The Second Chance Café (Hope Springs, #1) (7 page)

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” Luna said to Ten, laying a hand on his arm before turning to Kaylie. “I’ve got an appointment I’ve got to get to, so I need to go. But we’ll talk more soon?”

“Yes, and thank you for everything.”

“How about lunch next week?”

“Absolutely.”

“Great. We should go to the Gristmill. I can show you my old restaurant stomping grounds.”

“I’d love it.”

“I’ll get out of your way then. Again, nice to meet you, Will. And, Ten, I can’t wait to see what you do with the house.”

“Well, you won’t have to wait long,” Kaylie said, loving it when both Ten and Will looked her way. “Did I not mention that I want to open Memorial Day weekend?”

“That’s just under three months,” Ten said, frowning.

“And I’ll be paying a very nice bonus if you can get it done.”

“A bonus, huh?” He narrowed his eyes, holding her gaze while he popped a bite of doughnut into his mouth.

“I think that’s my cue to get busy.” Will hopped down off his stool, dusted the doughnut crumbs from his hands, and then finished his coffee, his gaze on Luna as she left, as if giving her a good head start before following.

“That was…interesting,” Kaylie said, though it hardly seemed an encompassing enough word for the tension Will and Luna left like smoke in their wake.

Once the screen door bounced shut, Ten said, “As long as she knows I can only vouch for him as a new hire. She’s on her own for the rest.”

Good to know she wasn’t imagining things. “What did you mean about his being out of pocket for a while?”

“Nothing to worry about. Just that he’s been out of work,” he said, dunking the last of his doughnut into his coffee. “His people skills are kinda rusty, but a friend I’d trust with my life sent him my way, so I thought I’d give him a leg up.”

Kaylie watched him cock his head to the side and bite into the soggy cake pastry. She wondered what he would think to learn the gossips loved him. Then she wondered if he already knew. “Luna mentioned you take care of people.”

His brow came up as he lifted his mug to his mouth. “I didn’t know you and Luna were friends.”

“We just met this morning,” she said, toying with the crumbs from her Danish, uncertain what to make of his look. “She came by to talk about the café.”

“You two didn’t waste any time, did you?”

“Getting to know each other?”

“Getting around to men.”

Was he teasing? Accusing? Just making conversation, or wanting to know? “We were talking about my plans for the house, and your name came up as my contractor. That’s all.”

“Me taking care of people doesn’t sound like my name coming up as your contractor,” he said, and sipped his coffee again.

“Is that why you came by the other night?” she asked without meaning to. Having him aware of her curious nature seemed a bad idea for some reason.

“You think I was taking care of you?” he asked after a long moment of doing nothing but looking her over, her hair, her nose, the freckles that dusted her chest above her very modest décolletage.

Yeah. A bad idea. She wished she hadn’t rinsed out her cup. She needed something to do with her hands. “Or Magoo, at least.”

At the sound of his name, the dog wagged his tail, the
thump-thump
against the floor the only sound in the suddenly still room, bringing a smile to Ten’s face. “No, Kaylie. I didn’t come to check on Magoo.”

She hadn’t wanted to hear him say that. She didn’t know how the implication that he’d come because of her made her feel. She looked after herself. She had for the last ten years. The idea of a man, this man, Tennessee Keller, thinking her knife and her dog and a life spent braced for bad news wasn’t enough…

What was she supposed to do now? “That’s good, because he’s perfectly capable of taking care of himself.”

“I’m sure he is.”

“Anyway.” She sat straighter, brushed back her hair, hoped an escape route would fall into her lap, and found
one in a box on the kitchen counter. “I picked up several flooring samples yesterday, so we should probably look at those.”

Ten laughed and started gathering up the detritus of their impromptu meal. “Then let me get Will set up taking down the old shutters, and we’ll do just that.”

H
ands at her hips, Luna leaned against the back bumper of her car, staring at the wooded lot across the street from Kaylie’s house. She wanted to walk into the thick stands of trees and let them close around her, to lose herself along with this big truth only she knew.

Was she really going to do this? Tell Kaylie’s father where she was? Upset his life and his daughter’s, too? Did she even have that right? Both seemed to be making their way, and happily so, but what if they would be happier together?

What if Kaylie could share with Mitch the sort of relationship Luna had with
her
father? She counted on him for so much. His support had allowed her to make her own way, to learn from her mistakes as well as her success. How could she keep Mitch and Kaylie from the same, knowing what she did about the hole in both of their lives?

She surged away from her car, balled her hands into fists, and groaned, because taking off into the woods would ruin her new suede boots. And tramping through the trees wouldn’t do anyone any good anyway. “To tell or not to tell. That is the question.”

“I’m happy to offer an ear if you need one. Unless you find it nobler to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune on your own.”

At the sound of Will Bowman’s voice, Luna turned. He’d come up behind her silently, headed, she supposed, for Ten’s truck, parked at the edge of the street. He was wearing sunglasses that covered his beautiful blue eyes, and she wanted to ask him to take them off, but kept herself from being that obvious by biting down on her tongue.

His black hair, stirred by the breeze, had fallen forward. He reached up to rake it back, lifting his chin as he did, and she was caught again, as in the kitchen, by the shape of his hands, his fingers long, his palm large and square. Dark hair feathered along his wrist from his forearm hidden beneath the long sleeve of his black pullover tee. Her fingers itched to touch him there, and she didn’t know why.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said when she took her time answering.

She looked back to his face. “You didn’t. Not really. I’m more embarrassed to be caught talking to myself.”

“I do it all the time, so it makes perfect sense to me.”

“Good,” she said. “Because I’m not making any at all.”

“The offer of an ear is still open,” he said, and cocked his head. “Though I understand the slings and arrows thing if you’d rather not.”

She didn’t even know him, and yet, almost as much as the volcano of frustration rising inside of her, his sincerity, when he stuffed his hands in his pockets and shrugged, made her want to tell him everything. About Mitch. About
Kaylie. About her own accident from so long ago. About losing her best friend and still being burdened with keeping Sierra’s secrets safe.

“Are you close to your parents?” was what finally came out of her mouth, and she wanted to grab it back, to apologize for being so forward, until she took in his expression.

His mouth pulled into a smile. Dimples appeared in both cheeks, crow’s-feet at both temples, which told her his eyes were smiling, too. And that he was older than she’d originally thought. That had her wondering what in his life had gone so wrong that he was working for Ten. And then he answered and she lost what she’d thought a fairly stable balance.

“Who said I have parents? Maybe I was hatched from an egg sprinkled with fairy dust. Or brought up by wolves.”

Something led her to believe in the possibility. Something about him that brought to mind magic. And, boy, wouldn’t magic come in handy right about now. Because magic was the only thing that would’ve tamed the volcano. She had to tell someone or explode into ash and flames. “I have a friend, a man I used to work with. He had a child years ago with a woman he never married. While he was overseas in the service, his child’s mother got in trouble with the law. The child went into the foster care system. He didn’t know about any of this until long after the fact.”

“Are you the child?” he asked when she finally stopped to take a breath. “And you don’t know if you should tell your father who you are?”

“Why would you think that?” she asked, finding it strange that he’d go there before anywhere else.

“When someone has a friend with a problem, a lot of the time it’s not a friend at all.”

True enough, she thought, and smiled. “No. I’m not the child. In this case, it really is about a friend.”

“You know both parties?”

“I do.”

“And you don’t know if you should stir up the past and put them together.”

“I don’t. The past is…messy. Very messy.”

“Are you asking for my opinion?”

She found herself nodding. “I guess I am.”

He turned to lean against the car beside her, arms crossed as he glanced over. “Are you close to your parents?”

Her smile widened. She felt it in the muscles of her cheeks. “They’re my very best friends. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

Which was why this conversation was one she should be having with them—not with a man she didn’t know. Except her parents were aware of Mitch Pepper’s story and couldn’t be any more impartial than she was.

Will looked away, his gaze focused somewhere in front of him. “If you’re trying to re-create what you have with your family for your friend, don’t.”

“Why not? Isn’t that a perfect reason?”

“Perfect for you, sure. But it’s not about you. It’s about two people who’ve made their own way for a lot of years. What’s the impact to their lives going to be if you upset the status quo?”

It sounded so obvious when put like that. “So I shouldn’t tell either of them? Even if I know they’re looking for each other?”

“Are they? Actively? Or are they just giving lip service to wanting to find the other because it’s what society expects?”

This had been such a bad idea. She was more confused than ever. “You’re saying what they claim to want might not be what they want at all?”

“You’re the one who knows them,” he said, and shrugged. “You’re going to have to be the one to figure that out. I’m just a boy who was raised by wolves.”

“You’re pretty intuitive for a boy raised by wolves.”

“Intuition is everything. Animals wouldn’t survive without it.”

“Even human animals?” she asked, wondering again about this one’s crimes. He had that lean, wary look of someone who’d spent time wishing for eyes in the back of his head. Ten didn’t take on hard cases. And Manny didn’t send him anyone but those ready to return to the lives they’d left behind. Lives they’d screwed up with a single mistake—something Luna was too familiar with.

“We let a lot of things get in our way. An animal’s intuition is about survival, not ego.”

“Did ego get you in trouble?” she asked, because she wanted to know. She’d never been as curious about Ten’s other ex-con hires, but this one…

He laughed then, a deep, clear rumble full of things to tempt her. “That, Miss Meadows, is for me to know. And for you to wonder about.”

“Fair enough.” After all, she didn’t want him asking about her secrets. Her stupidity. A condition she still struggled with, it seemed, when out of the blue she next heard
herself asking, “Would you like to get coffee later? Or dinner sometime?”

“Do you cook?”

Did he want her to? Did he want her to for him? Did he want to get her alone?
What in the world was wrong with her?
“Not if I can help it. I’m a big fan of takeout.”

“In Hope Springs?”

Should she tell him? “I live a ways out of town, so it’s an easy drive to New Braunfels.”

“I do.”

“Cook? Or live in Hope Springs?”

“Both. For now, with the living part. Since Manny set me up with Ten. But I’ve always cooked.”

Was he offering to cook for her? Because she really didn’t know where this conversation was going. “Kaylie’s looking for someone for her café.” And why was she telling him that when she wanted the job for Mitch? Unless what Will had said was already at work on her subconscious, making up her mind for her, keeping trouble at bay.

But he shook his head. “Gotta see through this construction gig. And I don’t think I’d like cooking on a large scale. It’s just something I enjoy for fun. And with friends.”

She looked at him, wondering if he’d served time for something as petty as aggravating someone, or not answering questions. “Is that a yes or a no, then? To coffee. Or dinner.”

“It’s my way of asking if you’d let me cook for you.”

“It really is easier if you just come out and say what’s on your mind.”

That laugh again, intimate and melodic. “I may not be good with invitations, but I definitely know not to speak my mind.”

That was novel. Most men had no trouble coming on to her. And that incongruity allowed her a boldness she didn’t often give into. “Do you have a cell?”

“I do,” he said, and gave her his number as she pulled hers from her pocket and typed out a text.

She hit send and his phone beeped seconds later. His eyes on hers, he reached for it, finally dropping his gaze to the screen.

“Saturday would be good for me, too,” he said, looking up as he did. “And now that I have your number, I’ll be in touch.”

“I look forward to it.”

“And maybe you can text and let me know what you decide. About putting your friend in touch with his kid. Because I could be way off base. It’s been known to happen.”

In the past, perhaps, but she had a feeling whatever mistakes in judgment he’d once made were ones he’d remember before making more. “I could text you. Or I could tell you about it while watching you cook. Unless having someone watch makes you nervous.”

“I’ve had someone, many someones, watching my every move the last three years. There’s very little that makes me nervous.” He took her in slowly, his gaze moving from her chin to her nose to her forehead. “Then again, none of them had eyes like yours.”