Bliss and the Art of Forever (A Hope Springs Novel) Read online

  ALSO BY ALISON KENT

  Hope Springs Novels

  The Second Chance Café

  Beneath the Patchwork Moon

  The Sweetness of Honey

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Alison Kent

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477828618

  ISBN-10: 1477828613

  Cover design by Anna Curtis

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014957337

  To chocolate. To coffee.

  To the man in my life who puts up with my love of both.

  And whom I love because he puts up with me.

  And for Jedi

  Who needs a bookstore of his own.

  Thanks, too, to Shannon W. for the tip on tribal tats!

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  TWO OWLS’ ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE BROWNIE CAKE

  THREE

  FOUR

  FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2006

  FIVE

  SIX

  ADDY DRAKE’S OOEY GOOEY CAKE

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  BLISS’S ORANGE-SPICED WHITE HOT CHOCOLATE

  NINE

  TEN

  SHIRLEY DRAKE’S OREO CAKE

  ELEVEN

  MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2013

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  BROOKLYN’S BANANA BREAD SPICE CAKE

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  TWO OWLS’ CRACKLE-TOP BROWNIES

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  BACK ALLEY BURGERS’ TRES LECHES CAKE

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2001

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  MAX MALINA’S MAMA MIA! ITALIAN CREAM CAKE

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ONE

  Inked script at his nape. Colored sleeves beneath his rolled cuffs. Elaborate artwork in his oxford’s open collar. Her imagination wandered to his back and his chest, to his shoulders. His biceps. His abs. The tattoos were symbolic, not simply cosmetic, and part of the biker culture, leaving her to wonder how important the club had been to his life before he’d walked away.

  Tats intrigued her—the creativity, the significance, the commitment—even when the man wearing the ink was her student’s father, and off-limits. This particular man also wore, not a beard, but an unkempt scruff framing a devilish smile. His hair was long, pulled back in a disheveled sort of knot. It had her thinking of Heathcliff, tortured and haunted and wild on the moors.

  Had her, too, wanting to rescue him.

  Hands curled over the edge of her desk as she leaned back against it, Brooklyn Harvey looked out at her class of kindergartners. The fifteen five- and six-year-olds sat on the floor in a semicircle, their rapt attention on Callum Drake. Rather than using the full-sized chair she’d offered him, he’d lowered his six-foot-plus frame into one of those from the pint-sized collage table. Watching him fold himself to sit had been as breathtaking as watching him walk through the door.

  She’d met Adrianne Drake’s grandparents, Shirley and Vaughn, at orientation before school started, and visited with them again at parents’ night, and at the Halloween costume party, and when they’d eaten lunch with the girl on Grandparents’ Day, and at Christmas. But today, over halfway into the school year, was the first time she’d seen Adrianne’s father for herself.

  After months of his daughter’s chatter, and details dropped by the older Drakes about their son, Brooklyn had found herself wanting to know more about him. But the man who’d arrived right on time for story hour left her speechless, because none of the photos she’d seen—the success of his business put him in the local spotlight on a regular basis—had him looking like he’d walked out of a foggy Irish landscape, green eyed and larger than life, with a touch of ginger tinting his dark brown hair.

  When she’d read his name on the sign-up sheet for her Dads Love Books, Too! reading program, she’d been surprised. And a little bit apprehensive. Involving the parents in their children’s learning experience was an important part of her curriculum.

  But was exposing her students to a member of a biker gang—okay, an ex-member of a biker gang—a smart thing to do? Would other parents object should they get wind of a man with his background, celebrity or not, upstanding citizen or not, interacting with their children in her classroom?

  And then she’d thought about Adrianne Drake. The girl was one of the most well-adjusted children Brooklyn had ever taught. She was bright, and gave serious thought to her questions and her answers. She was kind to her classmates, and responsive when Brooklyn asked for help. Yes, the girl’s grandparents were an influential and hands-on part of her life, but she lived full-time with her father. She adored her father. She rarely stopped talking about her father.

  In the end, that had been the deciding factor in Brooklyn’s e-mailing Callum the details to confirm the date. She’d needed to meet the man who, as a single parent burdened with the baggage of a sketchy past, was rearing such a precious, and precocious, little girl.

  Now that she had, well, she had more questions than answers. At the top of her list: Why was this man unattached? It couldn’t be a lack of women throwing themselves at him, based on his looks alone. Then there was his career. His chocolate shop, Bliss, a locally owned small business, was often spotlighted by the Hope Springs Courant. A lot of women had a thing for men whose work drew that sort of acclaim.

  More important, however, why hadn’t he found time before now to visit his daughter at school? What about today’s story hour was so different from the other activities she’d arranged to involve her students’ parents?

  But mostly, why was she letting herself notice him as anything besides Adrianne Drake’s father when she was very happily single and intent on staying that way? The idea of going through another loss, no matter Artie’s black-humored insistence that should he die in the line of duty, she mourn him no more than two years . . . she wasn’t ready. She didn’t know if she’d ever be.

  She supposed it should make her feel better that she wasn’t the only one captivated by the man. The three homeroom mothers had stopped setting up poststory treats—conversation heart–topped minicupcakes and heart-shaped cookies, both from Butters Bakery, and cute little candies with a chocolate shell and a root beer filling, from Callum’s confectionery—to listen to the chocolatier introduce himself to the members of her class.

  It was hard for Brooklyn to wrap her head around his transition from biker to candy maker, but she had no trouble picturing him in chef whites, the tats at his nape and the base of his throat suggesting she’d like what she’d find if she freed the buttons of his coat, parted the sides, pushed the garment off his shoulders, outlined the designs first with a fingertip, then her tongue—

  “Okay,” Callum said, his deep voice drawing Brooklyn’s gaze and a heated blush. “Are we ready for a story now?�
��

  “Yes!” cried a chorus of exuberant voices.

  He looked to Brooklyn for guidance. She picked up a flat marble paperweight carved to look like an owl and nodded for him to begin, because nodding didn’t require her to speak, and the owl gave her something to do with her hands. Good grief. What was wrong with her? Yes, he was pretty. Oh, he was pretty. And intriguing. And so very hot.

  But Brooklyn had plans. Big plans. A week after the school year ended, she was going to be on her way to Italy with no idea when she’d return. Ships crossing in the night, she and Callum Drake. Or in this case, crossing in a kindergarten classroom.

  He opened the picture book his daughter handed him, facing the pages of The Bunny Who Loved Chocolate toward his rapt audience. Adrianne sat in the center of the front row, her corkscrew blond pigtails brushing her shoulders, her crooked front tooth taking nothing away from her grin. She had eyes only for her dad, and Brooklyn stanched the catch tugging at her heart. He was doing such a good job as a father.

  “Opie was a bunny whose fur was colored . . .”

  “Blue!” The children called out the answer, and Callum turned the page.

  “The same color as the sky where his friends the birds . . .”

  “Flew!”

  An awkward sentence, but it worked for the rhyme. Brooklyn looked from Callum to his daughter and watched Adrianne mouth the words. They’d obviously shared this story many times. The girl anticipated then mimicked the faces he made and the rhythm with which he read, and Brooklyn couldn’t deny the smile teasing her own lips. Or her fascination with the movement of his.

  “Opie loved chocolate, and all candy . . .”

  “Too!”

  “But he only had lettuce, and didn’t know what to . . .”

  “Do!”

  Pushing off her desk and leaving the owl behind, Brooklyn circled the room to the snack table still needing to be readied. Callum was through four pages now, and only sixteen remained. She probably knew the story as well as Adrianne did. “Can I help with anything?” she whispered to one of the moms.

  “Oh, no, we’re fine.” Bethany Patzka, who’d donated a tray of vegan granola and dried fruit clusters, leaned closer, bringing her fingers to her mouth to hide her words. “Just a little bit distracted, if you know what I mean. The kids are absolutely worshiping that man, and he looks like he could eat them for breakfast.”

  “I’d like to give him something to eat for breakfast,” Lindsay Webber, the second volunteer and mother of Adrianne Drake’s best friend, Kelly, put in, eliciting a sharp groan from the third.

  Brooklyn looked at Callum. His gaze came up and met hers, and she pressed her hand to her throat to hide the throb of her pulse at the base. Surely he hadn’t heard; he was half a room away.

  But the words were out there, as was the sound, and both had her mind going places it didn’t need to. Places she’d avoided for ages because she’d made her peace with being alone.

  She’d had twelve years with the most wonderful man she’d ever known. Twelve years traveling the globe, and cooking breakfast for dinner, and watching every Bruce Willis movie ever made multiple times.

  Until the roof of a burning building had collapsed, trapping Artie and another member of his firefighting crew and turning her world upside down. The love of her life had been gone for almost two years, and that was that.

  Which didn’t explain why was she thinking about Callum Drake’s tats, his green eyes and ginger hair, and how his skin would taste smeared with chocolate.

  Another hour, Brooklyn decided, and she was calling it quits. School had been dismissed for the four-day weekend, though since no one she knew actually celebrated Presidents’ Day, it was less a holiday than it was a paid day off.

  She’d stayed late the last three afternoons to put her classroom in order and get her lesson plans in tip-top shape. Organizing her work life made it a lot easier to enjoy her personal life guilt-free. She planned to do a lot of enjoying over the upcoming break, even if Valentine’s Day fell smack in the middle of it.

  The idea of a single day set aside for shallow, meaningless rituals of love had never sat well with her, even before meeting Artie. It was one of the things they’d shared, even if, ironically, the date itself ended up having a special meaning for them, and they’d used the it in other ways.

  For Artie, it had been work. Every year he’d volunteered to swap shifts with any buddy who’d felt pressured to devote the day to romance. Then he’d chuckled about the poor soul not understanding the rewards of said devotion practiced daily. “You don’t just brush your teeth after eating cotton candy. You see to the things that matter every day.” Artie, practical to the core.

  For Brooklyn, it had been doing nothing but anything she wanted. A movie at Hope Springs’ small art house theater after school. Antique shopping in Gruene and a solo dinner at the Gristmill restaurant. If she had the day off, a book in the backyard hammock. An afternoon nap in the same. And if the cold weather had been too much to bear, she’d done her reading and napping on the sofa in front of a fire.

  Doing nothing but anything she wanted was exactly how she planned to spend the next four days, starting with lunch tomorrow at Two Owls Café with Jean Dial. Her next-door neighbor, a schoolteacher herself, though retired, loved Two Owls as much as Brooklyn, and they made a date of it monthly.

  They had great fun swapping recipes and cooking tips and school district gossip, and discussing the medieval romances they both read until the spines cracked and the pages fell out. But Brooklyn enjoyed even more so listening to Jean’s stories—and advice—from forty years in the teaching trenches.

  After lunch it would be home again for a movie marathon with a six-pack of Kaylie Keller’s brownies. The owner of Two Owls had made a name for herself and her Austin bakery with an incredible selection of the treats; now having sold the Sweet Spot and moved to Hope Springs, she offered a variety on the café’s buffet for dessert.

  As far as what to watch while nibbling through all that chocolate, Brooklyn was thinking the original Die Hard trilogy, followed by Unbreakable. Oh, how Artie had loved Unbreakable. She pulled in a deeply felt breath and shuddered with it. The long afternoons she and her husband had spent cuddled up on the couch watching those movies and, as newlyweds, season after season of Moonlighting on VHS . . .

  Eyes closed, she allowed the sadness its moment, then shook it off. Artie had been gone two years. She would always miss him. She would always love him. But he’d made her promise, should anything happen to him, that she wouldn’t stop living her life because he’d lost his. That was the last thing he’d wanted. And she’d done her best to respect his wishes, but once in a while, just every so often, she had to give grief its due.

  Anyway, she mused, crossing from the classroom’s cubbies to her desk, a Friday spent with Bruce Willis and brownies required she do something on Saturday to counter the calories and sloth. Most of her friends would be busy with their significant others, leaving her on her own. Which wouldn’t be such a bad thing if, since Artie’s death, she hadn’t fallen into a rut.

  It hadn’t happened overnight. But it had happened. She’d initiated fewer outings with friends—dinners, shopping, shows—and turned down more and more invitations. It was easier to stay in and read her medieval romances or watch her Bruce Willis films than feel like a third wheel—or like a walking reminder to other firefighters’ wives of what they and their men faced daily.

  She had coworkers to whom she was close, and friends she’d met in yoga class, and neighbors, sure, but a rut being the dull and boring routine that it was, well, not to be defensive, but books and movies did make for great company. Though, she mused, a cat might be even better. Two cats. A clowder of cats. A glaring of cats. A whole freaking clutter of cats.

  Thankfully, she’d be on her way to Italy soon, and seeing Artie’s family there, because knowing that many terms for a group of said felines was a pretty good sign sloth was the
least of her worries. This trip, as hard as it would be, was going to be good for her, because honestly, she needed to remember how to have fun.

  Reaching for her trash can, she dusted her hands free of used staples and bent tacks. “Maybe I’ll do something outrageous tomorrow. Like buy myself chocolate for Valentine’s Day.”

  “Valentine’s Day isn’t Valentine’s Day without chocolate.”

  At the deep male voice, she spun, reaching for her scissors, yet realizing instinctively she wouldn’t need them. What criminal sort announced himself before committing his crime? Also, after today’s story hour, she knew that voice well. She imagined she’d be a long time forgetting it.

  She turned from her desk, forgoing the weapon. Callum Drake stood in her doorway, wispy twists of hair hanging loose from the knot on the back of his head to brush his cheeks. He had a forearm on either side of the frame, his feet in the hall as if he were a vampire awaiting an invitation.

  For a very long moment she wondered how safe it would be to offer him one. “Mr. Drake,” she finally said. “You scared me.” She brought her hand to the base of her throat, less frightened than . . . other things. Things that had no business in this classroom. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Callum,” he said, his shrug careless and lazy, but also hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure, or was having second thoughts about whatever he’d come for. “Or Cal. Or C.B.”

  “C.B.?”

  “Bennett,” he said, and grinned, a devastating flash of teeth and charm. “My middle name. Friends used to call me that, but it’s been a while, so . . .”

  Callum Bennett Drake. Irish biker. Candy maker. Daddy to a six-year-old moppet. Deep breath, Brooklyn. Deep breath. You have plans and no room in your life for a rogue. “Callum it is.”

  His grin deepened. “Addy told me you’d been staying late all week. I was hoping you might still be here.”

  Addy. She’d forgotten his daughter telling her he used the nickname. She’d also forgotten telling the class she’d be preholiday cleaning after school, using the chore as a lesson in rewards. All she had to do was put in the time, and voilà, she had the long weekend free.