been perfect. Ironically, he’d been in Indiana, at the end of a job and ready to move on. He’d had ten of them since leaving prison. None of them had lasted much longer than a year. Seemed a year was all the time he could give to any one place. Even the place his sister and brother called home.

Indiana’s voice was small and soft when she said, “And now you’re thinking of leaving.”

He took a deep breath, lifted his cup to have it ready. “I am.”

“Okay,” she said after a heavy, slow-motion moment, though she was more flippant than before. “But I’m going to need a reason why.”

Dakota scraped one boot over a rough patch of porch step and laughed. “Is that so?”

“Yes, it’s so. Dakota. Crap,” she said, this time leaning toward him and pushing her shoulder into his. “You leave, you gotta know I’m going to come looking for you again.”

“Hey, now. I never said I wasn’t going to stay in touch.”

“So far you haven’t said much of anything,” she said, smoothing down the fabric of her skirt where it had bunched up over one knee.

“Maybe because someone hasn’t given me a chance.”

“Then here. Take it. The floor is yours,” she said with the wave of one arm. “The whole damn five acres is yours. Just talk to me. Please.”

“Fine,” he said, though he didn’t know what to follow up with.
Now is the hour of our discontent
was a little too dramatic. Plus, it was summertime. And he wasn’t really much for Shakespeare. “You brought me back because you were worried about me. You wanted to make sure I was all right. You’ve had a year to see for yourself that I am. What else is there?”

“What does that even mean?” she asked with another expansive gesture and a break in her voice. “What is there for me? What is there for you? What is there for Tennessee or Keller Construction or the July Fourth barbecue at Two Owls or the rest of your life?” She stopped, took a steadying breath. “I’m not even sure what you’re asking me.”

Considering everything she’d just said had crossed his mind more than once, yet he was still without an answer . . . “I think that makes two of us.”

They sat there for several minutes after that, finishing off their coffee while the sun climbed high enough in the sky to have Dakota reaching for the sunglasses hooked over his T-shirt’s neckband. It was June, but it was Texas. Mornings came early, and they came hot.

“Should I put on another pot of coffee?” she asked.

Dakota shook his head. “I don’t have time. I’m already running late. I’ve got to get to the job. Oh. Here’s one for you,” he said, nudging her with his elbow. “Guess who’s opening an espresso bar in the same block as Bliss and Butters Bakery?”

She cocked her head. “It’s not just an espresso bar, right? I think I heard they’ll also be selling artisan bread.”

“Thea Clark,” he said, ignoring her addendum and answering his question himself.

“What?” Indiana stared, her mouth hanging open, her eyes wide, the cloud of her dark hair like a frame around her face. “From middle school Thea Clark?”

“It was high school for me, but yeah. That’s her.”

Shaking her head, Indiana stared off across the front lawn into the unchecked growth that bordered the drive leading past the cottage to the greenhouses. “We lost touch . . . God, I don’t even remember the last time I saw her or talked to her. It had to be before I graduated. She was a year ahead of me and already out of school. I guess she left Round Rock after that maybe?”

Dakota remembered exactly when, before yesterday, he’d seen Thea last: the several hours he’d spent with her the night before he’d left for prison. Not that they’d done much in the way of talking. “She lives up on Dragon Fire Hill. The big white house.”

“Really? Huh. She bought that place?”

“Seems so.”

“Isn’t it sort of a wreck?” she asked, frowning as if she couldn’t picture Thea living there.

Dakota shrugged. “I haven’t been up there to see.”

“I haven’t either, but I’ve hear the previous owners had really let it go.” She looked down into her coffee, then glanced over. “Is she married?”

He shook his head. “She lives with several other women. I think the same women who work for her.”

“That’s interesting.”

She had no idea. “One of them pretty much clotheslined me with her forearm the other morning.”

Indiana gasped at that. “What?”

He nodded, remembering the mix of terror and anger simmering in Becca York’s eyes. “Apparently I was standing too close to Thea.”

“Well, that’s not surprising,” she said with a snort.

Dakota only just stopped himself from rolling his eyes. “We were looking at a blueprint. It wasn’t like we were having sex against the wall.”

Indiana gave a loud huff before finishing off her coffee. “Knowing you two, I wouldn’t have been surprised.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Time’s nothing as long as the chemistry’s still there.”

He supposed she was digging, but he didn’t have anything to give her since he hadn’t yet been able to nail down what had passed between him and Thea besides a whole lot of coffee and cake. “I’m not sure there ever was any real chemistry. Just . . . hormones.”

“And now?” she asked, a curious arch to her brow.

“Not to burst your bubble, but not long after I got there, she told me I’d never been much of a gentleman and walked off.”

She laughed again. “Sounds like the Thea Clark I remember. I’ll have to stop by and see her. Interesting that she picked Hope Springs to settle down in. She never seemed the small-town, life-in-the-slow-lane type.”

“She’s . . . different now,” he said, not sure if he could explain how, or put what he meant into more specific words.

“Pretty sure we’re all different now.”

“Yeah, but she’s
different
different.” He thought for a moment, then added, “Like she’s been through something big and is paying for it.”

“I’m going to take a guess and say it takes one to know one.”

And with that remark, he was done. Indiana wasn’t going to hear about his past anymore than Thea was. He tossed the dregs of his coffee to the ground and stood. “You may be a kept woman, but I’ve got to get to work.”

“Excuse me? Just because my extraordinarily generous husband gave me a rock the size of my head does not make me a kept woman. And just because you derailed me by mentioning Thea, don’t think we’re done with this conversation. If it would help, we could include Tennessee.”

He’d rather not revisit yesterday’s conversation with his brother. “Trust me. It wouldn’t.”

“What about breakfast . . . day after tomorrow?” she asked, canting her head to one side. “Same time? I’ll bring food?”

“Do I have a choice?” he asked, already anticipating the answer.

“Well, you’re living rent-free in my cottage, so let’s just say you owe me.”

Dakota knew he didn’t, knew Indiana was pulling his leg, but they did need to talk. And so he said, “Breakfast tacos. Eggs, cheese, potatoes, onions, sausage, salsa, and cheese.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” Indiana said, handing him her mug as she got to her feet. “See you at seven.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

B
y the time Dakota reached Bread and Bean, he’d put away most of his chat with Indiana to look at later. Yes, he needed to tell her what he’d been thinking. Why, in the long run, his leaving would be the best for all of them. But last night’s lack of sleep meant this morning wasn’t the best time. He was doing good to put one foot in front of the other. Pulling his thoughts together coherently wasn’t going to happen today.

The part he hadn’t put away, and was still turning over, had to do with Thea, and that last night they’d spent together before he’d gone away. How it had kept him from losing his mind those first few days behind bars. How he’d continued to think about her while incarcerated, comparing their first time to their last, the changes in both of them—not so much how they’d gone about the whole act with less fumbling and more focus, but how comfortable they’d grown together, the things they’d talked about afterward.

The way that intimacy had become as important as the orgasms, if not more so.

The orgasms had always been the easy part.

Talking still gave him hell.

“I was beginning to wonder if you were coming in.”

Having tensed at the sound of the back door opening earlier, Dakota now tensed again at hearing Thea’s voice. Funny enough, Tennessee had said pretty much the same thing when Dakota had shown up this morning to fetch his truck. It had been a long trek from the cottage, but he had only himself to blame.

Oh, he could’ve asked Indiana for a lift, but then he’d have to explain walking out on their brother last night. He’d discovered enough shortcuts over the last year that the hike from Three Wishes Road to Grath Avenue wasn’t onerous. Besides, it gave him time for quiet contemplation.

Since prison, it was one thing he hated being without.

He gave Thea the same answer he’d given his brother. “I’ll keep doing so as long as you keep writing the checks.”

She walked around to the other side of his table saw stand and crossed her arms as she stared at him, her T-shirt and knee shorts baggy, her hair piled on top of her head in a rooster tail of strands going here and there. She looked like she wanted to smile, but was having trouble. Like she wanted to forget yesterday and go forward from here. Her next words, flirty but forced, convinced him he was right.

“And all this time I thought we were more to each other than contractor and contractee.”

“I think you’re confusing today with once upon a time,” he said, pulling a pencil from behind his ear to mark off a measurement for the shop’s main shelving unit.

“Now you’re just making me sad,” she said with a pout that might’ve been believable on the face of the old Thea but on this one was affected and had his radar pinging.

He arched one brow then looked down to his tape measure and length of pine. “How so?”

“I’ve been so busy since moving, I haven’t had time to meet many new people. It’s nice seeing a friendly face.” She shoved her hands into her pockets and shrugged. “I like that we’ve reconnected.”

He wondered about the women she lived with, the women she worked with. How long had she known them? How had that motley crew gotten together? Something was going on here with Thea and the two he’d met. New York or Houston or LA, and he wouldn’t think twice about multiple roommates sharing living expenses, but Hope Springs?

Which made him curious about her mother, who’d lived in Round Rock not far from his family, and what had happened to her. “I wouldn’t think you’d want to reconnect with someone who wasn’t a gentleman.”

She laughed at that. “You are more right than you will ever know. But in your case I’ll make an exception.”

“Because I’m good in bed?” he asked, his brain in the past and the words falling out of his mouth before he could stop them.

It was all Indiana’s fault. If she hadn’t come by to see him this morning, he wouldn’t have had to distract her with the news of Thea moving to town. She wouldn’t have teased him about their history. He wouldn’t have headed off down memory-sex lane.

Or maybe he should blame Tennessee for calling Indiana so that their sister felt the need to set an intervention in motion.

No. It was his fault for saying anything to his brother in the first place instead of packing up his things and quietly leaving town.

“Well, there is that,” Thea finally said. “Or there was that. Can’t speak to what may have changed.”

He couldn’t have asked for a better segue into what he needed to tell her, too, and it was not about how much better he was now at sex. “Enough has changed that I’m not very good with staying in one place much more than a year.”

She stiffened and frowned. “What does that mean?”

Seemed his meaning had been pretty clear. He positioned his rafter square and drew his cutting line. “That I’m not going to be sticking around Hope Springs a whole lot longer.”

She reached up and rubbed at the back of her neck as if the motion helped her think. What it did was show off her triceps and lats, and make him curious what was behind her looking like a bodybuilder when she moved just right. “You’re not happy here? With the work? With your family?”

If she had any idea how many jobs he’d had . . . “Things are good with the family.”

“Just not good enough for you to give up your vagabond lifestyle.”

He’d never really thought of himself that way. Interesting how Thea had already pegged him as such. He tried on the word, shrugged into it, surprised at how well it fit.

Leaving the pencil and the square on the table, he crossed the room to the coffee station and pumped out a cup from the pot there. “I’ve wondered more than once whether I’d have been able to make a go of the business with Tennessee even if prison hadn’t gotten in the way. I’m just not a fan of . . . I don’t know—”

“Commitment?”

He huffed and turned back. “Not sure it’s that. I don’t have a problem finishing a job.”

“As long as you can get up and go once it’s done,” she was quick to add, picking up the pencil he’d left on the table as she did.

“Something like that.” Even the idea of leaving was making him itch to do so. He brought the cup to his mouth and sipped, making his way back to where she stood.

“I don’t remember you having a short attention span when we were in school. And no,” she said, her mouth pulling into a wry grin, “that wasn’t a commentary on our sex life.”

He huffed. “Is that what we had? A sex life?”

“It wasn’t all we had, but I’m not sure what else to call it,” she said.

She was staring at him with eyes so clear he thought he might be able to see where she’d been and the things she’d done if he looked into them long enough. Ridiculous, of course. The windows-of-the-soul thing was nothing but metaphor. And he was damn glad it was. He sure as hell didn’t want her seeing the life he’d lived, even though he wasn’t sure why.

She knew about the worst thing he’d done, and how he’d paid for it. She didn’t know what it had been like for him behind bars—no one did, no one ever would—or what it meant to live as a . . . vagabond, he mused, turning over the word, weighing it. He wasn’t proud of having abandoned his family, though doing so had seemed the only option at the time.

Later, when he might’ve returned, too much water had passed under the bridge. He could apologize for being absent and out of touch, sure, no problem. But amends and explanations . . .

He had no obligation to give more than he was comfortable with. It was his life. His business.

“Do you want to know something totally crazy?”

He looked up, surprised to find Thea still staring. More surprised to realize he’d drifted away. “About the sex life we did or did not have?”

“Our sex life, because it was a sex life, was better than any other I’ve had since.”

He wasn’t even sure he could process what she’d just said. “Come again?”

“You heard me,” she said, moving closer to his table. She braced her hands on the top and leaned forward, the motion showing off the muscles in her shoulders and giving him pause for the second time. “Not one of the handful of relationships I’ve had since high school was as good as what I had with you. I think you ruined me, Dakota Keller. Absolutely, completely ruined me for anyone else.”

Even if she’d given him time to answer, he wouldn’t have known what to say; how would any man respond to being told such a thing? But she didn’t.

She pushed away and headed for the kitchen, ignoring his, “Thea, wait,” and waving him off. The swinging door bounced closed, leaving him torn between following her and giving her space. He picked up his pencil, tossed it down again, picked up his square, and did the same.

Then the front door opened, making his decision for him. He stayed where he was and watched Becca York walk in. Once she’d shut the door behind her and caught sight of him, she reached up to pull her buds from her ears, then she wrapped the cords around her phone and pocketed them.

“Mornin’,” he said, nodding while keeping his hands where they were and his voice soft and level.

“Mornin’,” she said, returning his nod, her Afro, a brown that was tinted almost red, bouncing. She pushed away from the entrance to pace back and forth in front of his table, rolling her next words around on her tongue. “Look. About the other day . . .”

He started to cut her off, to tell her not to worry about it, but he was curious enough to let her have her say, so he lifted his mug to drink and waited.

“I’m sorry. I overreacted.” She stopped walking to dig a crushed cigarette box from her other pocket. “I do a lot of that. Leaping before I look. Or at least leaping before I know what exactly it is I’m seeing.”

“No harm, no foul.” As sins went, it was pretty minor.

“So you’re okay?” she asked, flipping the box open, flipping it closed. “Your throat?”

“I’m fine,” he said, and found himself swallowing as if test-driving the equipment. “Not even the hint of a bruise.”

“Then we’re good? Because both of us being here, both of us working for Thea . . .” She stopped in front of him, much where Thea had been standing earlier. “I don’t want her in the middle of some stupid shit storm.”

“We’re good,” he said. “No reason for a shit storm.”

“Okay,” she said, her eyes wide and worried, her dark skin—shoulders, arms, chest—clammy from the heat, and her muscles just as buff as her boss’s. “It’s hard for me . . . I don’t do well . . .” She stopped and rubbed at her forehead. “I’m shit with meeting new people. Complete and utter shit.”

“That’s okay.” Her floundering caused him to smile. “I’m not much of a people person myself.”

She shook her head, gave a short huff, then stuffed the cigarette box back into her pocket. “Bet you’ve never tried to crush someone’s windpipe before you even knew their name.”

No, but he’d done a pretty good job crushing the jaw of a kid he’d thought was a friend. And he’d done it with a baseball bat. At least Becca had used her arm. “I’ve got a few regrets of my own.”

“I never said I regretted it.”

Her words took a second to register, and then he laughed out loud, reaching up to scratch at his neck as he did. “I’ll keep that in mind for the future.”

“No need,” she said, grinning, too. “I’m pretty sure we’re on the same page.”

He nodded. He liked this one, her sense of humor, her twisted sense of self. “How did you and Thea hook up? And, yeah. I know her story’s not yours to tell,” he added, repeating Thea’s words since they did the job as good as any.

“But you’re asking me anyway,” she said, walking closer, leaning against the wall beside his table where he’d tacked up his blueprint, her hands behind her, deadly weapons out of sight.

He tried for casual. “I’m just asking you about your side of things. Tell me that instead.”

“Why should I?”

“Might make our working together easier if we understand each other a bit.” Though he wasn’t sure how much of his own story he wanted her to know.

She seemed to consider his answer longer than it required. “We’re not exactly working
together
.”

True enough. “We’re working in the same place. And for the same woman.”

She thought about that for a while, too, then shifted her weight from one hip to the other. “Thea said you’d been in prison.”

So that’s how it was. Thea could talk about him, but not vice versa. “Yep.”

“Because you stood up for your sister.”

“That’s not exactly how it went down, but”—he shrugged—“close enough.”

“Thank you,” she said.

He nodded again, then added, “You’re welcome.”

It seemed a strange exchange to have with someone who hadn’t been there in the past to know what he’d done and why.

She dropped her gaze to the floor, shifting again, frowning as out of nowhere she said, “I was raped. More than once. While in the navy.”

“Becca. Oh, man.” He stopped, his heart thudding, his pulse a drumbeat at his temples. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

“That’s because Thea’s really good at keeping secrets,” she said, her mouth twisted wryly.

He filed away the comment, thinking he might need it later. But at the moment all he had room for was the hell of what she’d endured. “That kind of shit should never happen. To any woman.” He was babbling. He had no way to make things better, and everything out of his mouth sounded lame. “But not to be safe when defending your country? That’s just obscene.”

“Yeah, well,” she said, scuffing the sole of one shoe against the floor. “There’s still a lot of good ol’ boys club members out there who don’t agree.”

“Becca—”

“Don’t make me sorry I told you,” she was quick to say, one eyebrow lifting archly.

Yeah, he mused as he nodded. They were going to be okay. He raised his mug, casually asking, “Is that how you know Thea?”

Becca cocked her head. “Really? You’re prying into her side of things now?”

“Just making conversation,” he said, hiding his grin as he drank.

“If you want to know, ask her sometime,” she said as she shoved away from the wall and headed for the kitchen door. “You two have enough of a past—”

Crap on a cracker.
“She really has been talking to you about me, hasn’t she?”