The Second Chance Café (Hope Springs, #1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

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