Bliss and the Art of Forever (A Hope Springs Novel) (17 page)

Place a strainer over the pitcher or bowl containing the chocolate and pour in the milk. Discard the cardamom and the zest. Add the vanilla. Allow the mixture to sit for 30 seconds to soften the chocolate, then whip with a whisk or a submersion blender until smooth.

Pour into mugs and dust the top with nutmeg or cinnamon if desired.

Marker eraser in hand, Brooklyn read over the notes on her desk blotter, wiping away the ones she’d taken care of, then adding a short reminder for Monday’s spelling exercise: plants and animals whose names began with the letter
B
. There weren’t too few to be frustrating, or too many to overwhelm. She’d search out some images and print them this weekend. She added new ones each year and—

“Knock, knock.”

At the sound of Callum’s voice, and that of his knuckles on her door, she closed her eyes, her blood zinging just beneath her skin. After yesterday she wasn’t sure she was ready to see him again. If she ever would be. If she even should. This was so much the wrong time to find herself wanting to get to know a man the way she wanted to know Callum Drake.

She loved what he’d done for her, making the chocolate, yet she didn’t want the debt, the obligation, despite knowing in her heart there wasn’t one. He hadn’t asked anything of her. He hadn’t even wanted to talk about it, why he’d made it, why he’d given to her, why he’d been thinking about her. He’d gifted it because he wanted to. Why was she so uptight?

It was really as simple as that.

It was really as complicated as that.

“Come in,” she said, finally looking up and watching him walk into the room.

Today he wore jeans with the boots she’d grown used to seeing him in, and the same leather jacket he’d had on during their first ride. Instead of a wrinkled oxford, or clean and pressed chef whites, however, he was wearing a ratty T-shirt, one threadbare and faded, with six of the ten letters required to spell
high school
still visible where they arced across his chest.

And oh, what a chest. The thin gray cotton showed off his upper body, clinging like a second skin to his pecs and his abs and his neck and what she could see of his shoulders beneath the black leather. The man—because he was no high school boy—worked with his hands making candy, yet looked like he spent his days hefting bags of cocoa beans onto pack mules or into carts or whatever cacao farmers used to get their harvest out of the jungle, and she’d been staring too long.

“I cannot believe you can still fit into a shirt from high school.”

“I’m not exactly sure I do,” he said, opening the sides of his jacket to look down and giving her a much better view of the muscles she’d clung to when behind him on his bike. “But I need to weed through my own junk, so the T-shirts seemed a good place to start. That six-month thing.”

“I hope I didn’t guilt you into that.”

“Nah.” He strolled into the room as if he belonged there. As if he were a welcome part of her life. “Finally realized I’m going to need to get rid of a bunch of crap eventually just to make room for Addy’s shoes.”

Smiling, she opened her desk drawer and put away the eraser and the markers, too. “You probably have a few years before you have to worry about that.”

“Her
Frozen
collection then,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning back against the low bookshelf next to her desk. “The plushies. The figurines. The fast food tie-in toys. The coloring books. The costumes—”

That had her smile widening. “You may need a bigger loft.”

“Actually, I’ve got that covered. And it’s why I’m here.” He paused and waited for her to look up, his eyes bright with secrets and the promise of fun. “I’ve been thinking about your storage issue. I may have a solution.”

“Oh?”

“Got time for a ride?” He gave a nod toward the door, wisps of his hair escaping their knot to fall into his face. “Addy’s at gymnastics until six.”

“And you’re done for the day?”

“Done enough.”

If she agreed to go, would he have to make up the lost time? Because she didn’t want to cause him trouble on that front. Or on any front . . . She glanced around her desk. “Give me five minutes to put everything away?”

“Sounds like a plan.” He jerked his thumb toward the door and headed that way. “I’ll wait outside.”

“Callum?” she asked, before he got all the way there. “Does this mean we’re going on your bike?”

“Is that okay?”

Since she’d changed from a skirt to pants at the last minute this morning . . . “Yes.”

He grinned, said, “Good deal,” then walked out of the room, leaving her to anticipate, well, so many things. The ride, the surprise, the heat of his body as she leaned into him. When was the last time she’d left school on a Friday afternoon and actually had something fun to look forward to?

Fun. Yes. This was going to be fun. And she was so ready for it she left everything on her desk right where it was.

They rode past the Caffey-Gatlin Academy, past the Gardens on Three Wishes Road, past the greenhouses and the undeveloped acreage on the other side that belonged to the farm. The long stretch of blacktop wound through the less populated parts of Hope Springs; if they kept going they’d wind up seeing Meadows Land, the sheep farm owned by Harry and Julietta Meadows, from which they provided the wool their daughter used in her Patchwork Moon scarves.

But Callum slowed long before they’d gone that far, turning into a winding paved driveway between sections of an honest-to-God white picket fence. Oh, the pickets were spaced too far apart to corral anything but livestock; a dog, even a large one, could easily wiggle through. But Brooklyn was pretty sure the fence was for show only, as it bordered a huge lawn, landscaped to perfection under the shade of pecans and oaks.

At the end of the driveway sat the house—a traditional two-story, with sandy red brick and white porch columns, deep eaves and a stone fireplace, paned windows and crape myrtles, and a wide circular drive in which Callum pulled to a stop. It was very suburban, though with a rural-sized lot. It was a place for a family, with a pool and room to run and outbuildings for storage and . . .

No. Surely he didn’t mean . . .

“What do you think?” he asked once they’d both dismounted and removed their helmets, Brooklyn raising a hand to shade her eyes as she looked around.

Was this his house? “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to think. Or what I’m doing here. Or what this place is.”

“This place is where Addy and I will be living as soon as I can get it outfitted and get us moved.” He shrugged out of his leather jacket, draped it over the Harley’s seat. “You’re here because I’ve got tons of extra room perfect for storage. And you can think anything you want.”

So . . . moving, which meant he was going to need to cull his T-shirts after all. A good thing, because the one he was wearing was driving her nuts. As far as his having room for her to use for storage . . . “This is yours. This house. You bought it.”

“Yep,” he said with a nod. “Closed on it Tuesday morning.”

While she was looking at the candy he’d made just for her. And now he was offering her part of it to use. Free of charge. No obligation. No tit for tat. She took a deep breath. “You never mentioned that you’d bought a house.”

“Didn’t want to jinx it,” he said with a shrug.

She remembered thinking how the warehouse district suited him. “Well, I’d be lying if I said this was you.”

He laughed at that, a big uproar of humor. “You want a tour? I haven’t been out here since the walk-through prior to signing away my life.”

“Are you kidding?” This man . . . she’d never known anyone like him. So seemingly nonchalant about something that would have most people jumping for joy. Which had her wondering . . . had his old life, the one she knew so little about, made him this way? Too guarded to revel in his good fortune?

He walked toward the edge of the circular drive where a sidewalk led to the rear of the house, where a picnic table sat on a large patio to the side of the enclosed pool, and on to the outbuildings. “My dad’s pretty incredulous that I’m not chomping at the bit to move.”

That she could understand. She certainly would be. “What about your mom?”

“She doesn’t know about it,” he said, glancing at her with a bit of a sheepish grin. “I don’t want her telling Addy.”

“Adrianne doesn’t know, either?”

He shook his head. “She’d be all over me asking how much longer till we move. We don’t have a lot of furniture. She was still in a crib when I rented the loft. I want to make the house into at least a semblance of a home before I bring her here.”

“I think bringing her here, with you, is how you make that happen,” she told him, thinking with no small amount of hypocrisy about all of Artie’s possessions she’d hung on to, when she had years’ worth of memories to keep close.

“I know. But she’s going to need a bigger bed. A real dresser instead of the stacked milk crates we’ve been using. More room for her books. And a bike. I’ve been promising her a bike for a year. She wants one with Olaf,” he said as he started off down the sidewalk. “That movie’s . . . how old now? Shouldn’t she have moved on to the next big thing?”

Brooklyn followed, walking to his side when he waited. “How long has Cinderella been around? Snow White? Sleeping Beauty? Disney knows what they’re doing. I’d say you’re stuck with Olaf for a while.”

He grunted. “An Olaf bike. Probably be easier to find a pony.”

“You’ve definitely got the room for one,” she said, her encompassing gesture taking in the whole of the lot.

“Maybe when she’s sixteen,” he said with a snort. “If we stay here ten years. Because a pony at six means I’ll have to do the dirty work.”

“You could always get her a cat,” she offered teasingly.

“No cats. Cats are as high maintenance as ponies.”

“I’m sure you could hire a service.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Floors, windows, pony rides, cats, and the care and feeding of a six-year-old on summer vacation. Craigslist, maybe?”

“With that pool?” she asked, nodding toward the fenced-off deck surrounding the kidney-shaped pool. “I can’t imagine you won’t have dozens of applicants.”

“I do need to start looking. For the six-year-old care and feeding part at least. Or school’s going to be out and I’m going to be boned. My dad did say a neighbor’s granddaughter is looking for a summer job. And she has a car.”

Hmm. If Brooklyn weren’t going to Italy . . . no.
No, no, no, no, no.
She was Adrianne’s teacher, not the help. She reached for a change of subject. “So your dad knows you’re moving, but not your mom.”

“Right. He’s a CPA. Ran the numbers for me. And my mom”—he paused, as if working to find the right words—“she can be . . . difficult.”

Brooklyn thought about her mother working full-time, keeping house full-time, being a wife full-time, dying two years before the husband she’d done her best to love. Thought, too, about Jean Dial’s less than charitable remarks about Shirley Drake. Then about her own run-in with Callum’s mother.

Hard to admit her thoughts were lacking much of what could be called charity. “Sometimes I think they’re just tired.”

“I imagine mine is. Being a busybody takes a lot of time and energy.”

“Callum!”

“It’s the truth. I was surprised when I came for story hour that you let me into the room. I figured she would’ve told you what she knows about my past and scared you off. Not that she knows everything. Not that she ever will.”

Interesting, though not surprising. He was an ex-biker. Ex. She took that to mean he wanted to leave the past where it lay. “She’s only hinted at bits and pieces of your life before Hope Springs.”

“Enough to make you curious?”

“Hard not to be,” she said, moving to sit on the picnic table’s bench without admitting to how curious she actually was.

“I figure it’s my mystique that pulls new customers into Bliss.” He added a laugh as he leaned against the tree at the patio’s edge. “I guess I should thank her for that.”

“Until Wednesday, I don’t think I’d ever seen her without your father. He may have kept her from speaking freely.” Shirley had certainly had no problem speaking her mind without him.

“Wednesday?”

She looked down, watched the play of the trees’ shadows on the ground. “I took some bags of clothing to the church donation center. She was working there with Dolly Pepper. But we had a few minutes alone to chat.”

Callum dragged both hands down his face and groaned. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“She thinks you’re a good father.” That much she’d give him. She didn’t see any reason for him to know his mother had basically told her to keep her hands to herself.

“Well, that’s something.”

But the rest of what his mother had said . . . “She told me to ask you where you got the capital for Bliss.”

He snorted. “Of course she did.”

His response hardly set her at ease. “I didn’t ask her. And she didn’t tell me, though she was the one who brought it up. Just in case you were wondering.”

He pushed away from the tree and came to stand in front of her, waiting for her to look up before asking, “Do you want to know?”