The Comfort of Favorite Things (A Hope Springs Novel Book 5)

by Alison Kent

  Thea had parked in one of the shop’s angled spaces and was standing in front of her car, her hands in her pockets, her shoulders hunched. She was staring across the street, at what he didn’t know, and though she would’ve heard him come out, she had yet to acknowledge him. He didn’t think that was a very good sign.

  “Can we talk about this morning?” he asked as he stopped beside her. Might as well get it out of the way.

  “I don’t think so,” she said, doing nothing to hide her sarcasm. “I mean, this morning’s in the past, right? And we don’t talk about that.”

  Yeah, okay. He deserved that. “Give me a break, Clark. I’m no better at this getting reacquainted business than you are. And I’m sorry.”

  She turned then, her head cocked as she looked at him. “What if we just call off the agreement? If the past comes up in conversation, so be it. Will that make you happy?”

  Happy enough to stay? Was that what she was asking? He wasn’t thrilled with her suggestion, but . . . “I don’t want to argue with you. Or fight with you. If the trade-off is the occasional trip down memory lane, I can deal with that.”

  “For as long as you’re here, you mean.”

  “I’m offering an olive branch. A white flag. Whatever you need it to be.”

  He watched her purse her lips, then fight against a grin, though almost as quickly she grew pensive. “You know what our problem is, don’t you?”

  He didn’t, though he was sure she was going to enlighten him.

  “Unfinished business.”

  “How so?” he asked, frowning.

  “We never broke up.”

  O . . . kay. “Come again?”

  She moved to lean against the front of her car, her hands on the hood at her hips. “We had a crazy night of sex. Or a night of crazy sex. Then you left. I never saw you again, or heard from you again, until a few days ago when I looked up and there you were. We’ve spent more than a decade and many many miles apart without closure. And that after being together constantly for two years. We need that. Closure.”

  He stared at her, waiting for more but that seemed to be it. He couldn’t think of anything to ask but the obvious. “So you want to break up now?”

  She nodded. “I think we should.”

  He was struggling really hard not to laugh as he played along. “You know we weren’t ever officially going out. I didn’t ask you to be my old lady or anything.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I told everyone that you had.”

  “That so?” he asked, unable to keep a straight face. “No wonder Debbie Hollis wouldn’t have anything to do with me.”

  “Debbie Hollis?” she asked, scrunching up her nose. “Seriously?”

  He shrugged. “Cheerleaders have always been one of my favorite things.”

  “Somehow I don’t quite believe you.”

  “When have I ever lied to you?” he asked, then immediately wanted to grab back the words.

  Thea looked at him with those eyes that saw everything, that gave no quarter. “You told me you’d write me from prison. You never did.”

  Well, hell. He hadn’t expected that to come back and bite him. “I was busy. I couldn’t think of anything to say.”

  “That’s just dumb.”

  “Which part?” Because the second was the absolute truth. “I studied. I worked out. I ate and I slept and got really good at making the right friends.”

  “You could’ve told me about that. How you went about it. What you looked for.” She stopped, then she snorted at whatever thought she’d just had. “I could’ve used the help.”

  She was talking about her ex. He was certain. But that didn’t change anything about what he’d had to do to survive. “It was another world in there, Clark. Nothing else existed. I couldn’t let it. I had to shut out everything I’d known to get through. It was hard even to see Tennessee and Indiana when they would come, and my parents the few times they did. I needed to be the brother they knew. But I’d left him at the door when I went inside.”

  Unexpectedly, she reached for his hand, rubbing her thumb over his knuckles and the remnants of the tattoos there. “What was here? What did it say?”

  The tats had been crude, the ink not as deep as it would’ve been if professionally done. He’d had the letters removed with a laser, though had kept the dot beneath each one as a reminder. “It said ‘wait.’”

  “Like waiting for something?”

  He nodded because that was true, too. Waiting to get out. Waiting to see her again. At least until he’d changed his mind and hit the road. “More like not being stupid and rushing into something without thinking about it.”

  “Would waiting have made a difference? With Robby and what happened?”

  A question with no answer, so he shrugged. “I’m a lot more patient now than I was then. I guess it worked.”

  She squeezed his fingers once then let go, pushing off the car with a shudder as if she needed to get away from the time he’d served and all that it meant.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I think I’m still hungry.”

  He couldn’t help himself. “I hear Malina’s makes a mean egg taco.”

  “Gee, thanks. I wouldn’t know.”

  And he’d downed enough for both of them. “You should’ve told me you hadn’t eaten. I just sent Manny into the kitchen for the rest of the kolaches.”

  She looked at him, one brow arched. “There were some left?”

  “I ate mine and Indiana’s. I saved your three for you.”

  “Aw,” she said, punching lightly at his shoulder. “That’s so sweet.”

  “Then all is forgiven?” He hoped.

  But she shook her head. “Not a chance.”

  At the sound of the kitchen door opening, Becca looked up expecting Thea, since she was late. Or even Dakota, since he went through more coffee than anyone she’d ever known.

  What she got instead was the man who’d told her caffeine would help her breathe. The man responsible for her being unable to. The man who’d asked her questions she’d fallen into answering as if she’d opened a vein.

  That wasn’t going to happen today.

  He stopped near the kitchen’s front stainless-steel work counter, and hands at his hips, looked around. Usually by this time bread for the house would be rising there, but Ellie hadn’t made it in yet, so Becca had taken advantage of the quiet kitchen to bake.

  “Dakota said there might be some leftover kolaches back here,” the man finally said.

  “There might be. There might not.” Because two and a half of the three that had been in the sack Dakota had left on said counter were now in her stomach. She finished centering the third cake layer on the other two she’d already iced together before looking up. “Sack’s there at your elbow.”

  He frowned into the bag that held the remaining kolache half. Then he shrugged and reached inside. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “You’re just full of all sorts of wisdom, aren’t you?” she asked, bending to eyeball the cake. It was as level as it was going to get, so she reached for the bowl of icing, scooping out what she’d need to cover the top before moving on to the sides.

  The man with the devil in his eye and the smile that chewed away at her resolve came closer, coffee in one hand, the last remaining bite of the kolache in the other. He ate it while she worked, watching her closely. She didn’t like being watched. Not by anyone.

  But she refused to let his attention get to her. She knew what she was doing. She was as comfortable frosting a cake as Ellie was kneading a loaf of bread, as Frannie was caring for her boys, as Thea was running the show.

  She spun the cake on its stand and started in frosting the sides.

  “That smells really good.”

  “I know,” she said, the cinnamon,
sugar, and vanilla aromas hard to ignore.

  “It looks really good, too,” he said, stepping back to set his empty coffee cup in the sink and toss the ball of the paper sack in the trash.

  “I know.”

  “Is it for a special occasion?”

  “Eating,” she said, getting a perverse pleasure out of the tit for tat, and waiting for him to come right out and ask for a slice.

  But he took a different tack instead. “You train professionally? Through some classes or something? Decorating and baking?”

  She shook her head and spun the cake another turn, her spatula smoothing the icing layer. “I learned from my father. He started working in a bakery as a dishwasher and by the time I was in high school, he was decorating cakes.”

  “From the ground up then. For both of you.”

  “You could say that, I guess.”

  “So what’s the occasion? Somebody’s birthday or something?”

  Besides having a few extra bucks to buy the hummingbird cake’s ingredients? And struck with the urge to splurge after pawning the belt buckle she’d stolen from her cowboy ex?

  She didn’t know why she’d held on to it for so long. Maybe it was just enjoying the knowledge that he’d loved it, he’d bragged about it, he’d shown it off everywhere they’d gone, and now he didn’t have it anymore.

  Neither did she know what had had her digging it from the bottom of her dresser drawer. But something had finally pushed her to ditch it. Something she couldn’t put a finger on, though that something was in no way related to thoughts she’d had for days now about the man standing in front of her.

  She wasn’t that oxygen-deprived. “No occasion. Just in the mood to bake.”

  “You going to cut it soon? I mean, if you’re not taking it to a potluck or saving it for any particular reason and it’s just for eating,” he said, and she swore she heard his stomach grumble.

  She reached for the bag of shredded coconut and sprinkled a handful over the cake’s top. The recipe called for macadamia nuts, but she couldn’t justify the cost when coconut alone would do. “I thought it would be a nice surprise for after dinner.”

  “I think it would make a nice breakfast.”

  “It would, wouldn’t it?” She bit down on a grin. “I’ll definitely have a slice tomorrow.”

  “I wouldn’t mind having a slice today.” Another, louder growl. “If you need a taste tester—”

  “I don’t—”

  “Or you just want to feed a hungry man who’s only had half a stale kolache all day. One who can’t remember the last time he had a piece of cake fresh from the oven.”

  Now he was just playing on her sympathies. Except she’d lost most of those long before she’d pawned the belt buckle. Which didn’t explain why she was looking at the finished cake and trying to decide the best place to start cutting.

  It was something she’d picked up from her father. She couldn’t even count the number of times she’d sat on a stack of phone books in a kitchen chair while knife in hand, he’d looked a cake up one side and down the other before slicing into it.

  She’d held her breath, her gaze moving from her father’s studied expression to the cake’s perfect surface—sometimes smooth, sometimes mounded with whipped-cream dollops, sometimes decorated with a lattice of icing ribbons—until he’d made his decision. Then he’d taken the twelve-inch serrated blade he used only on cakes, and sliced.

  She’d bought herself an identical knife to use for the same purpose. Then Dez had used it on the last cake she’d baked him to hack it into pieces, as much ending up on the ceiling as the floor and the clothes she’d been wearing. He’d made her climb onto the counter to clean the mess. And he’d snapped his whip behind her, the threat a real one.

  No matter how she hurried, she hadn’t been fast enough.

  “You okay? I mean, if you don’t want to cut the cake, that’s fine,” her visitor said. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “I’m not crying.” Dammit. She swiped the back of her wrist over her eyes. “Just having a hard time with the things some people can do.”

  “Like balance peanuts on their nose?”

  The man really was a piece of work. “Like how they can hurt those they say they love.”

  “That’s a song, you know. You only hurt who you love. Or something like that.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not the way love’s supposed to work. But whatever.” She found her knife in the drawer where she’d left it and slid it into the cake. Before she made the second cut, she looked up. “How big of a piece do you want?”

  His eyes went wide, his smile, too, all sorts of dimples and laugh lines lighting up his face. She expected him to ask for half of it, but he said, “Just a normal size piece is fine. Thanks. I really am starving.”

  “Tell that to the bottom button of your shirt there,” she said, counting off eight pieces before cutting his wedge. “Is that enough?”

  But he was busy looking down at the fit of his shirt. “I’m going to have to blame this on the fast food.”

  “Just don’t blame it on me,” she said, finding one of the saucers they used for breakfast and a fork. “There’s bananas and pineapple in the cake so you can call it a serving of fruit. There’s pecans, too, so whatever nuts are. Protein I guess. But, yeah. It’s still cake.”

  He glanced at the plate he held in one hand, then down to where he’d used the other to flatten the fabric to his stomach. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

  “Fine,” she said, “I’ll eat it,” and reached to take it back. It wasn’t like he had more than a five-pound spare tire. More like the shirt had seen better days. “No one’s forcing you to do anything you don’t want to.”

  But he kept the cake, and kept his gaze on hers as he took up the fork and dug in. He didn’t say anything, but for some reason she heard him asking about what she’d been forced to do. Even unspoken, the question fell softly between them, and it was all she could do not to tell him about Dez.

  Luckily, he finished the bite and spoke before taking another, saving her from being foolish when she swore she was done with that. He gestured toward the cake with the fork. “This is probably the best not-chocolate cake I’ve ever eaten. No, not probably. It is.”

  “This coming from the man who ate half a stale kolache.”

  “I was hungry.”

  “That, or you have no taste.”

  “I don’t have to. It’s all in this cake. You going to sell this here, too? Because I was already planning to be a regular for coffee.”

  “You can get coffee on the highway when you stop for your greasy egg muffin.”

  “But the coffee here comes with more personality.”

  “And you can get cake two doors down,” she said, ignoring the flutter in her belly at the idea of seeing him even after the shop was opened and Dakota gone.

  “Not this cake,” he said, his head shaking as he ate more. “Not your cake.”

  He might be able to. If the Butters Bakery deal happened. But she couldn’t say anything about that, so she cut herself a slice and joined him.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Tennessee was at the Keller Construction barn when Dakota arrived from Bread and Bean. Thea had split midafternoon, not long after they’d talked out front. Pretty much like she’d split from the cottage this morning, though this time she hadn’t told him. He’d found out when he’d stepped into the kitchen to ask her if she’d mind him making another pot of coffee.

  Ellie had been there. And Becca. Working together quietly in the corner on labels for some bins. Neither knew where she’d gone. Neither knew when she’d be back. Judging by their moods, which he had to say were pretty upbeat these days, it seemed Thea hadn’t said anything to them about breakfast at the cottage, or the mess he’d made of things with her later.

  He supposed he should be
thankful for that. It was bad enough having Thea know who he was. Working around the other two was already like navigating a minefield. He couldn’t imagine how bad it would get if they learned what a shit he was to his siblings. It was hard enough getting through the day without the truth of his actions seizing up in his chest like gears gone bad.

  He hooked his tool belt on the pegboard just inside the door as a reminder to fix the buckle before going to work tomorrow. “I had breakfast with Indiana this morning,” he said to his brother. Seemed best to get it out in the open.

  Tennessee tapped his pencil against the ledger on his drafting table. “The way I heard, there wasn’t much breakfast involved.”

  Dakota shrugged. “I had plenty. In the truck on the way in. Most of it cold.”

  That had the other man laughing. “If I weren’t your brother, I’d say it served you right.”

  “It did serve me right,” Dakota admitted, shoving a drafting stool between his legs and straddling it. “You being my brother shouldn’t keep you from telling the truth.”

  Tennessee was silent for a long moment, his pencil still, his jaw working. “The truth is, it’s my fault for calling Indiana. I should’ve let you be the one to tell her. It wasn’t my place.”

  An apology. Wow. “It doesn’t matter who told her. She needed to know. Now she does.”

  “And Thea Clark was there.”

  Dakota nodded. “She hadn’t seen Indiana yet. I figured it would be a good time to get them together.”

  “And keep you from having to talk to Indiana,” Tennessee said because he was a Keller, too.

  Another nod, and Dakota crossed his arms. “We talked. Not sure we said anything. But we talked.”

  “Listen, Dakota.” Tennessee set down his pencil and spun his stool to the side. “I need to explain about the other morning.”

  “No. You don’t.” It was the same response he’d given his brother each time Tennessee had broached the subject. “You own the business. You need to look after the business.”

  “You’re my brother. I need to look—”