by Alison Kent
Becca wished she had more of Ellie’s Zen, she mused, alphabetizing the red peppercorns and the black peppercorns and the white and the green and the pink. And more of Ellie’s smarts. Ellie and Thea both were so much better about thinking first. Becca just barged in and reacted. If Thea hadn’t been there to stop her when she’d slammed her arm into Dakota Keller’s throat . . .
She didn’t want to think about it. She couldn’t think about it. She had to get her temper and her impulses under control or she was going to hurt someone, and she knew too much about hurt to ever want to subject another person to anything like what she’d gone through.
Moving to the new rack with the specialized bins for dry goods, Becca flipped through the legal pad of notes she and Ellie had made for the labeling of the flours. Closer to the door into the shop now, she frowned, hearing Dakota talking to another man. Probably related to the build-out. It was well underway, even if it seemed to her Keller Construction was moving at a snail’s pace.
Then again, what did she know about what it took to turn an empty storefront into an espresso bar? As long as she had a nice counter to work behind, one tall enough and wide enough to keep the public on their side and out of her space, she was fine with whatever Thea decided on.
Except Thea hadn’t been the only one involved in the decisions. Like with everything that came from living in the house on Dragon Fire Hill, the workings of Bread and Bean had been brought to the table, though Becca thought Thea, as owner, was taking the democratic process of their shared living arrangements too far. Or maybe it wasn’t democratic. Maybe it was socialist.
Becca didn’t know squat about government, even after spending four years in service. She hadn’t had time to learn. She’d been too busy fighting off unwanted advances—without much success—to do more than see to the shine of her shoes and her made bed.
She also thought Thea was spending more money on parts of Bread and Bean than was necessary. Take the flour bins, for example. Ellie would be just as well served with Rubbermaid totes. They were water- and bug-proof, right? That had been the draw of the custom storage unit. Keeping the flours from losing their nutritional value, or some such spiel.
Sounded like a bunch of bunk to her, Becca mused, then frowned as the voices in the shop grew louder and more distinct.
“You can make the manpower happen? If Tennessee needs it?”
That had been Dakota, obviously back at the coffee machine since she also heard the squeak of the table and the whoosh of the pot being pumped.
“Not a problem. Though it might be if you don’t let the owner in on it.”
That man, she didn’t know, though he seemed familiar enough with Dakota and rather bossy. Curious, Becca crept closer to the swinging doors.
“Yeah. That thought already crossed my mind,” Dakota said.
“Had to mention it,” said the second man. “It’s what I do.”
What? Becca rolled her eyes. Tell other people their business?
“I know, and I will. Depending on what I decide.” Dakota’s phone rang then. “I’ll take this out front. It’s Tennessee. Be right back.”
The front door opened and closed as Dakota walked out. Becca stayed where she was, realizing too late the lack of noise coming from her side of the door, when she’d been making all sorts of racket before, was going to give her away. That and her breathing. And it didn’t take long for it to happen.
“You make it a habit to eavesdrop on private conversations?”
Crap. She hung her head, shook it, then turned and pushed open the door and walked into the shop where the bossy man stood in brown deck shoes, his hands in the pockets of his khaki pants. He wore a navy sport coat, the sides flared out behind his elbows. His shirt was white, his tie loosely knotted and patterned in blue and tan.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping.” Though, of course, she had been. “I work here. I have every right to be here.”
“Never said you didn’t.”
It was then that she realized he was Hispanic. His voice hadn’t given him away, but his black hair and complexion and the set of his intensely dark eyes did. He was also too gorgeous for words, his lashes long, his dimples deep, his crow’s-feet made by very big birds. They extended from his temples to his cheekbones, and gave him the look of someone intent on having fun.
But he was still bossy. And he wasn’t very tall. “You’re a friend of the construction guy? Dakota?”
He pulled his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms, gave a nod that didn’t seem very convincing. “You could say that. I’m a better friend of Tennessee.”
“Okay.” She didn’t care. She didn’t even know why she was still standing here. She had a to-do list that was easily a mile long.
Yet she didn’t move because he didn’t move. He didn’t come closer. He didn’t gesture or reach out or say anything inappropriate. He didn’t say anything else at all.
She wasn’t used to extricating herself from a situation so completely dull. She was used to fireworks. “I guess I’ll get back to work,” she said, gesturing toward the kitchen.
“You a baker?” When she frowned at the question he added, “The bread?”
“No. I mean, I help. I clean up. I make sure Ellie has everything she needs. But she does the baking. Of course we’re not selling anything yet, but sometimes she uses the kitchen here to bake what we need at the house.” And why in the world was she talking so much?
“Sounds like a fair division of labor.”
“We all do our part. It’s how we make it work.” Again with the blabbering. At this rate, he’d know her social security number and what had brought her to live in the house on Dragon Fire Hill.
“You all live together, then? Like roommates?”
She scowled. “What makes you ask that?”
“You said your friend bakes the bread you need at the house,” he said with a shrug, ambling a couple of steps toward the long table they were using as a coffee station. Now that he was closer, she could see the strands of gray in his hair and noticed he could use a shave, his beard graying, too.
“Oh. Right.” See? She was giving away way too much information. Which was why she needed to keep her mouth shut. She watched him move, like he was taking his time, but making sure he wasn’t doing anything wrong. “Yeah. We’re . . . roommates. I guess you could say.”
He nodded, looking around. “When’s the place set to open?”
A safer subject. “We should’ve been open already, but the first guy doing the build-out bailed.”
“That’s when Keller took over?”
She stayed where she was, the door at her back and convenient. “I thought it would go a lot faster, but Thea said we’re on track.”
“Thea’s the boss?”
“The owner. Boss. Same thing. She owns the house, too. On Dragon Fire Hill.” And that’s when she decided to bite off her tongue. What in the world was wrong with her? She did not spill her guts. She did not give up advantage.
“That’s where you live?”
She didn’t know this man. Who he was. His connection to Dakota, whom she barely knew. What he was doing here. Yet she was telling him things that were none of his business. Things she would never in the past have said to a complete stranger. Because that’s what he was.
A complete stranger.
“I need to get back to work.”
“I’m sorry.” He held up both hands. “Where you live is none of my business. I know better than to ask.”
“Okay.” It was the only word she had. Guys, in her experience, didn’t apologize. Unless it was the only way they could get what they wanted. The thought had her frowning. “What do you want?”
“Nothing.” He lifted both brows and shrugged. “I just stopped to talk to Dakota. He stepped out for a minute. I’m just waiting for him, but I can wait outside if it would help you
breathe easier.”
“I’m not having any trouble breathing.”
“Coffee’s good for that, too. Caffeine.”
“I’m not having any trouble—” But then she stopped because she was. Her heart was slamming around in her chest and doing something weird to her lungs, and all she wanted to do was run—not out of fear, but something else. Something she didn’t understand.
The front door opened then and Dakota came in, pocketing his phone, his hair hanging in his face, his T-shirt powdered with sawdust. He lifted his chin when he saw her, and said, “Hey, Becca. This is—”
But she was already pushing through the swinging door into the kitchen, singing, “La, la, la, la, la,” in her head. She didn’t want to know the other man’s name, or more than the last ten minutes had told her about him. It was bad enough that he’d read her like a book, and that she was bent over struggling to inhale because of how easily he’d been able to do so.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Thea spent most of the night staring at the paint peeling from the tongue-and-groove ceiling in her second-floor corner bedroom. Staring and trying to figure out why she’d said what she had to Dakota, about his ruining her for other men. She didn’t even know if it was true. The words had just rushed out. They weren’t words she’d practiced or considered or previously established as truth.
Yes, she’d thought of him often over the years. She’d wondered where he’d gone after prison and what he’d done with his life since. And, yes. For some unfathomable reason, she’d compared her time with her adult lovers to the years in high school she’d spent sleeping with him.
She’d missed him. He’d been a boy, she’d been a girl, and she’d missed him.
But the idea that he’d ruined her for any other man? Seriously? Was that what her subconscious had decided while she’d been getting on with her life after Todd? Rearing its head once Dakota was back in her life to remind her of how good they’d been together?
Then again, thinking back on her two short years with Dakota made her realize the concept wasn’t that far out there. Not when they’d bared as much of their souls as they had of their bodies. She just didn’t want to believe it.
Believing it would give credence to the idea that she and Dakota were . . . soul mates, or whatever. Destined to be together. Meant for each other. Spiritually or metaphysically bound. And that just wouldn’t do. For one thing, she had a brand-new business to run and she couldn’t afford the dizzying distraction of being caught up in whatever lingered of Dakota’s damage.
That damage . . . It didn’t frighten her as much as it bothered her, and worried her, and she had so much on her plate already, with Frannie and Ellie and Becca, not to mention herself.
Had he told her he was thinking of leaving so she’d try and convince him to stay?
The question remained with her all morning as she straightened her cheerful and comforting but very Spartan room. She’d kept nothing of Todd’s but his money when she’d closed the door of his condo behind her. On her way to the safe house where she’d slept the first night, she’d stopped by the storage unit where most of her belongings had been sitting in boxes since high school. It was a crappy warehouse, but it was cheap. That had been the main draw since she couldn’t afford a big monthly payment anymore than she could afford to leave what she valued in her mother’s house.
Todd had asked that she not bring her old things into his new home. She’d been young and dumb and incapable of discerning between being loved by a man and being under his thumb. He’d paid attention to her, and at the time she’d needed to feel like she mattered to someone. To anyone. Her mother didn’t care. She didn’t know her father. Dakota was gone . . . Like she’d said. Dumb.
From her stored things that day, she’d grabbed the same comforter she was using now. It was worn, stuffing poking through tears in the cotton, but it was soft and warm, colored in a palette of water blues with dolphins romping across it. She’d had a lot of dolphins back then.
Her bed was a full, and unlike some the others slept on, had a headboard, a footboard, and a frame. Frannie preferred her mattress on the floor so she didn’t have to worry about Robert rolling off. James was older and less of a concern, but with the bed at that level, the only thing she had to think about when turning in for the night was locking the door so the boys wouldn’t wander.
The room the family of three shared was on the first floor, and it would take a bulldozer to get into the house after dark. Or, for that matter, during the day. A large chunk of Todd’s money had gone to secure the premises from men like him, and women, too, and others who were worse.
Thea had moved in before anyone else. Her bed had come from a junk store that claimed to sell antiques. The mattress was new, but it was the only thing that was. She’d painted the bed and the side table white, and had made curtains out of navy sheets identical to the set she slept in. Her ceiling fan was cheap white cane, but did the job perfectly, and she’d installed it herself.
One of these days she’d get around to painting everything else because the room was an absolute mess. The ceiling was high, and needed sanding, and the idea of so much physical labor with everything crowding her to-do list . . . she couldn’t do it. Not now. And the walls were no better, plaster peeling, studs and pink insulation and wads of old newspaper showing through in more than once place. The outlet closest to the door didn’t work. Neither did the closet light fixture.
Maybe she could get Dakota . . .
No. She wasn’t going there. She couldn’t afford to hire him, and she would not ask him the favor. The manpower, the paint, and the other supplies were not in the household budget. And bringing a painting crew into the house, well, flying pigs and frozen underworlds would become the norm before any of the women she lived with would open the door to a man.
Look what had happened in the shop when Becca had first seen Dakota. And Becca had known about the contractor’s visit. Thea had survived this long in less than ideal living conditions, and she would continue to survive them as long as her finances and the women she lived with required she do so.
And as far as Dakota Keller went . . .
Neither his staying in Hope Springs nor his leaving Hope Springs was any of her concern. She had absolutely no intention of trying to convince him to do one or the other.
Not a bit of intention at all.
“I’ve been thinking about something.”
It was the first thing Thea said to Dakota after arriving at Bread and Bean. Initially, she’d thought she was early, then she’d realized Ellie must’ve slept in. There wasn’t a single loaf of bread or a biscuit in the kitchen. Thea usually arrived to the smell and warmth of both. There was a fresh pot of coffee in the shop. That was due to Dakota having been the one to get the worm.
He looked at her over the rim of his mug as he sipped. “And that’s supposed to be a surprise?”
“Back in high school—”
“Uh-huh. No talking about the past,” he reminded her, sipping again, steam from his drink drifting up like smoke signals, softening the hardness in his gaze and warning her away.
She would not be warned. “We never agreed not to talk about high school,” she said, hoping she remembered things correctly as she pumped coffee into her own mug.
“I think the past covers high school.”
Good. She had. “Only if you’re going by the letter of the law instead of the spirit.”
He didn’t respond right off, giving her time to look him over while they both pretended the coffee was the most important thing in the room. His eyes were bloodshot, as if he hadn’t slept, the dark circles beneath confirmation. Neither had he bothered to shave, though that didn’t make him look tired as much as it did unkempt. And even that turned her on way more than it turned her off.
There was something about this undone Dakota Keller—
“So,” he said,
interrupting a train of thought that had the wheels of her heart turning and picking up speed. Dammit, but she did not need him complicating her life. She did not need to care. “The spirit of the law is why you felt it okay to tell Becca about me?”
Thanks a lot, Becca. She shrugged. “We were talking—”
“Talking a lot from what I hear,” he said, his voice teasing and gruff and making her shiver. “About me. Me and prison. Me and you.”
“Ah,” she said, holding up one finger. “That was before our agreement.”
“Was it?” he asked, lifting his mug again, snagging her gaze again, taking her back again to a time when they’d made sense. Except they had never made sense. They’d been too young, and they’d slept together for reasons that were even less about hormones than about being cool.
But she would never get over the way he’d looked at her then because it was the way he was looking at her now, and she was having way too much trouble separating the two.
Seemed the perfect time to hit him with the question that had been giving her hell all day. “Why did you tell me you want to leave Hope Springs?”
“So you would know,” he said with a lazy shrug, the motion drawing her gaze to the roll of his shoulders beneath his T-shirt.
She took a deep breath, then exhaled, blowing away the distraction. At least she tried.
And she might even have been successful if he hadn’t emptied his mug then, the motion of his arm as he drained it pulling the shirt up and exposing a strip of skin on his torso. Skin showing off a puckered scar, the wound having been stitched without a single thought for cosmetics.
She looked away, and did her best not to wince as she picked up the conversation. “But if you don’t leave until you’re done with the job, why would it matter? Why would I care?”
