The Second Chance Café (Hope Springs, #1) (17 page)

The heels of his palms pushed against her, pushed her wrists against the drywall, pushed her knuckles, too. But his mouth didn’t push. It begged, and she breathed deeply and parted her lips the way she knew he wanted. The way she instinctively wanted as well.

He slipped his tongue into her mouth, softly at first, then more boldly, going deeper, then sweeping harder as he learned her, coaxing her to follow his lead, to mate her tongue with his, to come with him into his mouth, to stay.
She curled her fingers around his, her nails digging into his skin with her need to hold him, to grip his shoulders, to cup his nape and thread her hands through his hair.

She wanted more than this, and her chest ached and her eyes, closed now, grew heavy with tears because she had no other outlet for the feelings bursting inside of her. Ten was here, touching her, his hands, his thighs, his chest when he leaned into her, his tongue and his lips as he loved her mouth with his.

Reality fell away, leaving magic, Ten’s magic, here in her kitchen, the only sounds in the room their breathing, the tiny moans of the house, the wind through the breezeway stirring the bamboo chimes, a clutch of a whimper in her throat when he rubbed his thumbs over the heels of her palms.

He caught at her bottom lip, holding it, slicking it with his tongue, then finding hers and slicking it, too. He tasted of the coffee he’d last drunk, and he tasted of salt, and he was warm, hot even, his lips softer than she’d thought they would be, the stubble of his beard as it rasped over her chin arousing. Her nipples pebbled, and the whimper in her throat clawed loose in desperation. The sound, barely audible, was enough.

Ten stopped, his mouth a hair’s width from hers, his breathing ragged, the brush of air as he exhaled like a furnace at her cheek. And then he released her, backing away, holding up both of his hands as if to show her she was free and he was…sorry? Displeased with what they’d done? Regretting the way he’d pushed her and held her and taken her as if giving her no choice? Except that wasn’t how the kiss had happened at all. She’d been completely willing and involved.

Another moment and he spun away, crossing the room to return to packing his things. She shook off the daze keeping her pinned in place and scraped the loose hair from around her face, touching her fingertips to her mouth, still feeling him. Still wanting him. Not knowing how to tell him that when he’d been the one to leave. She was so tired of people leaving.

“Look. I didn’t mean for that to happen—”

“Don’t.” She bit off the word so sharply he stopped in the act of locking his toolbox and turned. Her chest was heaving. She tried to stop it, to control her breathing, but everything around her had changed and she didn’t know how. “Just don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t apologize. Don’t say you didn’t want that to happen.”

“That’s not what I said. I said I didn’t mean for it to.”

“Is that different than you didn’t mean it?”

“I meant every second.”

“Then why did you stop?”

“I don’t know.”

She didn’t believe him. She was certain he knew exactly why, but that he wasn’t comfortable telling her. Or comfortable with admitting it to himself. And as much as she didn’t want to accept the truth, he’d been right to stop. She’d been angry. He’d been reacting to that, not to her. Yes, her experience with men was limited, but she knew the heat of the moment did not lend itself to rational thought.

Still, she couldn’t let it go so easily. “If you want to kiss me, then kiss me. Don’t work out your frustrations with your family or use me—”

“I’m not using you, Kaylie. This…it has, had, nothing to do with my family.”

“But you stopped anyway.”

“I stopped because things were about to get out of hand, and this isn’t the time or the place…” He rubbed at his eyes. “I’m not going to take you up against a wall in an empty house. You deserve better than that.”

“You kissed me because you were angry.”

His head came up at that. “I wasn’t angry. I was…aroused.”

“Oh, I thought…” She stopped, because she wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking. Or if she’d been thinking at all. It had become habit, assuming the worst. She knew better, but old habits died hard. “I think I’m embarrassed now.”

“We kissed. I got hard. It’s what happens. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“No. I mean I’m embarrassed that I didn’t realize why you backed off. I thought…” And here she went again. “I thought you didn’t want to kiss me.”

“How could you get that out of what just happened?”

“Because you stopped. You walked away. Because you’re over there packing your tools and I’m just standing here.”
Like a fool
, she wanted to add, but didn’t. The words she’d already spoken had said it loudly enough.

He dropped the roll of tape he’d been holding, watched it bounce from the toolbox lid to the floor. Then he walked to the sink and planted both hands on either side, leaning into them and staring out the window.

From her vantage point, Kaylie could see Magoo sprawled out asleep in the driveway, but didn’t think Ten was looking at her dog. She pushed off the wall and waved a hand
distractedly. “I’m just going to go make sure I didn’t leave anything in the Jeep. Maybe throw a ball with Magoo for a bit.”

“You’re going to walk away? And leave me standing here?”

A flush climbed from her chest up her throat, heating her skin and no doubt turning her the color of a watermelon. “Ten—”

“No, Kaylie. We’re going to finish this.”

“I thought we did.”

He bit off a sharp curse, slammed a fist against the countertop. “No, sweetheart. We were just getting started. I don’t want you walking outside thinking anything else. Or thinking I don’t want you. Or thinking that if you said the word, I wouldn’t be dragging you upstairs by the hair.”

She tried to laugh, but her heart wouldn’t let her, thumping all the air from her chest. “That sounds rather caveman.”

“I can be caveman. But I’m trying to be nice.”

At that she swallowed, her throat working around unfamiliar emotions. Among them, a terribly unseemly longing that he show her the side of him that wasn’t nice. “I’m…not very good at this. At reading signals. Usually when I’ve had someone walk away, it’s meant they’re not coming back.”

Another curse and he straightened, facing the window as he shoved both hands through his hair. Frustration poured off him in waves, and in many flavors, and she wanted to go to him but held herself back, waiting, curious. Anxiously desperate to know what happened next.

“When I kiss a woman I’m interested in,” he said, “or when…things get intimate, I’m there for more than what’s
happening physically. That means I’m not going to walk away afterward. Unless it’s to slow things down. And sometimes that means”—he gestured toward his toolbox—“cleaning up at the end of the day. That’s all this is. I promise.”

He was interested. In her. And yet…“I was worried that I was the only one having a good time.”

He held her gaze, the line of his jaw taut, his pulse a tic in his temple, the sun through the window glinting like fire in his eyes. She thought he might be trying to frighten her off, or see that she kept her distance because he couldn’t be trusted to keep his. But she wasn’t frightened. She was full of something big and grand, and thought if she didn’t escape, she’d explode with it.

And because she was done with picking up pieces, and because he was obviously done with trying to explain, she pushed open the screen door and left him there, knowing without looking back that he watched her all the way to her Jeep, then as far as he could as she headed to the front of the house with Magoo.

From there, he wouldn’t be able to see her. It was the best place for her to be until she settled the feelings he’d whipped up inside her like tornado winds.

“W
hat are you doing here?” Kaylie said when she opened the kitchen door to Ten’s knock. It wasn’t the welcome he’d been expecting, or the one he’d been hoping for, to be honest, but he’d shown up without calling, making it the most obvious question she could’ve asked. And at least she had answered. He hadn’t been sure she would with the way they left things last night.

“I was hungry. Thought you might be, too.”

“I am,” she said, pulling the door wider and letting him in. “But I’d resigned myself to a ketchup sandwich made from the rest of the bread I picked up at Butters Bakery and any fast-food packets I can find in my Jeep. You know, since I’ve got to pay the exterminator. And because I don’t have anything in the house but dog food.”

Whew. She was sounding more like the Kaylie he’d gotten to know before he’d been stupid and kissed her. He’d been afraid he’d ruined all of that. He knew a lot of people, was close to only a few, and losing her friendship would’ve been a bigger blow than losing her business.

She hadn’t been around today while he’d been working, and he’d gone crazy with it, wondering if she’d taken
herself off so she wouldn’t have to see him. The rest of this renovation would be a bear if that was the case.

“As appetizing as a ketchup sandwich sounds,” he said, lifting the brown paper bag he held by the crimped top, “I stopped by Malina’s. I’ve got meat loaf and mashed potatoes and green beans with bacon and hot cornbread. Or it was hot when I left the diner. Things might need a quick blast in the microwave.”

She took the bag, set it on the island, and opened it. Closing her eyes, she leaned over the top, inhaled deeply, and smiled. That look on her face made up for all the worry of the past twenty-four hours and last night’s total inability to sleep.

Looked like his fear about having messed things up had been a big waste of time. Except after yesterday’s kiss, when she’d finally walked out of the kitchen, he’d had no idea where things stood between them, what she’d been thinking, how today would go down.

Though he would’ve been fine eating out of the Styrofoam containers, Kaylie dished out the food onto two of the stoneware plates she’d bought at Canton’s Hardware Emporium, serving him more than she served herself, and grabbing them both bottled water from the fridge.

He took his drink, picked up his plate, and followed her to the dining room and the two chairs she’d brought down from Austin. There he settled into what he’d come to think of as the visitor’s seat, while Kaylie curled into the big worn wingback, tucking her feet to the side, balancing her plate on her knees.

“Are you getting tired of camping out?” he asked, and when she frowned as if she wasn’t sure she’d heard him, he added, “Don’t you miss your things? Your TV? Your bed? A table that’s not a kitchen counter?”

“We can sit on the stools in the kitchen if you’d rather.”

“No,” he said, smiling to himself. “I’m fine. I was just making conversation, wondering if you weren’t tired of roughing it.”

“A little, but not enough to complain. I’ve got Internet, so I can watch TV on my laptop. A bed would be nice, but my sleeping bag’s well padded. I’m adaptable. I’ve had to be. I did a lot for myself. Even when I lived with my mother.”

“You were only five when you were taken away. Seems kinda young to be doing more for yourself than playing make-believe.”

“You’d think, wouldn’t you?” She scooped up a bite of mashed potatoes and ate them before going on. “My dad left when I was four, and I think he did most of the parenting before then. It’s the only reason I can think of that my mother failed so epically after he was gone.”

“You didn’t have grandparents helping out?”

“I don’t even know if I
have
grandparents. Or cousins. Or aunts and uncles. I might as well have been Little Orphan Kaylie. Except for the orphan part.”

He stabbed at his meat loaf, hating the way she tossed off something so wrong as a joke. Hating more that she’d been in that position at all. “You told me before that your mother was coming down off meth when the authorities showed up. That Ernest had called them.”

She nodded, her focus on her food. “I’d been hungry. I went and knocked on Ernest’s door, but he didn’t answer.
I think that’s why he took what happened so hard. If he’d been home, everything would’ve turned out so differently.” But that was all she said, and he wasn’t sure if she’d stopped because she didn’t want to go back there, or because she didn’t think he really wanted to know.

He did. He wanted to hear her story, to understand what she’d gone through, to learn more about her. He got that opening a vein and spilling the past wasn’t easy. That’s why so few people knew the details of his.

“You were hungry,” he finally said, prodding.

One side of her mouth pulled up, though he wasn’t sure it was a grin. “You’re determined to make me talk about this, aren’t you?”

“I seem to remember you saying part of coming back here was about facing your past. Can’t face it if you can’t talk about it.” Though he had no business lecturing her, when he kept the mistakes of his own past locked away.

“I was hungry and Ernest wasn’t home and my mother was passed out on the couch. She’d been there all day, ever since I’d gotten up. The TV was on, so I’d climbed up by her feet and watched some kid stuff for a while.
Sesame Street
, maybe. I don’t remember for sure. I was a big fan of Oscar the Grouch. I liked that he lived in a trash can. It made me feel okay about the garbage all over our house.”

“Kaylie—” he said, but it was all he got out.

“If you want the story, you can’t stop me with that voice to tell me how sorry you are.”

“I have a sorry voice?”

“And a sorry look in your eye.”

“I promise. No being sorry. At least out loud.” For her sake, he would bite back his anger at a young girl being so
utterly failed by those who should’ve put her needs first, and hadn’t.

“I was hungry,” she said for the third or fourth time. “My mother only groaned when I tried to wake her up, and as I said, Ernest didn’t answer when I crossed the hall and knocked.”

“Five seems awfully young to cross the hall alone.”

“Depends on the five-year-old, I guess. We were in an apartment building. All I had to do was open our door, take two or three steps, and ring his bell. I did it a lot, getting things for my mother, taking things to Ernest he’d called and asked for.”