The Comfort of Favorite Things (A Hope Springs Novel) (24 page)

“You didn’t want to tell them that? To see them first?”

“Of course I wanted to see them,” he said, rolling onto his side to face her. “But I knew if I did I’d be going home with them and I couldn’t do that. It was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, walking to that cab and getting in, knowing they were there waiting.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching up to brush his hair from his face, the palm of her hand skating over the scruff on his cheeks. She shivered and did it again. “For all of it. For everything.”

He took hold of her wrist, turned his head and pressed his lips to her skin. “Your turn. Tell me about the women’s shelter you’re running. Bread and Bean. The house on the hill. The co-op. The ballistic-resistant windows. Becca and Ellie and Frannie and the boys.”

She closed her eyes. She’d been so afraid of screwing up. And obviously somewhere she had. She didn’t mind him knowing, but the house being a shelter and its location common knowledge . . . Surely it wasn’t. She hadn’t said a word to anyone. The others wouldn’t have done so. Speculation she understood, and with the construction going on, the men in and out having to work around those windows and the nearly impenetrable doors . . .

Yeah. She could see where the guesswork was coming from. “How long have you known?”

“Officially? About three seconds. Unofficially? I’ve suspected for a while,” he said, frowning when she shook her head, as if her incredulity unsettled him. “But not everyone you run into is going to know you as well as I do.”

That didn’t exactly make her feel better. “No one else knows?”

“Manny’s got a pretty suspicious head on his shoulders. It’s what makes him a good parole officer. And Tennessee and I talked about the possibility when the guardian angel offer came in.”

“Which means Kaylie knows, too,” Thea said with a groan. “And that probably means Indiana. And Oliver. And then there’s Luna. Angelo did my shutters, so if they start comparing notes . . . I might as well put out a sign.”

“I don’t know that Tennessee’s said anything to Kaylie.”

“They’re married,” she said, then she thought back to her conversation with Kaylie at the park.

“And married couples don’t keep secrets?” he asked.

Some did, she supposed. “What do you want to know?’

“How did you meet Becca York?” he asked, hooking his thigh over hers and pulling her close.

She tucked her hands between their chests and cuddled up against him. “It’s hard to explain that without telling you how the whole thing came together. And I really can’t talk about that without breaking a lot of rules.”

“Sworn to secrecy?”

“Yeah,” she said, and nodded.

“Then tell me what you can. Tell me about you.”

“It may be more than you want to hear.”

“You think I can’t take it?” he asked, his brow arched as he reached to sweep her hair over her shoulder.

“It’s not great.”

He huffed at that. “I spent three years in prison, Clark. I nearly beat a kid to death. I’m pretty familiar with not great.”

“Some of this you already know, but okay,” she said, rolling onto her back. “Todd traveled a lot. Sometimes business. Sometimes pleasure. Toward the end, he’d made it where it was next to impossible for me to leave the condo. The doorman would tell him if I’d gone out. The garage attendant kept tabs on the car I used. I finally learned to sneak out through the maintenance elevator, taking it to the basement then climbing the stairs to street level. Disguised, of course. I used the Internet at the library to research shelters.

“I started with ones for homeless women. I explained my situation and that I needed out and eventually was put in touch with a group who could help. I went underground for a while, changed my name back to Clark, then decided to put Todd’s money to use in the way he would most hate. Giving women their lives back. And opening my own damn coffee shop and bakery and filling myself up on carbs and caffeine, fuck him very much.”

Once she finished, he climbed over her, staring into her eyes as he stretched his body the length of hers. It felt so good to have told him. It felt even better to have him know. Living off the grid, wearing disguises so as not to be recognized, sneaking around so as not to be seen . . . It had taken its toll. She was tired. Exhausted. Weary from the weight of the secrecy, watching every step she took, every word she spoke, every move she made.

She’d done her best. She wouldn’t beat herself up over what others thought or assumed. She brushed his hair from his forehead to better see his eyes, and felt him hardening against her. That made her smile, and then he said, “You’re a hell of a woman, Clark. So either have your way with me again, or let’s go to sleep.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

T
hough Tennessee’s was the name behind the Dragon Fire Hill project, Dakota had a vested interest that took him to the house every day. Some mornings he made the trip before heading in to Bread and Bean. A few times he took an actual lunch hour and drove up to check on the progress, pitching in when Frank or one of the other Keller crew members needed help.

Most of the time, however, he waited until he was finished at the coffee shop then headed that way after work. He’d walk the grounds, get an up close look at the exterior changes, but he never went inside unless invited. Sometimes it was James who saw him first and asked him in. Other times it was Thea. But he only stayed long enough to say hello.

He had to admit Tennessee knew what he was doing. Dakota had been working with his brother a year now, and was aware of that instinctively, but watching him pull together the monstrous job of Thea’s house had Dakota looking at Tennessee with new eyes, and a lot of respect, and more than a little bit of envy. That emotion was less about what Dakota had missed out on and more about what Tennessee had built for himself: his ability to take care of his family and to give a leg up to a lot of ex-cons.

Manny had come through in a big way, finding enough men to outfit a crew willing to work the long hours the project would take, because Keller Construction was determined to live up to their promise to get in and out pronto. After the morning he’d walked through the house the first time, when he’d seen Frannie’s fear and Ellie’s withdrawal and Becca’s fists ready to punch through walls, he’d gone back to Tennessee and told him they’d need to do the job fast or not do it at all.

Heading from the Keller Construction barn back out to his truck in search of a drill bit he was going to need tomorrow, Dakota shook off the memory of his initial trip to the house, and focused on how many things were going right. The house had obviously been in sound structural shape or Thea wouldn’t have bought it. And Dakota had seen people living in a lot worse. But it was good to know Thea and the others could put their money toward things like food instead of pouring it into a pit.

It was a hell of a house. Plenty of space inside and more than enough out. Rooms for working in and playing in, room for storage, room for life. He could see Thea and the others living there as long as they needed the safe haven. Funny thing, though, he mused, pulling the trays from his toolbox and setting them in the bed of his truck. He could see himself living here, too. With Thea. If that’s what she wanted. Because he was pretty sure he did. No. He knew that he did. Problem was getting there from here.

He wasn’t sure if their sleeping together had helped or hurt the cause, but damn if it hadn’t been exactly what he wanted. What he’d needed. Thea’s body beneath his again. Thea all over him, pleasing and pleasuring. No woman had ever been able to take him apart so completely. He’d looked. He’d waited. But no one compared.

The idea of fate made him itch. Thea made him better.

He’d been set on leaving for weeks now. He hadn’t made plans. He had no place in mind to go. He wasn’t sure if that had changed when they’d fallen into that first kiss, or when she’d barged into his house and taken him to bed. What a welcome surprise that had been. And what a night. She was a hell of a woman. A hell of a lover. But an even better friend.

And wasn’t that what had been missing for the last decade plus of his life? A friend who was more than someone to shoot the shit with over burgers and beer. More than someone to catch a ride to work with when buckets of rain were coming down. More than someone to ask for help unloading a panel van full of crates and bags of dog food donated to a rescue group. He’d had all of those friends.

It was Thea who he’d been missing.

Look what she’d done with her life. Look what she’d survived. Dakota had no truck with her taking her ex’s money and using it for good. Thinking about it like that, her crime fell into the same category as what he’d done: using a baseball bat to beat the kid who’d tried to rape his sister. It was the same with the men Keller Construction hired. The men Manny Balleza recommended. The men who’d done the work on the house on Dragon Fire Hill. All of them were ex-cons. All had done a bad thing for a good reason.

He couldn’t hold Thea’s crimes against her when they were the same as his. He’d served time to get out from under his debt to society. She’d turned around the lives of three women and made them productive members of the community. Or that’s what she was in the process of doing anyway.

He would never have imagined the Thea he’d known in school turning into the woman she had. And he hated thinking it was due to some asshole who’d treated her no better than an animal, caging her and stripping away the self-sufficiency she was only just now finding again. The independence he’d loved seeing in her.

The strength he still did.

Thea hadn’t visited the Keller Construction barn since either of her projects had been underway. After losing her first contractor to health issues, she’d called Tennessee’s firm and talked to the woman in his office, who she’d later learned was his stepmother-in-law. It had been Dakota, however, and not Tennessee, who’d arrived to do a more thorough assessment of the job.

But Dakota hadn’t been to Bread and Bean today. And he hadn’t called. And all she could think was that he’d stayed home to pack. That after she’d left his bed, he’d made his decision. That her arrival at the cottage had been the catalyst. That her plans to show him how much she loved him, and needed him, how much she wanted him had backfired in an absolutely sensational way.

She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. She knew Dakota, and had since they’d been too young for the relationship neither one of them had been able to say no to. They’d needed each other. The bond they’d shared had been forged in sex, but it had been so much greater than any physical affair. Yet it had taken her seeing him again as an adult to realize that, and to understand it, and to accept that she’d never put away that bit of her childhood and moved on.

She arrived to find him hunkered down in the bed of his truck, tools spread out around him. The day was bright, and he squinted as he looked up and saw her. Those sexy crow’s-feet around his eyes made a lot of sense now, as did his looking a lot older than thirty-five, though he was getting pretty close to thirty-six, if she was remembering her dates correctly.

The sun had done a number on his hair, too, during the decade-plus years he’d been gone, turning the caramel color into fifty shades of brown and gold. She loved that he wore it long, tying it back with a band when working, leaving it free the rest of the time to blow in the wind. Like now. He scraped it away from his face as she walked toward him.

He’d changed so much in the short time since she’d first seen him again. She had no idea if the year he’d been in Hope Springs prior to walking into her shop had been good to him, but she thought the last few weeks had. And she was just confident enough to take some credit for that. It was a confidence that came with knowing how much she’d changed because of him.

She was so much more comfortable now with who she was.

“What are you doing here?”

How many times had they asked each other that question lately? She reached up a hand to shade her eyes. “I came by to see you and Tennessee. Is he here?”

He shook his head. “He just left. Dolly’s car’s in the shop so he gave her a ride home. You need me to pass along a message?”

No. I just need you.

The words came out of nowhere and hit her so hard she had to stop walking for a moment to catch her breath. “I came by to tell him thank you. For taking on the job at the house. I know he’s getting paid but I have a feeling he’s not getting paid enough.”

“What’s enough?” he asked, his attention on his tools again. “He’s getting paid what he wanted.”

“Yeah, but is
he
getting paid?” she asked, crossing her arms along the truck bed’s frame and resting her chin on her stacked hands.

“That’s Tennessee’s business,” he said with a shrug, wiping a red shop rag over a pair of greasy pliers. He tossed them into a tray she thought must fit the toolbox that sat behind the cab, then he picked up the same two screwdrivers he’d showed to James.

His mouth a grim line, he said, “I still want to go all
Walking Dead
on the man who destroyed those boys and their mother.”

Thea supposed he was talking about screwdrivers as deadly weapons shoved deep into skulls. “They’re not destroyed. They’re doing really well actually. They’ve all come out of their shells a lot these last few weeks. It’s amazing to see. It truly is.”

“Not knowing them before, I’ll have to take your word for that.”

Time for some of what she’d come for. “People do recover, you know. Get over tragedies. Move on. We actually talked about this the other day at lunch. Kaylie, Luna. Your sister.”

“There’s a lot of damage there for sure,” he said, tossing the screwdrivers on top of the pliers, then standing and walking to the open tailgate.

Thea followed, moving away and giving him room to hop down. “There’s also a whole lot of happiness. A lot of peace. A lot of forgiveness.”

“Just not any forgetting,” he said with a snort.

She took a deep breath and forged ahead. What did she have to lose? “I don’t think forgetting is the goal. Take Kaylie and her father. Don’t you think her knowing about the years they lost makes what they have now that much more valuable? And if Luna had forgotten about her friendship with Angelo’s sister, would they be together now? And Indiana—”

“Uh-uh.” His gaze was sharp and cutting, his words equally so. “You really think my sister wouldn’t want to forget what she went through? What our whole family went through?”

She took a step back before she realized what she’d done. He wasn’t a threat. Even in anger. She knew that. “I think she’s accepted that the assault happening is why she’s where she is today. And if she hadn’t bought the Hope Springs property to be close to Tennessee because of it, she might never have met Oliver.”

Dakota leaned against the tailgate, head shaking as he crossed his arms. His ankles, too. “I don’t see it.”

“Why do you think forgetting is going to make anything better?”

“Don’t you want to forget what happened to you?”

“I never will, so I’ve never thought about it,” she said, coming to stand in front of him, taking him in from his worn boots, to his worn jeans, to his T-shirt that had seen better days. The clothes clung to his body, as comfortable a fit as his skin. As the weight of the past he refused to shed.

“Seriously?” The word brought her gaze up to his. “You’ve never wished that you could put it all behind you and make it vanish for good? Hell, make it not exist?” he added with a wave of one arm.

She reached up and rubbed at her forehead. “What good does it do to wish for something that will never happen? I lost my favorite cat to a speeding car. He was a roamer, a hunter. He loved his outdoor life. But he also loved crawling into my lap. For weeks after, I pictured him walking through the door. I’d look over when I woke up in the mornings, thinking magic would have happened and he’d be lying there as he always was, waiting to be fed. All I was doing was making myself miserable. Of course, I wish he was still here, but that sort of wishing is so emotionally destructive. It’s a waste of energy and time.”

He pushed off the truck to stand straight. “So now I’m destructive and wasting my time? Just because I like to imagine what life would’ve been like if I’d never picked up that bat?”

She was losing him. He was going to leave her, and she loved him, but she would not keep him caged. She would never wish that life on anyone. “I can tell you how it would’ve been. You would’ve gone to school and played ball, and maybe made it to the minor league with a degree in something useless. You would’ve married a cheerleader. You would’ve bought a house in a gated community. You’d have an eight- and six-year-old who’d both be sports nuts. You’d see Tennessee and his wife, probably someone other than Kaylie, for holidays. Indiana would be growing vegetables in third world countries. You might never see her.

“You wouldn’t know what it was like to wrangle cattle in Montana, to breathe in the sort of air that feels like it’s going to freeze your lungs. You wouldn’t have the thighs you do from pedaling across the Pacific Northwest. You wouldn’t appreciate fresh-caught salmon, or the sound of a tree’s branches crashing through those still standing as it falls to the ground. You wouldn’t know how to build a barista station or a front counter for a coffee shop. And you would be shit at latte art. Absolute shit.”

“That’s what you think would’ve happened?” he asked with a dry snort of a laugh after letting her words swirl around them and settle.

“Don’t you realize you wouldn’t be who you are today, the man I most urgently, most desperately love, if you hadn’t gone through everything you have?” She didn’t want to cry. She didn’t want to appear weak. But dammit . . . “I understand you don’t like thinking about the past. I get it. I really, really do. So don’t. Don’t think about it. But don’t wish it away either. It’s ugly and painful, and I would do anything to make that part vanish, but without the bad, there wouldn’t be the good, and—”