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

by Alison Kent

  “Still, you know how it’s done.” Ellie tossed the long braid of her hair over her shoulder before bending to tap a wooden spoon on the top of a loaf ready to come out of the oven. “You could probably wing it if you had to.”

  Leaning against the counter in front of the sink, Lena laughed. “Not a chance. What Callum does is art. Just like what you do is art. And I’m dying for a slice of that art, all buttery and warm.”

  Ellie closed the oven door and gestured toward the table with the spoon she still held. “The honey wheat is cool enough to slice. Is that okay?”

  “I’ll be happy with anything. Trust me. And it’s even better knowing you made it.”

  Avoiding Lena’s gaze, Ellie set down the spoon and dug for a serrated bread knife in a drawer. Her smile was weak and nervous. “You don’t have to say that.”

  “I know I don’t have to,” Lena said, hating how hard it was for Ellie to accept a compliment, and wondering again how such an accomplished woman had been stripped of her confidence. It was bullshit, whatever had been done to her. “I want to because I mean it.”

  “You’re just being sweet—”

  “No, Ellie,” Lena said, frustrated, and reaching for the other woman’s wrist. “I’m serious. I think it’s incredible—”

  And then she stopped because Ellie had dropped the knife and was doing her best to pull down her sleeve and cover her forearm where Lena still held her. Lena looked down, her gaze drawn to Ellie’s burn scars she’d noticed the day they’d met.

  She took Ellie’s other hand in hers to stop her. “I’m sorry that happened to you. I’m sorry you were hurt.”

  “I didn’t want you to see.” The words came out on a whisper, Ellie’s eyes red and watery and sad. “It’s a souvenir of a relationship I’m never going to get rid of. The souvenir, I mean, though sometimes I wonder if the relationship won’t haunt me for the rest of my life.”

  “It won’t if you don’t let it,” Lena said, then added because she needed to be one hundred percent certain: “Shitty boyfriends suck.”

  Ellie took a long moment to respond, holding Lena’s gaze, her own searching and nervous as she said, “So do shitty girlfriends.”

  And now she was. Certain. Lena swallowed. “Yeah. A lot of people don’t get that.”

  “Right?” Ellie said, shaking now, her breathing ragged. “Like one woman can’t beat the crap out of another. One she swears she loves while she’s still holding the flashlight responsible for the blood dripping from the other’s forehead.”

  “Ellie. Crap. Let me see,” Lena said, reaching up to brush aside Ellie’s bangs. “Oh, man. Oh, baby.” Swallowing so much hurt she thought she would choke from it, Lena outlined the V-shaped gouge of a scar with her finger, a touch so light she could barely feel Ellie’s skin.

  Ellie shivered, and the tears in her eyes fell silently, streaking her cheeks. “I’m sorry you didn’t know me before all of this. I was so much more fun then.”

  Lena thought she might explode with the rage burning through her like a lit rocket. “What’re you talking about? There’s nothing wrong with this you. Nothing at all.”

  “Besides the fact that I can’t walk without bumping into people because I’m looking over my shoulder? Or that I can’t live on my own because I can’t afford windows with bulletproof glass? I can’t get a job that pays enough for cheese to go with my bread because I need the protection of Thea’s network in case I need to run?”

  “Why would you need to run?” Lena asked, frowning as she absorbed all that Ellie had just told her, truths Lena couldn’t imagine anyone outside of this house knowing.

  Ellie shook her head, her braid falling forward. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yeah. I do.” That was one thing she needed Ellie to understand. “But you don’t have to tell me. I can respect needing to keep some things to yourself.”

  “Do you have them? Things you don’t want anyone else finding out?”

  Lena looked down at her hands still holding Ellie’s, at the scar at the base of her thumb. Most of her scars ran deeper, but this one was easier to talk about. “My mother did this to me,” she said, pulling one hand free to point. “It’s my reminder of how someone you’ve known all your life can turn out to be someone you didn’t know at all.”

  “I guess I misunderstood,” Ellie said, frowning. “I thought you and your mother were close.”

  “We are close.”

  “But if she did this—”

  “It was an accident. She was trying to save me from my father. Save us both, really.”

  “Your father was abusive?”

  Abusive wasn’t a strong enough word. “My father was a monster. My mother didn’t know it when she married him. She didn’t know it when they had me. I didn’t know it the years she worked and he stayed home and cooked me breakfast and got me to school. Not for the first few anyway.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t a monster then. Did something happen?”

  Lena shrugged, remembering things she didn’t want to remember. “He lost his job. His industry was in the toilet and he couldn’t get another one. He started drinking with dinner. Then drinking with lunch. Then drinking his first shot of the day with his morning coffee.”

  “Oh, Lena,” Ellie said, her voice breaking.

  “It’s okay, El. I survived. My mother survived. He left us in a pretty comfortable way, the insurance and all, which a part of me thinks he would’ve hated.”

  “Why would he have hated it? He was the one who took out the policy right?”

  Nodding, Lena said, “He liked to threaten my mother with it. He would tell her if she didn’t do this or that when he ordered her to, he would cancel it. So when he told her to jump she did. If it wasn’t high enough she did it again. I guess he finally forgot about it. Or was never sober long enough to follow through.”

  “What a horrible way for you to grow up.”

  “It was a lot worse on my mom than it was on me, but yeah. I hated that she had to put up with that bullshit.

  “I can imagine. I was really lucky. I had an all-American childhood. It was later when things went to crap.”

  “You can say shit you know. It’s okay with me.”

  Ellie laughed at that. Then she grew somber, rubbing at the mark on Lena’s thumb. “Strange that of all things we should have scars in common.”

  “I’m sure we have more than that,” Lena said, hope like bread dough rising. “It will just take time to find out.”

  We are all our past.

  The thought had stuck with Thea since leaving Two Owls Café and had been the reason she’d gone to Dakota’s last evening instead of home to the house on Dragon Fire Hill. And what a big mistake that had been, though Dakota had started it, and Dakota had been the one behind a few beers, not her.

  That didn’t absolve her of participating, or wanting to erase everything Todd from her life and everything prison from Dakota’s, or wishing they could start over as two brand new people sans baggage.

  We are all our past.

  She hated to say it but she was almost glad Dakota had decided to leave. Their not living in the same small town would make her life so much easier. She wouldn’t find herself drawn into his drama. She had enough of her own to last a lifetime; how could she take on his, too?

  Yet how could she not? How could she separate wanting him as the man he was from having wanted him, having had him, when what they’d known about life had been contained in their own small spheres?

  We are all our past.

  Life was so unfair, so unfair, taking him away from her when she’d needed him the most, bringing him back when she couldn’t have him. She could not have him. She was up to her eyeballs with paying back what she owed, and doing what she could to pay forward. He would consume her, and she was helpless.

  Funny how she’d gone all th
ese years unaware of how much she’d missed him until he’d been a daily fixture in her life once again. And speaking of the very devil walking in when she least expected him.

  “I didn’t think I’d find you here on a Saturday.”

  “I hadn’t planned to be, but the house isn’t conducive to anything requiring concentration these days.” She didn’t ask him what he was doing here. She didn’t want to hear him say he’d come looking for her just as much as she didn’t want to hear him say he hadn’t. Right. That kiss hadn’t screwed her up or anything.

  He came closer and glanced down at her paperwork. “What’re you up to?”

  “Looking at some numbers I got from Peggy Butters and her attorney. Trying to decide if I, if the co-op, can afford to buy her bakery.”

  “Huh. I didn’t know she was selling,” he said, and moved to the coffee pot. “Is that what all the cake eating and watching the traffic flow was about?”

  The coffee was fresh. She hadn’t even had her first cup. “I don’t think it’s common knowledge. And, yes. It was.”

  He looked over while his mug filled. “So the co-op has enough money to do that?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, more irritated than she’d realized and for no reason that made sense, “but no. I would provide the initial investment.”

  “Just like you did here?”

  She shook her head, ignoring the fit of his T-shirt and the hair at his nape caught in the neckband. She squeezed her pencil tighter. “Bread and Bean is mine. Ellie and Becca and Frannie are my employees.”

  “The bakery would be different?”

  She nodded. “We would set up a partnership. But there’s a lot more involved than money.”

  “Like whether or not they’re going to stick around,” he said, lifting his cup, blowing across the surface, his mouth drawing her gaze and taking her back to their kiss.

  Why was he here? Why? “I wouldn’t put it that way, but yeah. I mean, I’m staying. I bought the house. I’m opening the business. But the others . . .”

  He took a sip of the coffee, his gaze still holding hers. “They’re only living with you while they get back on their feet.”

  Now he was just being nosy. “Something like that.”

  “And they may not want to call Hope Springs home once they do.”

  She tossed her pen to the table and sat back in her chair. She was done with him prying into this part of her life. “I guess that would depend on how happy they are living here.”

  Dakota grinned, his gaze on his coffee now, dimples pulling deep into the scruff covering his cheeks. “Point to Clark,” he said, then changed the subject. “You told me about the beans. But why coffee? And bread?”

  Fine. Memory Lane was better than an ongoing Q&A. She got up and found her mug, pumping it full from the carafe and breathing in the heady steam. “I went to Spain one summer with my ex. While he was off doing his extreme-sports things, I explored the cities we were in. One of my favorite spots was a tiny coffee shop. It was open-air, with tables outside under an awning. The owners also sold bread and pastries. We stayed there nearly a month.

  “I didn’t know there were that many extreme things to do in Spain, but between the surfing, the rafting, the hiking, my ex stayed busy, and I studied that little shop like I’d be given a test and my life depended on it. I paid attention to what the regulars ordered, what the tourists ordered. Which breads sold the best. Which were offered on which days. Which had customers lining up before the shop opened.” She looked down into her cup, smiled at the memory. “You can’t begin to imagine the smells. I could’ve lived there. I got to know the owners well enough to get a look at the kitchen. I don’t think I’ve ever been as happy anywhere as I was that month. It felt like home.”

  She stopped then, her hands shaking, the surface of her coffee rippling as she raised the drink to her mouth. She sipped, wishing for the first time in years that she hadn’t given up alcohol. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt such a strong urge for a crutch. And she couldn’t figure out why.

  The trip to Spain had been the best time she’d had during her years with Todd. She’d been able to deal with the nights in his bed, the mornings after, the long dresses to hide the bruises that shorts would’ve revealed on her thighs. And maybe that was it. Everything she had now, everything she was, had been born during that month.

  It was when she’d decided to leave him the next time he left her alone.

  “You never have said if you’re happy living here.”

  Dakota’s comment brought her back, and she returned to her chair, glad to be faced with the simplicity of construction and business woes. “I’m too busy to be anything but tired. But I’m not unhappy.”

  “Why Hope Springs? I mean, I know things weren’t great for you in Round Rock, but why not go back there where things were familiar?”

  She drank half of her coffee while deciding what to tell him. She ended up telling him the truth. “I never left Round Rock.”

  That had him stopping with his cup halfway to his mouth. “I thought you said you’d been all over.”

  “Been. Not lived. Todd’s company was headquartered in Austin. He commuted. I stayed home.” Not that their condo had ever been a home as much as it had been a cell. A cushy cell. With all the amenities. But still a cell.

  “How did you meet him?”

  Good grief. “Why are you asking me about my past again?”

  “Because I want to know.”

  She closed her eyes, stretched her arms overhead then side to side. “I was working as a waitress at a club in Austin. He was a regular. That’s all. And don’t look at me like that’s not all because you’re not getting anything else.”

  He moved to lean against the barista station. “But why come to Hope Springs?”

  “Do we have to do this now?” She was exhausted, and she didn’t want to get into something deep, and she certainly didn’t want to bring up the kiss, but it was right there in the front of her mind and . . . and . . . and . . .

  She got up from her paperwork and headed for the espresso machine. She needed more caffeine like she needed another hole in her head, but it was either fool with the coffee and the filter basket and the dials or thread her fingers into Dakota’s hair and pull him close.

  “Do what?”

  “You nearly walked out on me the first day you were here because I brought up the subject of prison. My past with my ex feels like that to me. I did things I’m not proud of when I left that relationship. Things that might not exactly be legal. But I didn’t stop to ask. I needed to get out.”

  “Thea—”

  “Your kissing me doesn’t change anything.”

  “My kissing you?” His eyes widened, then almost immediately narrowed. “What about your kissing me?”

  She didn’t want to talk about that. She didn’t want to think about that. It had been a moment of weakness she couldn’t admit to him. It was bad enough she had to admit it to herself. She had to be resolute. There was no room in her life for anything short of absolute strength. She would not kiss him again.

  “We can’t do this, Dakota,” she said, spinning on him. “We can’t be anything anymore besides friends. I came here to start over, not to go back.”

  “You think I’m asking you to go back? What in the hell makes you think I would ever want to go back?”

  The truth was going to hurt. But that’s what truth did. “Maybe because nothing I’ve seen has me believing you’ve done anything about going forward. And I can’t be with you when we’re moving in two different directions.”

  Walking into the Back Alley Pub beside Manny Balleza felt as wrong to Becca as it did right. No. It felt more wrong. Completely wrong. In fact, nothing about it felt right at all. Nothing. Zero. Zip.

  For one thing, she hated going out in public. S
he hated being in public. She shouldn’t. There was very little chance of Dez finding her. There was very little chance he was still looking. Knowing him as well as she unfortunately did, there wasn’t a doubt in her mind he’d found someone new to receive his particular brand of love after doing his time for loving her so thoroughly.

  But Dez had a lot of friends, and those friends weren’t particularly happy about their good buddy getting jail time for the stripes he’d put on her back. It had been two years ago, sure. Everyone should’ve moved on by now. But Becca had received enough threats after Dez’s sentencing to put the moving on in her court.

  The domestic abuse counselor she’d been assigned while hospitalized had facilitated her transfer to the women’s shelter when released. That was where she’d met Thea and Ellie. And when Thea had struck out on her own, Becca had come soon after. Ellie had followed a few weeks later, once the windows and doors had been installed in the house on Dragon Fire Hill. Unlike Becca’s ex, Ellie’s had never been prosecuted for the abuse the bitch had inflicted. Becca couldn’t imagine Ellie and Lena going out to dinner at the Back Alley Pub, or anywhere.

  Then again, she’d never imagined herself doing so, yet here she was, rights and wrongs and Manny Balleza’s hand hovering in the small of her back as they followed the hostess to their booth.

  “Will this table be okay?” the girl asked, her skin the same color as Becca’s, her hair worn natural, too, but cropped close.

  “It’s fine,” Becca said without checking with her date. She should have, she supposed, but she was more interested in sliding into the high-backed booth than she was his opinion. Which was why she didn’t make for a very good . . . date. She’d almost said girlfriend, but stopped herself in time.

  “Your server tonight will be Carey,” the hostess said, her smile plastic, her gaze moving from Becca to Manny and back. She arched a brow, still fake smiling. “He’ll be right with you.”

  “Thanks,” Becca said, again more concerned with sitting than being served, though a part of her wanted to get in the hostess’s face and ask her if she had something she wanted to spit out. Manny hadn’t said a word since they’d walked inside, letting Becca run the show. But now she turned to him and asked, “Which side do you want?”