The Second Chance Café (A Hope Springs Novel) Read online

  “Oh, sure. Everyone knows Ten. Are you looking to hire him to do the work?”

  “I’d like to go with a local contractor if possible.”

  “Then Ten’s who you want. No one’s better. Ask anyone in town and they’ll be able to point you to a job he’s done.”

  “Carolyn Parker told me he’d done some work for Wade.”

  “For Rick’s mother, too. Ten’s helped her out a lot since Rick’s dad died. He’s a good man.” Jessa paused, smiled, then pressed her hands to her cheeks as if doing so would hide her blush. “He’s also quite a man, if you know what I mean.”

  Kaylie had never had girlfriends. She’d had classmates and coworkers; then she’d had employees. She’d also had neighbors, but no one to talk to about men. Not the confident roll of their hips as they walked. Not the fit of their clothes, the strength of their hands, their opinions. Not the zeal in their eyes when they had something on their minds.

  She gave Jessa what she hoped passed for a look that said she knew exactly, when in reality she was more interested in the work he did than in the man. As busy as she was going to be over the weekend, talking to him now would make for one less chore on her list. “I’d love to see him while I’m out, but I only have a phone number. Does he have a shop? Or an office? Though I guess I could call for directions…”

  “Do you know where Grath Avenue is?”

  “I’m sure my GPS does.”

  “He’s at the end. A big barn where he works, and a couple of other buildings. His house is at the very back of the bunch. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks, Jessa. It’s good to see you again.”

  “You too. I can’t wait to tell Rick you’re back.”

  Climbing into her Jeep and rubbing her cheek against Magoo’s, Kaylie was certain more people today than Rick Breeze would be hearing that particular news.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Hello?”

  At the sound of the female voice, all soft and southern syrup, Tennessee Keller froze. Dolly Breeze ran his front office and handled any visitors who dropped in without calling. But Dolly had cut out early—something about getting ready for a weekend craft fair—leaving Ten alone in the shop.

  He really should’ve locked the barn door, but the horse already being gone and all that had him heading toward the front to see who’d decided a phone call wouldn’t get them what they wanted.

  It was a dog. Well, a woman and a dog and the red Jeep Wrangler they’d arrived in, but the big loping shepherd caught his eye before the long legs striding toward him. Yeah, some sorry state he was in when a dog got his pulse racing, and a woman was more afterthought than anything.

  “I’m looking for Tennessee Keller?”

  That voice again. “You found him.”

  “Hi. I wanted to talk to you about some construction work I need done. Jessa Breeze and Carolyn Parker both said you’re the man I want.” She came closer. So did the dog. She held out her hand. “I’m Kaylie Flynn.”

  “Ten Keller.” He shook it quickly, smelled fields of sun-soaked flowers when she leaned in, and then lowered his palm for the dog, waiting until he’d been sniffed and licked before scratching the spot of soft hair behind the stiff ears. “What’s his name?”

  “Magoo.”

  “As in Mister?”

  Strands of copper-blonde hair escaped her ponytail to blow in her face. She snatched them away and nodded, and he smelled the flowers again. “When I got him, he had this tiny scrunched-up face. Mister Magoo was the first thing that came to mind.”

  “He’s got more in him than German shepherd.”

  “The shelter thought rottweiler.”

  “Good-looking dog.”

  “Thanks. I think so.”

  Good-looking owner, too, though he kept that P.S. to himself. She wore a white T-shirt caught loosely around her hips. Not Hanes or Fruit of the Loom, but something classy, rich, like the russet leather of her boots, buttery and worn to fit.

  Her clothes said she wasn’t from around here. They also said she wasn’t looking to stand out. Interesting. He finally said, “It’s been a while since I had one.”

  “A dog?”

  “My folks were big on animal rescue.” And rain forest rescue and Arctic ice rescue and closing the hole in the ozone. “We usually had half a dozen at any time. Cats and dogs both. All shapes and sizes and temperaments.”

  She gave a groaning laugh, as if she couldn’t decide between sympathy and pity and rolled the dice. “I hope you had a big house. And an even bigger yard.”

  He liked her laugh, the watermelon burst of it, liked the shape of her mouth, the width. It fit her face without taking it over. The bow of her lip pointed to the spatter of freckles dotting her nose, pale chestnut flung from a paintbrush.

  Motioning Kaylie Flynn out of the sun and into the barn, he perched on a drafting stool, offered her another, watched what her thighs did to the denim of her jeans when she sat. Magoo plopped to the cement floor between them, making sure the hand that had scratched his ears behaved.

  “What kind of work are you looking to have done?” Ten asked, behaving. “And where?”

  She tilted her head to the side. “Do you know the Coleman place? Used to be the Wise place? On the corner of Second Street where it crosses Chances Avenue?”

  “Big Victorian. Blue. Lots of trees.” It was one fine house. His crew had replaced the roof a few years back after hurricane-force winds stripped half the shingles away. At the end of the job, he’d made the Wises an offer, but they’d stayed until Winton had died. Then May had gone to live with her sister in Dallas, selling it before he could bite. “You handling things for the Colemans now?”

  “I bought it from them. Closed this morning. It’s all mine.”

  She said it with relish, as if she’d landed herself the deal of the century. And knowing the albatross the property had become to Bob Coleman, she probably had. Ten just wished he’d known they’d decided to unload it. He’d really wanted that house.

  It was solid, sturdy. Built to stand up to the elements. Built to be used. “I didn’t know they were selling.”

  Her smile was sly. “I didn’t give anyone else a chance to find out.”

  “Been keeping an eye on it, have you?”

  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

  “Mind if I ask why?”

  This time she wasn’t quite as quick to answer, and the slyness slid from her smile. “It was the house I lived in from the time I was ten till I was eighteen.”

  Huh. Interesting. He guessed her age, then did a rough calculation backward through time. “Are you related to May and Winton? Or…were you one of their foster kids?”

  The questions hung between them longer than he liked. And then her response, while not exactly an answer, told him exactly what he wanted to know.

  “Does it matter? To you doing the renovations, I mean?”

  “Not a bit.” He reached for a pencil to have something to do with his hands. “That answers the where. Now give me an idea of the what.”

  “I need a couple of walls knocked out, and definitely new shutters. I’m sure I’ll have a longer list once I go through all the rooms and decide how to use them, but the biggest thing will be the kitchen. Unless you can work magic with what’s there, I’ll need to have it completely redone.”

  He was stuck on knocking out walls. The house had stood intact for a hundred-plus years; for some reason, he’d assumed she’d come to him knowing he’d appreciate its historic value. That he’d respect it. Not undermine it for the sake of convenience and the ego of interior design.

  He rocked his pencil so the eraser end bounced off the drafting board, a gust of wind ruffling the blueprint held in place there by a two-by-four block. “You’re looking to remodel rather than restore, then.”

  “Actually, I’m looking to renovate. I’ll be living on the top two floors and using the first for my business. That requires a small commercial kitchen, and better traffic flow than the doorway
s allow for now.” She paused, taking him in, her eyes a light green that set off her hair and broadcasting frustration. “I can explain more, or you can come by and take a look, or you can tell me I’m barking up the wrong tree and save us both the time.”

  He wanted to say he wasn’t the man for the job, but knew he was. He wouldn’t take shortcuts, or compromise the structure’s integrity, or suggest additional destruction to pad his bill. He didn’t want to do the job, and so he would. “I can stop by tomorrow. Noon or so?”

  “That would be great. I’m roughing it until the place is ready to be lived in, so I’ll be there all day.” She slid from the stool and reached into the tiny purse belted at her waist for a card. “Here’s my cell number. If I don’t hear you knock, you might need to call. Or you could just come in and yell,” she added with a soft laugh. “The place is empty, so I shouldn’t have any problem hearing you.”

  Her card mirrored his, a name and a number, though her ink was raised, her paper an upgrade, just like her T-shirt and boots. “The dog won’t sound a warning?”

  Bending, she mussed Magoo’s ruff until he shuddered, pleasure rolling off of him along with a cloud of coarse black and tan hair. “I have a feeling this guy will be out making friends with the local wildlife. Or at least letting them know there’s a new boss in town.”

  Ten took in her affection for the dog, took in the fall of her hair and the dancer’s arch of her back as she bent. Took in the curve of her triceps that told him a lot about the body beneath her clothes. He bounced his pencil harder, pulled his gaze away, and stared out the barn door at the trees standing sentry on either side of his road.

  A lot of good they’d done him, allowing this woman and her dog to leave footprints all over, no warning or so much as a by-your-leave for the breach. He’d never indulged in the volatile mix of business with pleasure.

  But what was he supposed to do now, her number and invitation in hand, the house he wanted belonging to her, and lust a monster complication growling at his feet?

  He stood when she stood, and followed her to her Jeep. “Tomorrow, then. Noon sharp.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  It wasn’t the dream that woke Kaylie that night but the guttural rumble at the base of Magoo’s throat rattling around like ice cubes. He’d left his sleeping bag and was standing on his hind legs at the window. Something on the lawn below had disturbed him, and as the beam of a flashlight crossed the glass, Kaylie found herself disturbed, too.

  She shoved out of her sleeping bag and, heart racing, into her jeans and boots. Grabbing her flashlight, her phone, and her eight-inch bowie knife, she headed for the stairs with Magoo on her heels. She had her dog to rely on, but she knew better than anyone the truth of a stainless-steel blade.

  She was halfway through the kitchen, having punched 9-1-1 on her phone’s keypad, her thumb hovering over Send, when she realized Magoo’s growl was gone. He was pawing at the screen door, whimpering to be let out, as if whatever danger he’d sensed from the third floor had turned out to be a friendly on the first.

  Kaylie barely had the screen unlocked before the dog pushed it open and bounded through. She switched on her flashlight and followed, holding it with three fingers of her left hand, her index finger and thumb wrapped around her phone and ready to dial for help. In her other hand, she clutched the knife in a hammer grip in case Magoo had made a mistake. He rarely did, though lacking his nose, she was going to need more evidence.

  She got it as she turned the corner into the front yard to see him sitting at Ten Keller’s side. Not a squatter or a vagrant or a burglar or a thief, but Ten Keller. Here with no warning. Checking out her house as if the day’s business hours hadn’t passed. And her looking like she’d just crawled out of a cardboard box on the street. Nice. She wasn’t sure if she was aggravated at him for showing up unannounced, or at herself for caring about her appearance.

  “Fickle, traitorous dog,” she muttered, taking it out on Magoo, who would never know, though the words were lost in the dark. Ignoring the wild mess of her hair, she doused her torch, guided toward man and beast by the light of the moon and the beam of Ten’s Maglite playing off the flower beds edging the house.

  By day, the fallow dirt was depressing. By night, the bleak landscape brought to mind sunken graves, forgotten, abandoned, last winter’s leaves gone to compost on top. A good thing, actually. Very soon, after the threat of frost passed, azaleas. Soft pink and fuchsia and white, a crazy quilt of colors against the blue of the house.

  As she drew near him, Ten looked up, looked her over, caught her eye, and nodded toward her right hand. “You planning on woodworking? Or hunting small game?”

  He was the one trespassing, and he wanted answers? Good thing both Jessa and Carolyn had vouched for him, though Magoo was the best judge of character she’d ever known. “I was going to throw it at you.” She balanced the knife on her palm. The handle was the perfect size for her fingers, the weight a precise match for her skill and strength. She knew that because she’d tried others when she’d decided to make the weapon her friend. “Well, not at you, but if Magoo had given the word…”

  “Target practice?”

  “Something like that.”

  He returned his attention to Magoo, squatting in front of the dog to shake. Magoo lifted a paw, his big mouth smiling as Ten ruffled a hand over the top of his head. “Sorry about waking you.”

  She hadn’t yet decided if she was. She liked seeing him with her dog. Liked that he knew what to do, that he wasn’t scared away—a contradiction that made her wonder why she had a guard dog in the first place. Sigh. “I don’t think I’ve ever known any contractor to make midnight house calls.”

  “I was on my way home. Thought I’d swing by and take a quick look at the shutters.” He waved the flashlight in a pass over the worst. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  She’d parked her Jeep in the garage. She’d left no lights burning; she’d had no need. The windows in the bedroom were bare and the moon full. “I just got the keys this morning. My first night in my house.”

  “On the floor?”

  “I’ve got a sleeping bag.” She gestured toward Magoo. “We both do.”

  He scratched Magoo behind his ears one more time and then straightened, an effortlessly synced motion of hips, thighs, and abs as he gained his feet.

  Kaylie swallowed. “I’m sure I told you I was staying here.”

  “You did, but I thought maybe you’d changed your mind at the reality of roughing it.”

  If only he knew what this house meant to her, how many nights she’d been unable to sleep for thoughts of this roof, and not the one in her Austin condo, over her head.

  “Not a chance,” she said. It was dark, but his expression seemed doubtful. “Didn’t you ever take a new toy to bed with you Christmas night? Something you’d been waiting for and wanting so long you couldn’t bear to let it out of your sight?”

  A humorless grin tugged at one side of his mouth. “This is a toy?”

  “A gift, then,” she offered. “A pair of red cowboy boots or a sparkly pink plush puppy.”

  This time his smile was true. “I slept with a BB gun once.”

  Oh, good. He was human. “See? Same thing.”

  He looked from her face to the three stories looming in front of him. “So you’ve been waiting for and wanting this house a long time?”

  “I have.”

  “But you’re still set on knocking out walls.”

  “I am.”

  “No way around it, huh?”

  Did he not want the work? Did he think she was blithely tearing apart a perfectly sound structure, giving no thought to the life breathed into it by those who’d called it home? Or was he so ready to start he’d been unable to put off getting a closer look?

  Whatever, this conversation could wait until tomorrow. She was tired, and it was too late for arguing philosophical differences. “Nope, sorry. They’ve gotta go.”

  He made a sound, a sn
ort, a huff, and the flashlight beam played over her shutters once more before he switched off the light to leave. “Okay then. I’ll see you tomorrow at noon.”

  “Goodnight, Mr. Keller.”

  He came closer, stopped in front of her, met her gaze. It was too dark to see the color of his eyes, but she remembered well their shade, honey gold and incandescent. The moon shone off his hair and brought to mind sun tea, caramel brownies, red Anjou pears.

  He made her hungry, and that wouldn’t do.

  “Ten,” he told her, patting Magoo’s head where the dog sat between them. “Everyone calls me Ten.”

  She nodded, pressing the hand holding her knife to her belly, a sharp cutting reminder that she wasn’t here for whatever this was he had her feeling. “Good night, Ten.”

  While Magoo took three turns and was out like a light, Kaylie lay staring at the ceiling for hours. Food. Ten Keller had her thinking of food. Of appetites. Of desire. Of brownies.

  After five years in three urban foster homes with playtime corralled inside fences, she’d come to Hope Springs, and at ten years old, found a family with Winton and May Wise. The moment she’d set eyes on their densely wooded acre, she’d sworn to climb every tree.

  While in grade school, she’d monkeyed her way to the top of most. In middle school, volleyball became her physical outlet of choice. In high school, she’d gone on to play soccer. Staying active had offset the obvious downside to her obsessive love for brownies.

  Baking brownies had been only one of the things May Wise had given her, but it had turned into her greatest success. Varying cooking times and temperatures as well as ingredients produced a world of textures and tastes, and Kaylie had never tired of experimenting. Toffee and cream cheese and walnuts. Dark cherries and even darker cacao nibs and the darkest of espresso.