The Second Chance Café (Hope Springs, #1) (10 page)

Giving up cigarettes had been as much about his health as about distancing himself from the monkey riding his back. His employer knew that he’d lost Kaylie to social services. He’d told Harry Meadows, of course, so Julietta and Luna knew, too. But he didn’t want to be reminded of those years, when smoking had given him something to do with his hands besides slamming his fists into faces or walls.

It was the same reason he cooked.

To come to terms with using a knife.

His daughter. Kaylie. Little Kaylie with her strawberry-blonde hair and face full of freckles and the big gap where her teeth would come in…later, when he might be deployed and unable to see if he was going to have to pay for braces.

He sucked in smoke filled with tar and nicotine and wondered what Luna had been thinking, telling him about Kaylie being so close when he’d become so good at imagining her in Seattle, or Minneapolis, or New York City.

To find out she was right here, that she’d grown up and stayed instead of getting away from the Texas Hill Country and all the crap that had ruined her life.

Then again, look at him, living within spitting distance of all he’d lost. He laughed and tossed the rest of the cigarette to the stone floor before thinking better of littering, and retrieving the smoldering butt. He stuffed it in his pocket, watched the water roll, the moon on its surface broken by the ripples, long teasing striations of light.

So his daughter shared his love of cooking. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his mouth at the thought.
It felt strange, thinking of Kaylie and smiling. For so long thinking of Kaylie had been the worst sort of pain: Where was she? Who was taking care of her?
Were
they taking care of her, or was she stuck in a room with five other kids, sharing one big bed and fistfights over toys?

That’s what had got to him the most. That’s when he’d start imagining her being raised elsewhere, by folks who knew all the things kids needed. Like bedtime stories and stuffed pink puppies, lessons on tying shoelaces and help with a toothbrush and comb and piggyback rides.

He rubbed at his eyes, smearing the grit from the kitchen that was stinging them. That Luna. Such a sweetheart. He knew why she’d told him. She wanted him to have what Harry did. She adored her father, and her father thought being wrapped around her little finger was the best place to be.

It wouldn’t happen. No way he and Kaylie could have the same thing. No way, no chance. The past was the past. He’d had four years to be a father and had made a mess of it. Trying to get that back was a fool’s errand, and Mitch Pepper was done with being a fool.

No matter how badly he ached with the thought of being this close to his girl.

M
ax Malina was a crusty Brooklynite who’d set up shop in Hope Springs the year Tennessee Keller was born. Ten had probably eaten as much of Max’s cooking as he had of his own, or anyone else’s. Malina’s was open when he was ready for breakfast and when he called it a day. It was only at lunch that he had to fend for himself, which meant most of the time he didn’t bother with more than a protein bar from the stash he kept in his truck. He could see why Kaylie had decided to do something about feeding lunch to Hope Springs. Good call on her part.

Sitting in a booth near the front door of Malina’s Diner, he sipped from his second cup of coffee and wondered why he was here. To meet Manny, sure. But the rest of it? He’d been in a weird frame of mind when they’d spoken the other day, and not in the mood to hear the other man harsh on Will. That didn’t mean Manny was in the wrong any more than it meant Ten’s intuition about his newest hire would play out. But since he was a big part of Manny’s program, he owed the other man the floor. And an explanation. Just not one that involved what he was feeling for Kaylie.

“Is it getting to be too much?” Manny asked, sliding into the opposite side of the booth.

Ten returned his coffee mug to the table and sat back. “Good morning to you, too.”

Manny signaled to the waitress for his own cup, then leaned forward and scowled fiercely at Ten. “Well?”

Fine. He could get down to business, too. “What? Giving these guys a job? Why would you think that?”

“I don’t think that. I’m just asking. Dakota’s been off my caseload for years. And you’ve put in plenty trying to make up for what he did.”

“That’s not why I do this.”

“Sure it is. You didn’t go after Robby. Dakota did, and ended up behind bars. The guilt’s still eating you alive. You’ve gotta let it go. You did what you could for your brother. I know you would’ve served his time, too, but the system doesn’t work that way. And I need to know I’m sending my guys into a working situation that’s not going to mess with their already messed-up psyches.”

Ten didn’t like having his head examined. Especially by a parole officer. “I’m fine. Will’s fine. If you’ve got someone else you need put to work, send him along and he’ll be fine.”

“Fine.”

“Fine. Now can we eat? You’ve got to get on the road. And I’ve got a job to get to.”

“Sure,” Manny said, taking the coffee from their waitress’s hand before she could set the cup on the table. “Tell me about it.”

“Because you’re interested as a friend? Or because you want to know what Bowman’s up to?”

“Can it be a little bit of both?” he asked, then smiled as he brought his coffee to his mouth.

“If it’ll get me out of here faster, sure,” Ten said, grinning as well, then giving his order to their waitress before she left.

Manny held up two fingers to signal he’d take the same. “C’mon. Tell me. You said something about an old Victorian. Wait. Do you mean Bob Coleman’s place?”

“Yep. That’s the one.”

Work out of the way, Manny sat back, relaxed. “Wow. If I recall correctly, you were looking to buy that monster.”

Ten nodded. He’d driven Manny by the house a couple of times, made the other man listen to him wax poetic about all he could do with the place. “I wanted it, but didn’t think the Colemans would sell. I hadn’t been watching for it to be listed.”

“Who beat you to it?”

Ten hesitated, not wanting to share Kaylie’s business, then realized it was all public record and nothing she was trying to hide. “One of the kids who used to live there with Winton and May Wise. Name’s Kaylie Flynn.”

“Huh. No kidding. I hadn’t thought about the Wises for a long time. They’ve both passed on, I believe.”

“They have. Kaylie had been keeping an eye on the place.”

“Guess she wanted it more than you did.”

“She’s got a connection to it that I don’t.” He reached for the first of his three breakfast tacos the minute his plate hit the table. “She’s converting the first floor into a café. I’ve got Will taking down the shutters, checking all the windows for damage.”

“What’s the tension you’re throwing him into?”

“It’s nothing that’s going to be a problem for him, or, by extension, you.”

Manny thought for a moment. Then gave a snort that had Ten rolling his eyes. “That leaves you. And her. And confirmed bachelor that you are, you don’t know what to do with the idea of a woman you want living in a house you want without you living there, too.”

No matter how good a friend Ten considered Manny, he was not talking about any of this until he’d figured it out for himself. “I’m pretty sure that doesn’t even deserve a response. So I’m not going to give you one.”

“You don’t have to, man. I’ve known you a lotta years. You haven’t said more than two words in all that time about the personal lives of any of your clients. You’ve only mentioned one or two by name. And you haven’t dated anyone seriously since I’ve known you.”

“I’m not dating Kaylie.”

“Yet.”

Ten was not having this conversation. “We’re doing nothing but talking about her house.” Mostly. “It’s not a personal relationship. I’ve got too many obligations, and a lot of them thanks to you, to take time for a personal relationship.”

Manny finished off his first taco and picked up his second. “More than anyone I know, you need to take time. Stop beating yourself up, or thinking you don’t deserve anything good in your life. If Dakota knew you’ve been carrying this guilt all this time…”

Since neither one of them had seen Dakota in years, it was hard to say what he’d do. And Ten got Manny’s concern. That’s what friends were for. But in this case, the concern butted up a little too close to meddling. Good-natured meddling, but still. “So, what? You’re moonlighting as a shrink now?”

“Could be you need one,” Manny said, and when Ten lifted a hand to object, the other man continued. “Or at least a friend willing to tell you the truth from this side of that wall of yours.”

“Oh, so now I’ve got a wall.”

“Jericho-sized. Lots of hardheaded bricks. With a moat.”

Ten grunted and dug back into his food. If his head was hard, it was his business. And if he’d put up walls, he had his reasons. Manny might think he knew the way of things, but he hadn’t been standing in Ten’s shoes when Dakota had swung that bat.

“Letting someone in,” Manny went on, “say, this Kaylie…wouldn’t be a bad thing. Man wasn’t meant to live alone.”

“I do just fine living alone. And I told you. Kaylie’s business. I don’t mix my work with my downtime.”

“Can’t say I’ve known you to take any downtime.”

Ten thought about Kaylie’s mouth, her laugh, the bow of her lip, her freckles, her eyes that said so much while appearing so sad. “Since you don’t see me but every couple of weeks, there’s a lot of what I do that you don’t know.”

“There’s a lot of what you do that I don’t
want
to know. But as much as you think I’m up in your business because of mine—”

“Which you are—”

“—I’m your friend and am pretty fed up with you taking the blame for everything that went down with your family. It’s time to let it go, Ten. You were sixteen years old, Dakota was an adult, and your parents should’ve paid more attention to what the kids under their roof were doing.”

And about that, Manny was right. “Enough. I came here for breakfast, and to assure you I’m not dropping Will Bowman
into hot water. What I didn’t come here for is an intervention, or whatever the hell this is.”

“This is a friend talking to a friend. But if you say enough, then enough.” Manny reached for his coffee. “I can talk about soccer instead.”

Another smile pulled at Ten’s mouth. “That’s okay. You know how I don’t feel about soccer.”

“And that I’ve never understood.”

It was on Ten’s drive from Malina’s back to the shop when Manny’s words truly sank in. Ten didn’t like thinking about his high school years, the events that had sent Dakota to prison. No matter what Manny said, it was Ten’s fault. He never should’ve asked their parents if Robby Hunt could stay with them during spring break…

Robby and Ten had grown up together, been close friends since they’d played shortstop and second base in Little League. The other boy had come from what teenage Ten had thought to be an overly strict family. Robby wasn’t permitted to do half of what Ten’s parents allowed. He’d had a curfew. Ten hadn’t. He’d had a restriction on how much TV he could watch each day, what music he could listen to, what movies he could see, where he could go and with whom. Ten had been a free agent, making his own decisions.

Looking back, it was easy to see whose parents had been more involved in their kids’ lives. It hadn’t been Drew and Tiffany Keller, that was for sure. It was a wonder Ten’s sister, Indiana, hadn’t given them a grandchild before her fifteenth birthday, as little instruction as they’d provided her in the ways of the world and of men.

And if not for Dakota and his baseball bat, that very well might’ve happened against her will.

T
hursday morning found Kaylie sitting cross-legged on the kitchen counter, her coffee on the window ledge, a sketch pad in her lap. Magoo lay stretched out in the middle of the floor, snoring, a sputtering nasal sound punctuated with an occasional whine and whiffle. Kaylie shook her head, smiling. As excited as she was to get started making over the house, she would miss these quiet—or mostly quiet—mornings with only her fur baby for company.

Her love of spending the early hours in silence was one of many things she owed to May Wise. How many times had she come down to breakfast before the rest of the kids to find May packing lunches, humming softly as she slathered slices of homemade bread with thick layers of jam, loaded others with wedges of cheese? May had always known Kaylie was there, but had done no more than smile to herself, letting Kaylie be the one to speak first.

Sometimes she had, asking if it was okay to pour a bowl of cereal rather than wait for everyone else and pancakes or French toast. But sometimes it had been Winton, or Cindy or Tim, joining them and starting the conversations it took the entire morning to finish, and that Kaylie, wide-eyed, had soaked up. So, yes, she loved her quiet time, but she
couldn’t wait to fill this house with voices again, words tumbling over one another to be heard.

She’d missed that, living alone. The chatter at school had been too chaotic, that at work about work. But during the eight years she’d lived in this house, there’d been a constant flow of words that mattered. Winton reading aloud, May teaching her to bake, Cindy and Tim and later Joelle playing Monopoly or Scrabble. Then there were the warm spring days the family spent on the spot Winton cleared for softball, and the cheering, the screaming, the distracting cries of
batter, batter, swing!

She’d woken up thinking about seasonal themes for the dining rooms, and had been playing with the idea since. After talking to Ten on Saturday, she’d decided she wanted to add a fourth room to the connected eating spaces, and was waiting for him to get here so they could discuss whether it was best to add the solarium or the parlor to the maze.

The parlor was her first choice, as it would expand the dining area toward the front of the house, keeping the rooms at the rear hers and private. Plus, she loved the solarium. Almost as much as the kitchen. She’d spent so much time in there doing homework or reading or napping, or staring out at the trees, lost in thought. And yet these days she was hardly ever alone, and the thoughts she would’ve once kept to herself she was sharing with Luna and Ten.