The Second Chance Café Read online

  Fortunately, the Wises, their friends and her classmates, and the other kids living in the blue Victorian had been happy to gobble up her therapy projects. Because that’s what the brownies had been.

  She’d baked when stressed over finals or tournaments. She’d baked when overwhelmed with options for colleges and careers. She’d baked when blue, when teen love went unrequited, when zits popped up at the worst possible times. When school forms required names for her parents and she had nothing to say.

  So, yes. She understood the tug-of-war played out between food and emotions. Whether baking or buying or bingeing, she’d done her share of all three.

  What she did not understand, however, was Tennessee Keller bringing brownies to mind, or how she was going to work with him now that he had.

  Two Owls’ Signature Chocolate Brownie

  oh, chocolate, our chocolate

  1¼ cups cake flour

  ½ teaspoon salt

  ¾ teaspoon baking powder

  6 ounces unsweetened chocolate

  ¾ cup unsalted butter

  2¼ cups sugar

  4 large eggs

  1 tablespoon vanilla

  Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease or spray with cooking oil and flour (or line with aluminum foil) a 9 x 13–inch baking pan.

  Sift the flour, the salt, and the baking powder into a bowl and set aside. Melt the chocolate and the butter in a double boiler (or in a microwave), stirring often so as not to burn the chocolate. Mix the sugar into the smooth chocolate mixture. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking after each. Stir in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture, folding in with a rubber spatula.

  Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. Bake 30–35 minutes, or until an inserted tester comes out mostly clean. Cool completely before cutting.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Settled by German farmers along the Guadalupe River in 1872, Gruene, Texas, thrived for years as a commercial cotton hub, only to be decimated by a 1920s boll-weevil blight and doomed by the Great Depression. A half century later, the community was annexed by New Braunfels, having found new footing as a center for tourism and art. One of the town’s most famous landmarks, Gruene Hall, opened in 1878, and in 2001 made Forbes magazine’s “50 of America’s Best” list as Best Country Honky-Tonk.

  Luna Meadows had waited tables at Gruene’s Gristmill Restaurant while in high school. As a young man, her father had worked at Gruene Hall. It was there where he’d met her mother, and though Luna was born a year later, it wasn’t until her fifth birthday that her parents tied the knot in a celebration of her birth, their joining, and the purchase of Meadows Land—the farm in nearby Hope Springs where they raised Delaine Merino sheep for wool.

  Today, the street outside the dance hall was barricaded, and big white tents were set up for a craft fair sponsored by one of the area guilds. The early-March sky was cloudless and blue, the sun warming air cooled by what was no doubt one of spring’s last cold weather fronts. In the Meadows Land booth, Luna’s mother, Julietta, demonstrated spinning and weaving while her father, Harry, hawked their wares.

  Wares which included Luna’s scarves.

  Cameron Diaz had been the first celebrity to wear them, picking up several in the tony Austin boutique that sold Luna’s Patchwork Moon collection of uniquely textured and colored creations, each of which told its own story. Soon after, paparazzi shots of the scarves around the necks of Katie Holmes, Emma Watson—even Brad Pitt—popped up in entertainment rags.

  Though she’d grown up watching her mother throw the shuttle of weft yarn through the shed of the warp, it wasn’t until Luna was confined to bed after a car accident as a teen, her broken hip keeping her from the funeral of her best friend, that her mother brought her a portable loom, along with hand-spun-and-dyed woolen and worsted.

  Even burying her nose in big books with big stories had not kept Luna’s mind off her loss. Somehow, her mother had known weaving would do what reading hadn’t been able to, and Luna had lost herself in the colors of harems and spices and exotic flowers. Violet that burst like crushed grapes. The sunshine of saffron and topaz. Joyous persimmon and cool, moody jade.

  She loved what she did, loved being able to pay her own way and to contribute to the family coffers, but she did not love the notoriety. The attention screwed with her process, and so she let those who wore her scarves do her advertising for her, agreeing to an occasional interview as long as accompanying photos were of her work and not her.

  The locals who knew her got a kick out of keeping her secret. Their doing so allowed her the freedom she was enjoying today, roaming the streets, where impatiens bloomed in sidewalk whiskey barrels, browsing the wares in the guild members’ booths, breathing deeply of the smells spilling from the food vendors’ carts, cotton candy and funnel cakes and sausage-on-a-stick, and blending in, unnoticed, just a regular girl having fun.

  Recognizing Dolly Breeze’s quilts folded on frames beneath the Hope Springs Crafts Club tent, Luna headed that way. Working with a sixteen-inch hoop, Dolly sat in a rocking chair, the fabric of a crib-sized quilt like a waterfall over her lap. She gave Luna a quick wink, then returned her attention to the two seamstresses who sat with her. Both had their own small projects—one a needlepoint Christmas stocking, the other what looked like a crocheted place mat—well under way.

  Luna listened to their chatter about old bundles of lace found in sewing baskets, and guild members who couldn’t whip a stitch to save a life, and pattern thieves who deserved to have their thumbs cut off, all the while admiring the craftsmanship of the items on display. The cards of old buttons amused her, as did those of antique braid trim.

  “Oh, I meant to tell you,” Dolly said, speaking to the woman working on the place mat as Luna picked up a vintage roll of glass-head straight pins. “One of the foster children who used to live with May and Winton Wise? She bought that old Victorian of theirs from the Colemans.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “And this is the best part. She’s going to open a café. Jessa called me yesterday and told me to go by and talk to her because she’s looking for a cook.”

  “Which girl is it?”

  “She’s Kaylie Flynn now, Jessa says, but she used to be Kaylie Bridges.”

  Luna’s head came up, her nape tingling, her stomach tumbling to her feet. She squeezed the paper roll, the pinheads gouging her palm, the cardboard buckling from the same pressure crushing the air from her chest.

  “Kaylie Bridges. The one who used to bake all those brownies?”

  Dolly nodded and leaned closer, but still spoke loudly enough to be heard outside the booth. “And whose mother went to prison for child endangerment and distribution of illegal narcotics.”

  Luna knew the story better than most, knew details these women as outsiders couldn’t. She’d been told them all in confidence, told them by a family friend. Told them by a man who’d come home from his Gulf War deployment to tales of violence and drug abuse and a child at risk.

  A man who’d been looking for his daughter ever since.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Saturday morning, Ten was just out of the shower when the phone on his nightstand rang. Dripping water on the hardwood floor, he crossed the room to pick up the handset—though when he saw the caller’s name on the display, he winced.

  It was a reaction he’d yet to tame even after all these years, expecting bad news that never came. “Manny. How goes it?”

  Manuel Balleza responded with a weighty sigh. “Same as always. Wondering when the good guys will catch a break. Hoping there’s still time to make a difference with all that’s wrong in the world when they do.”

  Always the optimist, that Manny. “What have I told you about taking the latest crime stats personally?”

  The other man bit off several choice words. “You can’t be surprised why I’m calling.”

  Manny had been Ten’s older brother’s parole officer, and since Ten had set up shop in Hope Springs, he’d put several of Manny’s parole
es on the payroll. Most had worked out just fine. Hardly a surprise, since none were career criminals, just men who’d made a life-altering bad choice, like Dakota.

  So, no. Ten wasn’t surprised at all. “What’s his name and when’s he getting out?”

  “Will Bowman. He’s being released first thing Monday. Wired a little tight, but overall a good kid.”

  Weren’t they all? Good kids, tightly wired? “I’ve got a job to look at this afternoon, so Monday evening would work.”

  “Sounds good. He’s done construction. Tucked away two years of an engineering degree before screwing things up.”

  And how many others had been there, done the same stupid stuff? “As long as he’s not afraid of heights. This job comes through, I’ll have shutters on a three-story Victorian at the top of the work order.”

  “Doesn’t seem to be afraid of much of anything, which is pretty much the problem with most of these yahoos.”

  Ten laughed. “Watch who you’re calling a yahoo. Dakota’s a productive member of society these days. Or he was last I heard.”

  And that had been, what? Six years ago? Seven? Ten had no idea where his brother had gone once cut free from Manny and the state. Then again, he didn’t know much of what was up in his sister’s life, aside from what he heard secondhand. And he was completely out of the loop with his parents. As much as he liked the peace and quiet of the status quo, he wasn’t exactly proud of it, a conundrum he supposed he’d have to work on one of these days. Once he figured out how to let go of the emotions strangling him—shame that he hadn’t been there for Indy or Dakota, anger that his parents hadn’t been there for any of them.

  “Doesn’t make him any less of a yahoo,” Manny said, clicking off after promising to call Monday and set a time for Will’s visit. Punctuality was a big deal for Manny. He made sure his charges knew his straight and narrow was as much of a sentence as the one on the inside that the parole board had seen fit to cut short. Grown men, yet like kids in kindergarten they still had to toe Manny’s line.

  Ten’s brother had done just that, abided by the conditions set for his release and served his term sans a single violation. While under Manny’s thumb, he’d done grunt work for another contractor in the area, the five-year road to his master’s in architecture halted by the two spent in prison for aggravated assault. Ten had been the one to reach out, to stay in touch, at least until Dakota made it clear he wasn’t interested in brotherly love.

  If Dakota had a particular reason for not going back to school, he’d never mentioned it to Ten. Neither had he shared any regrets he might’ve had about swinging that baseball bat instead of calling the law. One reckless moment, and the blueprint they’d designed for Keller Brothers Construction was good for nothing but the bottom of a birdcage, and Ten left to establish the business on his own.

  He’d tried to bring his brother in after his release, but Dakota was having none of it. Whether because he was sore over Ten moving forward without him, or raw over his time behind bars, Ten didn’t know. Dakota wouldn’t talk about either, or about his life on the outside being changed forever. Ten had finally let it go. His brother was a free man, going it alone his choice. That didn’t keep Ten from feeling he had never done enough to help.

  And because of that, he gave parolees a paycheck and a boost onto their feet. He knew what it meant for a man to lose his mind for a single moment, and to have that single moment screw up the rest of his life. Dakota couldn’t vote. Couldn’t own a gun. Couldn’t run for office. To Ten’s way of thinking, the last two weren’t a big deal but the first, yeah. That ate at him. A street-corner dealer. A gangbanger. Bernie Madoff in the day. Those thugs had a say in the way the country was run.

  But because at eighteen his brother had hunted down the worthless prick who’d tried to rape their sister, and premeditatedly swung a bat at the back of his head, Dakota could no longer make his voice heard. Offering hope to others who’d been just as rash and impulsive allowed Ten to make a statement the only way he could, while making amends for what felt like letting his brother down.

  His folks, on the other hand…They’d coddled kids whose own families were more demanding, loving the attention that came with being cool. The same way they loved looking good for rescuing animals and saving the planet. The teens they’d spoiled, many his and his siblings’ friends, hadn’t been fooled, and more than a few had taken advantage. Two whom his parents had sworn to save from neglect had required enough of their money—court costs, attorney fees, forfeited bail—that Ten’s paying his own way through college had been less about independence than it was a necessity.

  He wondered what Kaylie Flynn had been like as a kid. Then he wondered what had happened to make her a ward of the state. He’d never known a foster to go to the lengths she had, claiming for her own the home that wouldn’t have been hers if not for fate and social services. There had to be a reason, and he was curious enough to want to knock down her walls and find it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was long past lunchtime, was closer to the middle of the afternoon, in fact, before Kaylie thought to check the time. Her day had been taken up with fabric swatches, a tape measure, and the windows on her new home’s first floor. Since the construction wouldn’t affect the exterior walls, she felt safe doing the calculations now, but she wouldn’t order her window coverings until her contractor gave her the all clear.

  She knew she wanted lace panels, and had in mind a gorgeous Nottingham lace, but had also decided on natural-wood blinds, rather than drapes, to counter the heat of the sun. She remembered the nearly suffocating summer warmth in the rooms with west-facing glass. Unchecked, the temperature would not make for pleasant dining.

  She was on all fours figuring yardage with the calculator on her cell phone when she realized she was no longer alone. Magoo, smelling of turned earth and pine needles and happy sun-heated dog, scrabbled across the dining room’s worn floor to let her know Ten was waiting. How long he’d been standing there, Kaylie didn’t know, but she was pretty sure he’d beaten Magoo inside.

  Hands on her thighs, she sat back and took him in where he leaned against the doorframe. He wore khaki pants and deck shoes, his white work shirt rumpled in a freshly washed-and-dried casual way. His hair was damp and combed back, curling beneath his ears, his jaw smooth and clean. She inhaled deeply, smelling…goodness, and rain on grass, and a faint woodsy spice, and she had to measure her breaths, not wanting to indulge in his scents when so many others lingered in this room.

  The others…they were the ones deserving her regard, and she smiled, filling her lungs as they surfaced. Sage and brown gravy and marshmallows melted on yams. The memories overwhelmed her, and for no reason she could put a name to, she found herself pushed to share one of the best. “I ate my first real Thanksgiving dinner in here. I started fifth grade in Hope Springs and didn’t know a soul. I was the only one living with the Wises then. Other kids came in time for the holidays, but those first few weeks it was just me, and May spoiled me insanely.”

  She picked up her phone, her pencil, her legal pad, and got to her feet, staring at her notes as her smile began to fade. “She packed lunches that made my classmates beg to trade. Homemade cookies. Homemade bread with her own jam and butter. Not exactly the most nutritious of meals, now that I look back, but they gave me what I needed.”

  And why was she telling him all of this? Why weren’t they looking at the walls she wanted gone? Why wasn’t he saying something instead of standing and listening as she remembered being ten years old and drowning?

  She turned for the window, leaned her forehead against the glass, and conjured pictures from this place and the autumns she’d spent here. The zing of pine and damp cedar and Rio Grande Valley grapefruits, of yeast bread and nutmeg and cloves in cider. Tiny white lights draped in uneven ribbons from the porch roof’s edge, twinkling like strings of holiday fireflies.

  Kaylie was going to have lights year-round. She’d hang them before Two Owls opened and
leave them burning long after the doors closed for the last time. She hoped to be eighty by then. She planned to live here forever.

  “Tell me about Thanksgiving dinner.”

  Ten. He was still here, and she…she was drifting off as if he had all the time in the world to wait on her. As if he cared about the years she’d spent in this house. As if his knowing who she’d been then would make a difference now.

  Don’t look to where you’ve come from. Look to where you’re going. How many times through the years had Kaylie thought back on May’s words? She’d known returning to Hope Springs would be as difficult as it was essential, but she had to get a grip. This house was her anchor, her island. From here she could safely face the past.

  And so she took a tentative step. “I doubt it was much different than yours. Turkey, gravy. Cornbread dressing with all the sides.”

  He came into the room then, walked toward her. She heard his footsteps on the hardwood, saw his reflection in the glass, found her nose lifting, scenting. He moved to the window’s other side and leaned a shoulder against the wall.

  “No,” he said, looking out at the porch instead of at her. “Tell me about that first Thanksgiving dinner in this room.”

  Too late she wondered if she had the words, or if this intimacy was a good idea at all. But something told her he wouldn’t laugh or judge or think her crazy. That, like May, he knew how to listen. That he was willing to listen. That for whatever reason, he wanted to know about that day.

  Absently, she brought her fingers to the base of her neck, felt her pulse there, racing. “I was pretty sure it was the best meal I would ever eat in my life. And it wasn’t just the food, though I’d never seen so much on one table. There was another girl here with me by then, Cindy, and a boy who was five named Tim, and you’ve got to know the money the Wises were paid by the state was not why they volunteered to be foster parents. They truly wanted to make a difference.”