The Second Chance Café (Hope Springs, #1) (9 page)

“Too young, too involved with school.” She chopped her stick through the grass again. “Too busy making sure not to do anything to cause the Wises to want to send me away.”

“From what you’ve said, I doubt doing so crossed their minds.”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t cross mine.”

Fair enough. “Maybe you could ask some of the people who knew you back then about your parents.”

“I don’t think they’d know them. I wasn’t living here when I was taken from my mother.”

“What about your father?”

“I don’t have a clue where to start looking for him. I don’t even know his name.”

“It’s not on your birth certificate?”

She shook her head. “I’ve thought back, trying to remember what my mother called him, but all I knew him as was Daddy. Even Ernest called him Daddy.”

“Ernest?”

“He lived across the hall from us. He was a widower, well into his seventies I’m sure, with a grizzled white beard that always fascinated me, since his skin was so black. Ernest Flynn.”

“You took your last name from him.”

Magoo came running up then as if remembering his ball. Kaylie cocked her arm and threw it, this time toward the house, canting her head for Ten to walk back with her. “I knew in high school that as soon as I was old enough I was going to change my name. I thought about asking May and Winton if they’d mind me taking theirs, but decided against it. They’d given me so much already. Then I thought about Ernest. I was five the last time I saw him. While the police and paramedics dealt with my mother, he held me in his lap on the apartment building’s stairs. He was crying as loud as I was when the social worker took me from his arms. I remember that moment as clearly as if it were yesterday.”

And she laid it all out as if describing a day at the zoo. “Sounds like he was a good friend.”

“I’ve been lucky. I’ve had some of the best. Part of me says I should leave things alone, let those relationships hold me. Ernest. May and Winton. Saul Golden, the man who gave me my first bakery job. He passed on before I could go back and thank him for the time he’d taken with a curious eighteen-year-old who knew everything about brownies but little else.” She reached for his forearm to stop him. “You like brownies, don’t you?”

“Love ’em,” he said, doing his best to ignore the warmth of her fingers.

“Good. The first batch I bake in the new kitchen will be all for you.”

“That sounds even better than the bonus you put in my contract.”

“Please. It’s just brownies.”

But it wasn’t. It was Kaylie’s heart and soul. It wasn’t impersonal money, or a case of scotch whiskey he could buy for himself. It was Kaylie thinking of him, baking for him, putting herself into a gift for him. “Thank you. I’m a big fan of chocolate.”

“Too bad you never stopped by the Sweet Spot. Chocolate was our specialty.”

“Chocolate what?”

“Chocolate everything. Cookies and cakes and pies.”

“And brownies.”

“The very same brownies I get to bake here,” she said, her gaze leaving his to return to the house.

His followed, and he took in the multitude of windows that would require hours of work to keep clean, the roof he’d replaced once already but that had suffered additional limb damage since. The flower beds were crap, though he knew she had plans to hire a landscaper, and there was an acre of wooded yard to maintain.

It was an amazing house. An amazing burden. And he was really glad he hadn’t known it was for sale. He would hate to have taken it away from her.

Wake Up and Smell Two Owls’ Chocolate Brownie

we got your coffee right here, joe

8 ounces unsalted butter

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate

8 ounces semisweet chocolate

3 extra large eggs

1 tablespoon espresso powder

1 tablespoons vanilla

1½ cups sugar

½ cup flour

½ tablespoon baking powder

½ tablespoon salt

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease or spray with cooking oil and flour a 9 x 13 x 1–inch baking sheet.

Melt the butter, the unsweetened chocolate, and the semisweet chocolate in a double boiler (or in a microwave), stirring often so as not to burn the chocolate. Cool slightly. Stir together in a large bowl the eggs, the espresso powder, the vanilla, and the sugar. Add the warm chocolate mixture to the bowl and cool. Sift the flour, the baking powder, and the salt into a small bowl. Add to the cooled chocolate mixture.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking sheet. Bake 35–40 minutes, or until an inserted tester comes out with a bit of batter attached. Cool completely before cutting.

S
ince she’d waited tables at the Gristmill Restaurant in high school, Luna knew the best time to catch Mitch Pepper. He’d been a staple in the kitchen for years, acting as friend, mentor, or guilty conscience—whatever a coworker, most of them younger, might need. Having been around the block, Mitch was a straight shooter. And the particular block he’d been around had everything to do with his aim.

After her late-day meeting at the Austin boutique to talk about Patchwork Moon’s spring scarf line, Luna had made the drive to Gruene and the Gristmill before she could change her mind. Yesterday’s visit with Kaylie had given her a lot to think about, but she still hadn’t decided if she was doing the right thing. It was her conversation with Will Bowman, however, giving her the most grief.

Did she owe the same truth to Kaylie she owed to Mitch, whom she’d known since she was a girl?

Mitch, who’d rocked her to sleep while her parents cleaned up the kitchen after dinner? Mitch, who’d talked her father into letting her keep the dog abandoned in the ditch beneath the sign at the farm’s entrance? Mitch, who’d
come to the hospital the morning after her accident and told her Sierra hadn’t made it through the night?

Her mother had wanted to wait until she was stronger. Her father had been unable to say the words. Mitch had been the only one thinking clearly. He’d known she could handle the truth and needed it. Now another truth was eating at her, and no matter what Will Bowman said, Mitch was her priority. He would know what to do about Kaylie.

The restaurant was closed, the kitchen staff going through their nightly routine of food storage and cleanup, the smells of browned butter and cream sauces, grilled beef and fried onions hanging heavy in the air.

Having been a part of this same activity with so many of these same people, she had a lot of catching up to do on her way through the stations to Mitch. She found him sharpening his knives, and because of the thing that had brought her here, she shivered.

“Mitch?” When she had his attention, she raised a hand. “Got a second?”

He looked at her over the dark rims of his half-glasses. “Hey, moon girl. What’s shaking?”

He was smiling, as always, the laugh lines fanning out from his eyes like a map of the life he’d made for himself, each groove detailing the happiness he’d found after all the years he’d spent with none. She hated taking that away from him. Thinking she might be giving him back even more was the only thing pushing her on.

“Could we talk for a minute?” She gestured over her shoulder. “On the patio maybe?”

At that, he frowned, his green eyes behind his narrow black frames so much like Kaylie’s it hurt Luna’s stomach to hold his gaze. He wiped his hands on the towel he pulled from his shoulder, never looking away as he slid the neck straps of his apron over his head. “Everything okay? Something wrong with Harry?”

“No, Daddy’s fine. Mom too. I just need…to tell you something.”

“Sounds ominous,” he said, his rough laugh fooling neither of them as he locked away his knives and his whetstone before following her out the back door. She wound her way through the empty tables to the rail that fenced off the restaurant from the river. Mitch followed, leaning a shoulder into a support beam and asking, “What’s up?”

She looked at the moon, a new moon, her moon, and made a wish for a happy ending. “I went to Hope Springs yesterday.”

“Okay.”

What to say? Where to start? “When I was here for Saturday’s craft fair, I heard about a woman opening a café there and thought of you. I know she’s doing her own desserts—she used to own a bakery in Austin—but she’s looking for a cook.”

“Ah, thanks, sweetheart,” Mitch said, the relief in his words doing nothing to salve the pain to come from what she’d learned. “But I’m happy right here.”

“I don’t think it’s full-time. She’s only serving lunch,” she said, and turned in time to see him shaking his head.

“Even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t have time. Can’t be in two places at once. Lunch-only still means a lot of prep
work, and I’ve got to be here at noon, because this place pays the bills.”

“There may not be as much prep work as you think. Just big pans of a single entrée that diners dish up themselves from a buffet.”

“Huh. Cool concept. But no can do. My days are jam-packed as it is.”

“Are you sure? A change of scenery might be nice. A new kitchen. No fish to fillet or steaks to grill. No sauces or desserts or sides.” She should’ve thought this through. Painted the idea as irresistible. Made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Spun him a tale to draw him to Two Owls, one to save her from spelling out the reason she wanted him to visit the café.

But Mitch wasn’t a dreamer. He got things done, wasting no time because of wasting too much already. “I can’t think of a single good reason I’d want to work in Hope Springs. Which means there’s a reason you want me to. So what is it?”

She shook her head, backed away. “Never mind. This whole thing was a stupid idea.” She headed for the far side of the patio and the beer garden beyond. She should’ve talked to her father first. He was Mitch’s best friend, and had an answer for everything. He would know what to do.

Mitch grabbed her arm to stop her from leaving. “You haven’t had a stupid idea since I’ve known you. Something’s up. And I’m not letting you go until you tell me what it is.”

She was frustrated, near to angry, but with herself, not with Mitch. She should’ve listened to Will. She shouldn’t have come here without a better plan, and now she was stuck because he was a pit bull. That’s what she loved most about
him. He cared. He worried. He didn’t want those close to him to hurt.

“Luna?”

She stared at her feet, swallowed.

“Luna?”

She couldn’t tell him. Not like this.

“Luna, I swear—”

She spun on him then, coming apart. “It’s your daughter.”

Mitch’s face went beet red, the moonlight blanching the color from his goatee and his hair. He released her, took a stumbling step in reverse, hit the patio’s long cracked wall. “What?”

Luna’s chest grew tight, her eyes damp. “Kaylie. She’s living in Hope Springs.”

All Mitch seemed able to do was pound his head against the wall. Bang. Bang. Denying, disbelieving. “Kaylie? My Kaylie?” Bang. Bang. Bang.

Nodding, Luna tried to find her voice, though the words she spoke came out in a whisper. “She spent eight years there in a foster home.”

“A foster home? And she went back?” Mitch asked, his face screwed in pain, his voice strangled.

“She bought the house where she lived.”

He gulped down a watery breath. “Why would she go back?”

God, but his tears were going to do her in. “It’s a great house. A big Victorian with an acre of trees.”

“And she bought it?”

“Sold her business in Austin and paid cash, I hear.”

“Wow.” He scrubbed both hands up and down his face, then back over the crew cut he still wore. “Just…wow.”

“Yeah. She’s pretty amazing.”

“Is she? Really?” he asked, begged, the words cracking and thick with emotion.

Luna had no words at all. She could barely breathe.

He sank to his heels, rocked back and forth. “Crap. What am I supposed to do?”

“Apply for the job?”

He laughed, his agony etched in the lines on his face. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

“Why not? You wouldn’t have to tell her who you are.”

“I couldn’t do that. No way.” He got to his feet, laced his hands on top of his head, his eyes red, his sorrow keen. “I could never do that to Kaylie.”

“You wouldn’t have to hire on, but you could at least go see her. Go meet her. Get to know her.”

But Mitch was still shaking his head. “Moon girl, I love you for this, but I lost my baby years ago. The woman in Hope Springs…she’s someone else. Someone with her own life. Someone I don’t deserve to have in mine.”

And then he returned to the kitchen, looking a whole lot more worn than when she’d found him ten minutes ago, and breaking her heart with his slumped shoulders and dejected, old man’s gait.

Walking from the lingering heat of the restaurant’s kitchen toward the railing where the patio overlooked the Guadalupe, Mitch stopped to light the cigarette he’d bummed from a busboy when clocking out for the night. He hadn’t smoked in ages. Not since returning to Texas, after four
years spent in barracks around the world, to find his daughter gone, swallowed up in a system designed to keep her safe and well cared for.