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

by Alison Kent

  “No. You don’t.” He felt like a broken record. And his siblings both seemed unable to accept that he was no longer eighteen. “I can look after myself. I’ve been doing it for a lot of years. The last truly bad decision I made was the night I left the house with that bat.”

  Tennessee crossed his arms, his body language a mirror of Dakota’s, a level playing field as they hashed out what had been over and done with long ago. “So you do think it was a bad decision.”

  Dakota tried not to bristle. “Obviously you do.”

  “I meant that as a question,” Tennessee clarified. “I know you didn’t at the time. Neither one of us did. But, yeah. I’ve wondered if you’d changed your mind about going after Robby being the right thing to do.”

  “Have you?”

  Tennessee sighed heavily, moving his hands to his thighs. “Maybe. I don’t know. I should’ve gone with you. I do know that much.”

  A gust of wind blew through the barn’s open doors. Dakota cleared his hair from his face. “And have Indiana feel responsible for both of us paying for that?”

  “Who knows?” Tennessee said with a shrug. “Things might’ve turned out differently if I’d been there.”

  Right. “Because I’m a hothead and you’re the one who thinks clearly?”

  “Not anymore, I hate to say.” He laughed, dragging both hands down his face. “Getting a full night’s sleep would help, but I can’t imagine that will ever happen again.”

  “Kids,” Dakota said, then rubbed it in. “Feedings and diapers then playground bullies then driving and dating and sex—”

  “Whoa, now.” Tennessee raised both hands. “I think you skipped a few steps there. A few big ones.”

  He could do this with his brother all day. “Like the years when Georgia May believes the world revolves around her dear old dad? The same years where she keeps him wrapped around her little finger?”

  Tennessee sighed. “No one told me it would be like this. All day long . . . Every decision I make . . .” He stopped, scratching at his jaw. “It’s like I can’t do anything without considering the impact on her.”

  Dakota enjoyed seeing this side of his brother, uncertain and uneven. It made him more human somehow. Made him more . . . relatable. “Pretty sure that’s called being a parent.”

  “Are you really?” Tennessee’s eyes darkened. “Because I can’t remember our parents ever taking us into consideration with any decision they made.”

  “Yeah, well.” Dakota shrugged. “There are parents, and then there are parents.”

  “And then there’s whatever ours were.”

  “Are, brother. They’re still alive. At least as far as we know.”

  Tennessee glanced over, his mouth twisted. “You know when I quit caring?”

  “Not a clue.” Though it was interesting to hear that he had.

  “You remember that calendar that hung next to the phone in the kitchen?”

  Dakota pictured it clearly. The precisely penciled numbers and letters. “The one with all our schedules? Baseball and volleyball and SAT dates?”

  “That’s the one. Even after you were gone, Indiana kept it up, and on the weekends when we didn’t have a conflict, she put down your name. She knew if she didn’t, they’d never remember to leave time for our trips to Huntsville.”

  Dakota slapped his palms against his thighs and hopped down from the stool. “That worked out really well, didn’t it?”

  “Most of the times when Indiana and I came alone? After I had my license? They didn’t even know. We would sneak out before they got up. Or we’d leave after they’d gone to save whatever part of the planet was in danger that day.” Tennessee stopped, snorted.

  “What?”

  “The only time they did notice, the only time we got in trouble . . .” He waved one hand absently as he pushed off his stool. “They had a big conference of some sort to get to. I had no idea Dad’s car was out of commission. Alternator or something. We always took Mom’s. No different that day.”

  “Bet that went over like a lead balloon,” Dakota said, picturing his siblings making that long drive, both teenagers, both still in high school, at least during his first two years locked up. He tried to swallow, but his throat was swollen, and he had trouble clearing it.

  “They’d called a cab. So they hadn’t missed anything. But, yeah. We got a lecture about responsibility within a family, respect for all family members.” Tennessee rolled his head on his shoulders as if the weight of the memory had him stiff. “That was about the time I got up and walked out. I was afraid of what I’d say if I stayed. But Indiana didn’t hold back.”

  Interesting. “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. I sat at the top of the stairs and listened to her rant about how they had time for every cause that came their way except the three they owed the most. The three they’d created. She asked them over and over why they wouldn’t drive us to see you. Why they wouldn’t come see you more often than they did. It was like she’d been saving up for a year and couldn’t deal anymore. She laid into them, just flayed them. And they took it. They didn’t say a word. Even when she finally wore herself out . . . nothing. She was all out of tears, and they told her to go to bed. She walked right past me and I got up to go after her but she just slammed her door. She was crying, so I knocked. She told me to leave. Later I heard her on the phone with Thea—”

  “Thea? I didn’t think they’d stayed in touch.”

  “I don’t know how long they did, but I do know they talked a lot the first year you were gone.”

  Dakota blew out a big puff of breath. “I spent the night before going to Huntsville with Thea. At her place. Her mother wasn’t home. Her mother was never home. She told me once she liked being at our house when we were all there because it felt normal. Like what a family should be.”

  “If she only knew the truth, eh?”

  “She knew. Hell, everyone knew. She never said anything, but we wouldn’t have gotten away with half of what we did if our folks had been around.”

  “And when they were . . .” Brow arched, Tennessee let the sentence trail.

  Dakota shoved his hands to his hips. “What a joke, huh? They had no idea who half the kids coming into our house even were, but boy did they ever know how to put on a show.”

  “Especially for Robby Hunt.”

  That had him wondering . . . “You think that’s why they’ve been scarce all these years?”

  “What? Like they actually woke up and realized their part in Robby being able to get close to Indiana? C’mon. That would mean they’d paid attention. They didn’t then. They don’t now. Georgia May’s a year old. Mitch and Dolly are the only grandparents she knows. And Dolly’s only related because of marrying Mitch.”

  “Not a bad set to have.”

  “The best. She’s got an honorary aunt and uncle in Luna and Angelo. And then she’s got her Uncle Oliver and her blood kin. Indiana and you. And that’s why you can’t just up and leave.”

  “Tennessee—”

  “No. Let me finish. It’s not just about my girl. It’s about our sister. And it’s about me. I want you here. I need you here. We spent the first half of our lives in side-by-side bedrooms, fighting and pulling pranks and lying to our parents to cover for one another. We spent the second half apart. The three years you were on the inside, I saw you a few dozen times, and always with a partition between us. Then you were gone. For all those years. I didn’t talk to you. I had no idea if you were alive or dead. And it took our hardheaded sister—”

  A shudder had Tennessee rolling his shoulders and walking away, rubbing at the back of his neck as he did. Dakota crossed his arms and looked down at his wide spread feet. Then he closed his eyes because it was easier to pretend he was anywhere else but here. That he wasn’t putting his brother through this. That he hadn’t ruined his siblings’ lives by stayi
ng away. Hell, he’d ruined his own life just as completely.

  That’s what he was having the most trouble coming to grips with. Not what he’d done to Robby Hunt, but what he’d done to Tennessee, to Indiana, to himself. And there was no going back.

  It was done. It couldn’t be fixed. Meaning he had no reason to stay. He stayed, they’d all be pretending that life was beautiful all the time. It could be, he supposed, for some people. Other people. He couldn’t risk things getting worse because he didn’t listen to his gut that was screaming for the open road, the next job, enough cash in his pocket for one more day, then one more night. It was an easy life. A good life.

  Except it wasn’t anything more than existing. It wasn’t living at all.

  “I should’ve looked for you sooner.” Tennessee had turned and come back. His hair was disheveled, having been raked with his hands repeatedly, and his eyes were bloodshot and bleary, but dry. “I shouldn’t have waited for Indiana to do it. I want to kick my own ass into next week for being too . . . I don’t know . . . whatever, to do it.”

  Dakota found enough of his voice to ask gruffly, “Why didn’t you?”

  Tennessee stopped, his hands laced on top of his head keeping him in place, as if letting go would have him spiraling into the ground, round and round until he was planted, unmoving. “Because I was afraid of the truth. Afraid I would search and never find you. Afraid I’d find you dead. Afraid you’d be alive and kicking and want nothing to do with me.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Why wouldn’t I think that? Any of it. You weren’t in touch. You weren’t in touch. You couldn’t have called? Or dropped a postcard in the mail once a year at Christmas? You couldn’t have let us know you were alive? You let us think the worst. You let us believe you’d written us off. That you didn’t care. That we didn’t matter. Indiana—”

  Tennessee cut himself off, his voice raw and strained and finally choked by emotions that had him turning away again, had him walking the length of the barn and standing in the far entrance, as far away as he could get without leaving the premises.

  It was a distance all too familiar, one that continued to expand the closer they got, or at least the closer they tried. Dakota wasn’t sure what to do, what to say. His brother was right. He hadn’t been in touch. He’d left his siblings hanging, while at the same time he’d kept tabs on their lives. Not exactly a fair exchange of information, and they didn’t even know.

  So, yeah. Tennessee had a point. He and Indiana had deserved more consideration. And Dakota had one more thing to atone for. He was going to need to live a hell of a long life to cover even half the list, he mused, turning at the sound of an approaching car and thankful for the interruption.

  Checking the directions on her Mini Cooper’s dashboard GPS, Lena made the turn onto Grath Avenue and headed for the barn at the end of the road. Since it was the only building around, she assumed it housed Keller Construction. The company website hadn’t said anything about the hours they were open. She didn’t even know if they had a regular office; Grath Avenue was pretty much out in the sticks.

  Probably stupid to come all this way when she could’ve talked to the dude working at Bread and Bean. She just didn’t want anyone there to hear what she had to say. Since Bliss hadn’t been busy this afternoon, Callum hadn’t minded her cutting out an hour early. Especially since she’d finished her end-of-the-day cleanup before the day had come to an end. He’d do the mopping once the doors were locked. He always did.

  She was probably making a fool of herself, but there was something about seeing how Ellie and the others lived in that house on Dragon Fire Hill that Lena couldn’t get over. It was a big house. There was plenty of room. The women weren’t tripping over each other to get around. But they were tripping over the flooring, and the flashing, and dodging potholes on the way to pee. And they were locking themselves inside that disaster because it was where they were safe.

  Ellie covered her scars with her sleeves and her hair. Becca covered hers with bravado. Frannie hadn’t yet found anything to hide behind but her boys, and that wasn’t going to work. She needed to find her own strength or she’d be putting them in danger. Lena could tell her. Lena knew.

  Thea was a different story. And harder to figure out. She was the pro at camouflaging her emotions. Maybe she’d been out of her personal hell longer than the others. One dinner and a couple of hellos outside their respective shops wasn’t enough time for Lena to get a read, though it was obvious there was something between her and Dakota Keller.

  It wasn’t right that they were living in such crap conditions when Lena could so easily do something about it. So they’d hit bad patches in their lives. Lena and her mother could compare stories until the cows came home. Honestly, it was a wonder the two of them were still alive. She thanked her lucky stars every day that her father wasn’t. Cruel? Not a bit. Heartless? Not in her world. Did she miss him? That question was tougher, because it had more than one answer.

  Yes, she missed the man who’d sat with her on her bedroom floor and taught her how to play chess, who’d decided she was plenty old enough to choose her own bedtime stories, and had read her Stephen King’s The Stand at a time when she’d been too young to understand much of the plot. But that was okay. He’d read to her. She’d heard the words in his voice. She’d cuddled close to his side. She’d loved him.

  No, she did not miss the man he’d become after whatever it was had ruined his mind: drugs, depression, drink. A combination of all three. The genetic predisposition to madness. Because that’s the only word her young self had been able to attach to his actions. The violence that came out of nowhere. The zombielike numbness that followed. The flashes of clarity in his eyes that were lost to his inner anarchy.

  So . . . yeah. She knew about lives that started out most excellent and crashed in a way that meant there was no going back. She didn’t want to go back, but at least she’d been left a really hefty insurance payment when he finally croaked. Like big time major hefty. Enough that she could go through the rest of her life without working, if that’s what she wanted to do. She didn’t. She wanted to be normal—colored hair or no—not the poor little rich girl with the crazy old man.

  She parked her car, snagged her key fob from the ignition, her phone from the passenger seat, and got out. The barn door was open; now that she was closer, she could see it wasn’t the home for cows she’d feared. Dakota was standing inside talking to the dude she assumed was his brother. They looked like family, both tall, both built, both pretty hot in that scruffy, golden-eyed and caramel-brown hair sort of way. She wouldn’t kick either one of them out of bed if she liked men. Oh, wait. The brother was wearing a wedding ring.

  She looked from one man to the other, thinking she must’ve walked in on something heavy because there was some major tension going on between them. Dakota was the first one to speak.

  “Lena, right?” he asked, pointing at her.

  Since they’d exchanged names earlier in the day, big points to him for remembering. “Yep. Lena Mining,” she said, introducing herself to the man she didn’t know.

  “Tennessee Keller,” he said, shaking her hand.

  “I figured.” When his brows drew together in a deep frown, she added, “It’s Keller Construction. And I know Dakota. You were the only one left.

  “Okay,” he said, as if he couldn’t wait to split. “I’ll leave you two to whatever brings you here.”

  “What brings me here is a job,” she said, before he’d gone more than a step.

  “A job?” Dakota was the one to ask the question as his brother took that same step back.

  “What kind of a job?” Tennessee asked.

  “Construction.” Duh. “But it’s a little tricky.”

  Tennessee didn’t seem concerned. “I imagine we’ve run across whatever you can throw at us.”

  “It’s a house.
It needs a lot of work. But it’s not mine.” Here came the tricky part. “I want to pay for the renovations, but I don’t want the owner to know where the money came from.”

  “I don’t understand,” Tennessee said.

  Lena shrugged. “You will when you see the house.”

  “No, I mean . . .” He waved a hand as if stirring up words. “I don’t get the anonymous thing.”

  Oh. That. “That’s my business.”

  “So where is it?” Dakota asked.

  “Here,” she said. “In Hope Springs. It’s the house on Dragon Fire Hill.”

  “That’s Thea Clark’s place,” Dakota said, frowning and suddenly hooked.

  Finally, Lena mused, and nodded. “But she’s not the only one who lives there.”

  “Right. I’ve met a couple of the others.” Dakota shoved his hands in his pockets and looked from her to his brother and back. “I get the feeling it’s some sort of shelter.”

  Good to know she wasn’t the only one whose thoughts had headed in that direction. “I doubt she’ll tell you if it is.”

  “Makes sense she’d be keeping it off the grid.”

  “Hold up a sec,” Tennessee said, raising one hand, his other at his hip. “You two have me at a disadvantage. I know we’re working Thea’s coffee shop—”

  Lena corrected him. “Espresso bar—”

  He waved off the details. “Whatever. What’s this about a shelter?”

  “I don’t know that it is a shelter,” she said. “There are three women living there with Thea. The same three women working with her at Bread and Bean. Or two of them anyway. I’m not sure about the third. She’s got two little boys.”

  “They’re not Thea’s family?” Tennessee asked, looking from Lena to Dakota and back.

  She’d about had it with the questions. “I’m not even sure they’ve known each other all that long, but that’s not the point. The point is the house needs work.”

  “How much work?” Dakota asked, frowning in that way people did when concentrating. “Is it a complete pit?”