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

by Kent, Alison

  “Daddy?”

  At the tremor in Addy’s voice, he glanced over to see her hugging her plush snowman so tightly his bulbous white head looked ready to pop off. “Yes, pumpkin?” he asked, nearly choked with worry.

  “Do you think Ms. Harvey would stay if I liked Elsa better than Olaf?”

  “What?” he asked, frowning. “No, sweetheart. Of course not,” he added, trying to figure out what she was thinking. Trying, too, to keep his heart in one piece. This girl . . . “Ms. Harvey loves Olaf, too.”

  “But she doesn’t love us, does she?” she asked, tears in the corners of her eyes, the words tiny and sad. “Because she’s going away. Like Grammy went away because she doesn’t love PopPop anymore.”

  “Ms. Harvey can go away and still love us,” he said, because he knew that Brooklyn did. He’d felt it in the way she’d moved beneath him, but he’d known it long before then. Which made his letting her go, not asking her what he’d intended to, a ridiculously huge mistake.

  For some reason she wasn’t letting herself be happy. He wanted to know what was keeping her in the dark. “Addy? Do you know why you love Olaf the best?”

  His daughter nodded fiercely, her curls bouncing. “Because he’s so silly and funny.”

  Callum sighed. She said it as if she hadn’t had enough silly and funny in her life, when he’d done his best to give her everything. Sure, her first year had been spent in a borrowed playpen in Duke and Lainie’s living room. Or in their kitchen watching him making a mess as he learned to temper chocolate.

  But his friends, who were also his bosses and his landlords and his daughter’s uncle and aunt, had treated Addy like their own, spoiling her with pink girly-girl clothes, and frilly socks, and shiny shoes, and too many toys for an infant her age, until it had been time for good-bye. She’d had a wealth of attention, and she’d had a family of misfits in California who’d loved her, and she’d been doted on by his parents in Hope Springs.

  Brooklyn’s parents had loved her, and Artie had loved her, yet something in her life had been lacking all this time. The thing about it was, he couldn’t give Brooklyn what she was missing. She was going to have to find that for herself. But maybe if he was there beside her, he and Addy, hell, at this point he’d even put Olaf to work if he had to . . .

  Checking the clock on the dash, he parked the truck, rushed around the hood to Addy’s door and released her seat belt, swinging her and her snowman into his arms. And then he ran. He knew the time of Brooklyn’s flight, knew the airline and gate. His chances of catching her before she made it through security were slim. He’d be too late. She’d be gone.

  Bursting through the doors, he moved from one line to the next, searching for black-framed glasses and blond hair and the body he’d learned so well, and the face that gutted him every time she broke into a grin. But she was nowhere. He couldn’t see her, and he swung around again as he dug in his pocket for his phone. If he could reach her while she was still at her gate—

  “Daddy, look! It’s Ms. Harvey!”

  Callum pressed the hand holding his phone to Addy’s back and spun in the direction she’d pointed. Brooklyn was sitting at a table in one of the terminal’s small shops, her hands wrapped around a paper coffee cup, her gaze focused intently on whatever she wasn’t drinking.

  “Ms. Harvey! Ms. Harvey!”

  At Addy’s cry, Brooklyn looked up, searching the crowd but quickly narrowing in on the crazy man Callum knew he must look like as he hurried toward her, his biker boots feeling like lead weights on his feet, his daughter swaying in his arms like a flag of surrender.

  “What are you doing here?” Brooklyn asked, frowning as she smiled. She got to her feet and took a diving Addy from his arms.

  “We came to see you!” the girl said, her arms going so tightly around Brooklyn’s neck, Callum had trouble pulling her away.

  “C’mon, pumpkin. Let’s sit down. You’re a little bit heavy for Ms. Harvey to hold.” Once they were seated, Brooklyn in her chair again, and Callum in the one facing her with Addy on his knee, he took a breath, blew it out, and said, “Hi.”

  “Hi, to you, too,” she said, reaching a hand across the table to grip his and squeeze. “But now are you going to tell me what you’re doing here?”

  “Addy’s right,” he said. “We came to see you.”

  “Is something wrong? Why didn’t you call?”

  “I was going to,” he said, showing her the phone he still held. “But then Addy saw you—” Get to the point, hotshot. The woman’s got a plane to catch. “You don’t have to make this trip, Brooklyn. Not if you don’t want to. Not if you’re not ready. If you’re not sure. You can visit later. Take the Bible to Bianca then. Skype with the students.” He was sounding desperate. “I know you have Artie’s ashes to scatter, and if you’re set on doing that in Italy, I get it. But go and do and come back. Or I’ll go with you.”

  “And then what?” she asked after several seconds, her voice breaking as she held his gaze. “We come back . . . I come back . . . I sold my house, Callum. Everything I own is in boxes. I don’t even have a bed anymore.”

  “I have a house. I have a brand-new king-sized sleigh bed. I also have a guest room. Or . . .” Think, Callum. Think. Desperate wasn’t getting him anywhere. “I have twenty acres of trees and lawn I’m going to have to buy a tractor to mow. I can build a guest house if you’d feel more comfortable with your own space. I can renew the lease on the loft in the meantime.”

  And how much sense was any of this making? She didn’t need him for a place to live, and a guest house would take months, and he was about five seconds from scooping up both her and Addy and taking them home—

  “I don’t want to be your guest,” she finally said, tears spilling to roll down her cheeks.

  “Oh, baby. Don’t cry. That’s not what I want you to be either. In fact”—he scooted to the edge of his chair, set Addy on her feet, and dug in his pocket—“this is what I want.”

  She looked down to where he held a candy box from Bliss. “You want me to eat chocolate?”

  “Just open it,” he said, grinning, and sliding off his chair to kneel on the floor in front of her as she lifted the lid.

  “Oh, Callum,” she said, pressing her fingers to her trembling lips. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It was my grandmother’s.” He reached into the box and pulled out the ring. It was a narrow gold band, a braided design with five tiny stones set into the twist: a diamond, an emerald, a sapphire, a ruby, a topaz. “My grandfather had it made for her. She would never tell him which stone was her favorite, so he included one of each. And it would be the greatest pleasure I could imagine knowing if you would do me the honor of being my wife.”

  “Oh, Callum,” she said again, but was stopped from saying anything more by the loudest little girl in the world.

  “Yes! Ms. Harvey! We want you to be our wife!”

  Callum hung his head, shaking it, and Brooklyn laughed. The other travelers around them and those seeing them off or welcoming them home laughed, too.

  “Well?” he asked, hoping he was reading her right, and that the nerves eating him up would be worth this feeling that he was about to lose his lunch.

  She held out her hand. Her left hand. He took it in his and slid the ring on her finger. The fit was perfect, and he looked up at her, his eyes glazed with tears he had to wipe away with his sleeve. Seconds later she was in his arms, kneeling with him, her face against his as she hugged him and kissed him and laughed and cried with him until they nearly fell to the floor, which made Addy, who’d jumped into the hug with Olaf, giggle like a loon.

  “I need to tell you something,” Brooklyn said, once she’d made it back into her chair, toying with the ring as she did, Addy moving to lean against her. “I called Bianca earlier,” she said, raising her gaze to his and wrapping an arm around his daughter. “I told her I wasn’t coming.”

  Nothing she could’ve said would’ve
made him any happier. “You did?”

  She nodded. “And I asked her to be my maid of honor.”

  He’d been wrong. This was happy, his face about to split from his grin. “Well, then. Since you’re not leaving, which means I’m not leaving, I should probably call Lena and let her know.”

  “Wait a minute,” she said, as he stood to look for his phone. “You told her you were leaving?”

  He dug into his back pocket, came up with his and Addy’s passports, which he’d grabbed from his fireproof safe on the way out the door. “I was going to be that man who followed his woman across the world if I had to. With the munchkin in tow.”

  She gave an incredulous laugh as she got to her feet, her eyes widening. “You brought passports?”

  “No suitcases,” he said, realizing the truth of the adage desperate times, desperate measures. “But yeah. We’ve got passports. We’re good to go.”

  “I want to go, too,” Addy said, jumping up and down and wedging herself between them. “I want to get books and ice cream again!”

  Brooklyn laughed, so Callum laughed; then he opened his arms and she stepped into his embrace, kissing him soundly.

  “Well?” he asked, moments later, holding up his credit card and the two passports. “We can still go if you want. Buy what we need when we get there.”

  “What about Bliss?”

  “Lena can put up a sign.”

  “You would do that?”

  “For you? Anything.”

  “It’s up to you,” she finally said.

  He thought about it a moment, then dug into his pocket for a quarter. “Heads or tails?”

  “Why not?” She clapped her hands together in front of her chest. “Either way, we’ve already won.”

  Damn but she had that right. “C’mere, Addy,” he said, hunkering down on one knee. “Ms. Harvey and I have a game for you to play.”

  They didn’t go anywhere but back to Hope Springs. Callum followed Brooklyn there from Austin. They left her car and Addy at his father’s house, Callum having decided it better not to have to explain to his daughter what they were doing, then drove together in silence toward Gruene.

  Brooklyn sat in the passenger seat of his truck, the box holding the urn with Artie’s ashes on the seat between them. Symbolic, really, she mused, as she’d been so afraid of losing what she’d had with Artie that she’d let her love for him come between her and Callum.

  Lifting the box to her lap, she scooted to sit in the center of the classic pickup, straddling the gearshift and setting the box on her other side. Callum didn’t say anything, but she caught the edge of his smile when she turned to buckle her seat belt. And once she had, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and held her close until he needed both hands on the wheel.

  He maneuvered through the small town’s narrow streets, turning at the intersection just past Gruene Hall and the Gristmill restaurant, then driving across the bridge over the Guadalupe River and parking on the other side. Shutting off the truck, he got out and Brooklyn slid across to exit through his door, then she leaned in to pull the box toward her.

  Knowing she’d be scattering Artie’s ashes, she’d never invested in an urn besides the red rectangle the mortuary had given her. She held it tight to her chest as she and Callum walked to the water’s edge. Once there, she opened the box and removed the sealed bag inside, toeing off her shoes.

  Callum took the box from her hands. “You want me to come with?”

  She shook her head. This was her journey. The end of one. The beginning of another. She waded ankle deep near the bank, the water breaking over rocks and tree roots before rushing to the deeper center. She took a half dozen short steps, then turned. “He would’ve loved knowing you. Riding with you. Downing Shiner Bock and grilling burgers. Not sure he would’ve had the patience to make candy,” she said, trying to laugh, and struggling. Her face was a wash of tears. “I miss him,” she said, choking. “I miss him so much.”

  Callum came to her then, wading into the water in his boots and his jeans and wrapping his arms around her. He said nothing. He didn’t have to. He was there, and he was giving her exactly what she needed. And then he made it better by dropping a kiss to the top of her head.

  “I’ll be right here,” he said, letting her go and backing away, crossing his arms over the box that had held her husband’s ashes, the water flowing between his legs. “Take care of Artie. Take as long as you need. I’ll be right here when you’re done.”

  She nodded, backing her way through the shallow water, and holding his gaze until she finally had the strength to turn. She breathed in, filling her lungs with the clean, crisp air, the scent of oncoming summer, the water that grew deeper with each step she took. She could do this. Tell Artie good-bye.

  Once she was knee-deep, she broke the seal on the bag with shaking fingers. And then she said, “Do you remember that chocolate shop in town? The one named Bliss . . .”

  THE NEXT HOPE SPRINGS NOVEL

  Don’t miss Alison Kent’s next Hope Springs novel, featuring Dakota and Thea

  Fall 2015

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo © 2012 Robyn Arouty

  Alison Kent is the author of more than fifty published works, including her debut novel, Call Me, which she sold live on CBS’s 48 Hours, in an episode called “Isn’t It Romantic?” The first book in her Hope Springs series, The Second Chance Café, was a 2014 RITA finalist. Her novels A Long, Hard Ride and Striptease were both finalists for the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice Award, while The Beach Alibi was honored by the national Quill Awards and No Limits was selected by Cosmopolitan as a Red Hot Read. The author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Erotic Romance, Alison decided long ago that if there’s a better career than writing, she doesn’t want to know about it. She lives in her native Texas with her geologist husband and a passel of pets.