The Second Chance Café (Hope Springs, #1) (11 page)

There had to be some reason she felt so free to disclose the details of her life to these people she’d just met. Talking about her past was not part of her plan. She wasn’t a talker, a sharer. She never had been, but especially not when it came to her feelings. May had tried in that way she’d had, kind
and subtle and making it seem as if she wasn’t prompting at all, to get Kaylie to open up.

But that part of her had closed down the day her mother had left their apartment bandaged and handcuffed in an ambulance, and social services had taken Kaylie out of Ernest Flynn’s arms. She knew she came across at times as cold, as aloof, as distant, but keeping her feelings to herself was how she’d survived. So why was she opening up now? Was it the magic of the house? Was it the people coming into her life?

Or was she in a better personal place, finally ready to shed the protective cocoon of isolation she’d spent so much time burrowed inside?

She was just reaching for her coffee when she heard the slam of a truck door. Finally. Magoo heard it, too, rousing and trotting to the mudroom. She glanced out the window at her right in time to see a man in black Dockers and a white dress shirt with cuffed sleeves step down from a truck much like Ten’s.

His hair was buzzed short, and he wore a goatee, both the honest salt-and-pepper of his age, though he moved like a man much younger and she realized he was built like a younger man as well. She watched as he made his way up the driveway, slowing as he studied the house and the grounds.

She hopped down and stretched—she’d been sitting hunched over way too long—and tossed her pencil and paper to the counter behind her, making her way to the door. Giving Magoo the signal to stay at her side, she walked out and raised a hand in greeting. “Hello.”

The man’s head came up sharply, and he stopped in his tracks as if startled, shoving his hands into his pockets as he
stared at her and frowned. She obviously wasn’t who he’d been expecting, because his frown deepened and then he swallowed, his throat working as he raised a hand to scratch at one side of his jaw.

“Can I help you?” she asked. Guard dog Magoo sensed no threat and sat, his wagging tail stirring up driveway dust.

“I’m sorry,” the man said, holding up a finger. “Give me one second.” He returned to his truck, opened the door, rubbing at his forehead, then at his eyes, as he leaned to reach for something in the cab.

Kaylie waited, wondering if he was here to meet Ten, maybe checking to see if he had the right time or right address. Will Bowman was due later to get back to work on the shutters, but the internal construction wasn’t scheduled yet. She was expecting Ten later, too.

She started to call out and tell her visitor just that, but he closed his truck door and came toward her, lifting a tentative hand.

“Hi. Sorry about that. I just…I’m looking for the owner.”

“You’ve found her. I’m Kaylie Flynn.”

“Flynn?” he asked, and gave a huff before a smile pulled at one side of his mouth.

Something tingled at the base of her spine. “Is there a problem?”

He shook his head. “No. Nothing. It’s just that I once had a friend with that last name. Haven’t thought of him for years.”

Ah. The surprise of nostalgia. “You are?”

“Mitch Pepper,” he said. “Luna Meadows told me you were looking for a cook. Told me I should come talk to you.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mitch,” Kaylie said, offering her hand. “And there’s no need to apologize.”

He laughed again, his handshake brisk and brief. “Oh, I beg to differ, but that’s on me.”

Strange thing to say, that. “Luna said she used to work with you, I think?”

“Sor—” He held up a hand to stop himself, came closer and started again. “I cook at the Gristmill over in Gruene. She waited tables there in high school. I got her the job, actually.”

“You’ve known her a long time, then.”

“I have. Her dad, Harry, he’s one of my oldest friends. We were in the service together, and he talked me into settling here after my discharge.”

He looked to be about the right age to have been deployed during the first Gulf War, maybe just this side of fifty. “Would you like a cup of coffee, Mitch? I just brewed a pot.”

“Sure. That would be great,” he said, as she turned for the house. “This is some place.”

“It is, isn’t it? I don’t know if Luna told you, but I used to live here, years ago. I loved it so much that I had to buy it when it came on the market.” She pulled open the screen door into the kitchen. Magoo bounded through but Mitch waited, gesturing for her to go ahead. She did, smiling to herself at the show of chivalry that had her thinking again of Ten. He was similarly kind, thoughtful. She wondered what he’d think of Mitch, frowned as she wondered why his opinion mattered.

“I guess it’ll be a while before you open for business?” Mitch asked, the door bouncing shut behind him. “It looks like you just got the keys to the place.”

“About a week ago, yes.” She reached for a mug where they sat in a row on the countertop, filled it and handed it to him, then gestured to the raffia-handled shopping bag she was using for storage since the cabinets would be coming down soon. “I’ve got sugar and sweetener, and cream in the fridge.”

“Black is fine, thanks,” he said, and blew across the mug’s surface before sipping. “When do you plan to be up and running?”

“Memorial Day weekend,” she said, topping off her own mug.

“So you’ve got a building contractor lined up?”

“I do. He came with great references. Even Luna approved.”

“Luna’s got good taste. And a good sense about people.”

“She seemed anxious that I consider you for the cook’s position.”

He gave a huff of breath as if tickled. “I got the same pressure.”

“And here you are.”

“Here I am.”

“Even though you already have a job.”

“I explained that to her. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

Kaylie canted her head, considered him. “So is there any point to our talking about the position?”

“I wouldn’t have come otherwise. My time’s too valuable to waste. I imagine yours is, too.”

Honesty. Integrity. Respect. “If you worked with Luna when she was in high school, you must’ve been cooking at the Gristmill for, what? A dozen years?”

“Closer to fifteen. It’s been quite a long haul.”

“You know this isn’t full-time, yes? Luna explained that?”

He nodded, holding her gaze, his fashionable black glasses framing eyes as green as her own. “She did. If this turns out to be something I’m interested in, I’d cut back on my hours in Gruene. Can’t be in two places at one time.”

Something he was interested in. Not something she thought he was right for. Not something she might want him for, or offer him. Interesting perspective. She liked that he spoke his mind. “Since Luna told you how things will work, why don’t you ask me any questions you have. We’ll start there.”

“I’ve only got one right now.”

“Which is?”

“Can I see where you’ll be building out for the café?”

M
itch didn’t care about seeing any of the house, only that she loved it and it meant something to her. Her. Kaylie. His daughter. His girl.

God, but she was beautiful. So sweet and so smart and her teeth so straight. He still carried a picture of her, one where she was all smiles, the big gap between her baby teeth making him wonder how her permanent ones would come in.

He’d told himself he wasn’t going to come here. What he’d said to Luna was the truth. He’d lost his baby years ago. This woman was someone else. But he’d known from the moment he’d heard the news that he’d make the trip, if just to see her. He’d been looking for her more than half of his life.

How could he not come to see her?

“Did you live here a long time?” He wanted to know everything, but he was a stranger and had to be cautious in what he asked.

“For eight years. All but the elementary school ones. Those I spent…other places.”

Elementary school. That would put her here at about age ten. Where had she been the years after he’d left for boot camp and she’d been whisked away from Dawn? Where were those
other places
? And why had she taken
Ernest Flynn’s last name? He’d been their neighbor in Austin. Mitch couldn’t imagine Kaylie remembering him, she’d been so young. But the name change explained why he’d had no luck in finding her. He’d been looking for Kaylie Bridges all this time.

“Guess it’s nice to be back and catch up with old friends.”

“Actually, I haven’t had time to see but one yet, and that by complete accident. I ran into her working at the newspaper office when I placed my help-wanted ad.”

“So I’m getting a jump on the competition, huh?”

“You are. Pays to have friends in high places,” she said as she led him from the kitchen into what he supposed was the original dining room. “I’d planned to gut most of the first floor and convert it to one large eating area, but Ten talked me into a better use of the space.”

“Ten?”

“My contractor, Tennessee Keller,” she said, walking him out of the room into the main hallway, their footsteps echoing in the cavernous space. “He suggested using the two rooms on either side of the dining room”—she pointed to both—“just cutting entrances between them and connecting them that way.”

“A sort of maze, then?”

“In a way, yes.”

“Is it a better use? For you? For your business?” And then he shut his mouth because what she did here with her property was none of his. He wasn’t sounding like a potential employee, but more like…an overly concerned father.

“It is, though I did have to think about it.”

He stopped himself from saying
I’m sorry
before saying, “It’s not my place. I had no right to ask.”

“It’s okay. I don’t mind. If you end up being part of what I do here, I’d like your input. I want this to be a team effort. And I want it to be fun.”

He couldn’t be a part of it. Even wanting to, he couldn’t. He had too much to atone for and she had no reason to give him that chance. He would make the most of today because he could never come here again. The deception was already knotting his gut, and this was only one hour out of one single day. He stepped away from her to look into the two rooms she’d indicated, needing to breathe, to close his eyes for a second and tighten the noose of his control.

He wanted so badly to take her in his arms, to show her the tattered photo he’d had in his wallet for twenty-three years. To tell her how often he’d taken it out while on his bunk in the desert, how he’d talked to her about his day, his mission, the friends he’d lost to enemy fire and to PTSD.

He hated her mother even more than the system for keeping her from him, when all he’d done was straighten out his life to give his family a better one.

“What do you think? Will the connected rooms work better than tearing out walls to make one big one?”

He came back to where she was waiting, her dog lying beside her, patient, its chin on its paws. Mitch pointed toward the front of the house. “Include that front room up there, too, and you’ll have additional seating and no real wasted space on this floor. Unless you had something else planned for the…I guess it’s a parlor?”

He looked to her again, watched as an enormous smile spread over her face, her mouth going wide and her eyes catching the light shining through the stained glass on the doors at the hallway’s end. “Just this morning I decided I
wanted to add the parlor to the build-out. Glad to know the idea makes sense.”

“Well, I’m not your contractor.” He’d feel guilty as hell if his comments pushed her to a decision that might not be the right one.

“No, but you’ve been in the business a long time. I’m just starting out.”

“What did you do before this?” he asked, though he knew. He’d hung on Luna’s every word, replayed them over and over in his mind.

“I owned a bakery in Austin. The Sweet Spot. Brownies were our specialty. My specialty. I actually learned to bake them while living here. It’s a wonder the other kids and my foster parents didn’t each weigh a thousand pounds.”

This wasn’t his business. Not any of it. Yet it was so hard to hear her say these things, to have her share them so openly and not want to ask for more. She owed him nothing. He owed her everything. But none of that was able to stop him from asking, “Foster parents?”

“Winton and May Wise. They took me in when I was ten, and I only left at eighteen because I had to. I mean, I could’ve stayed, I guess, gotten a job here. But since the state paid my tuition and a big chunk of my expenses, I moved to Austin for school. And I worked to put away money for the future.”

“Austin. You went to UT?”

She nodded. “Took me six years to get my degree, but that’s what happens when you have to make doughnuts and bear claws at three a.m.”

He wanted to tell her how proud he was of her, what an accomplishment it was to work one’s way through school,
but he couldn’t tell her that. Just like he couldn’t pull her close and breathe the scent of her hair. Just like he couldn’t take this job.

“It wasn’t easy, but it’s been
so
worth it.”

He shouldn’t have come here. He should’ve stayed in Gruene where he belonged. He should’ve left well enough alone; he had a good life. But it was a life with a big fat hole in it. Something he’d been ready to live with until the day he died. Or so he’d thought. Because looking now at his beautiful girl, his smart, ambitious, green-eyed girl, he felt the hole deepen to expose the core of who he was.

He cleared his throat. “So you’ll be open for lunch, what? Five, six days a week?”

“I’ll start out at five, then add to that if Two Owls demands it.”

“Two Owls?”

“After Winton and May. Just seems fitting. They were two of the wisest people I’ve ever known.”

Were. “Then they’re…”

She nodded. “Winton passed on a few years ago. May more recently. I was actually able to come back here and buy this place because of them. They took care of a lot of kids over the years, but May stayed in touch even after I’d graduated. She told me once that I was the daughter she would’ve wanted if she could’ve had children of her own.”