The Sweetness of Honey (A Hope Springs Novel) (22 page)

They were that different. That individual. That unique. And his mother had never, even when Oscar was a thriving child, been able to see that.

He understood some of her blindness. It came from the strict, nearly abusive mores under which she’d been raised, the life of poverty she’d lived, the desire to escape, wanting to be more than her family circumstances allowed. Meeting his father while working her way through college as a waitress. Marrying his father because she’d wanted a way out, not for anything close to love. She had no idea he’d learned any of this, of course, and he had no intention of telling her. But the knowledge had gone a long way through the years in giving him patience.

Movement at the end of the hallway had him glancing that direction, where Will Bowman stood in quiet conversation with the Caffey couple. As Oliver looked on, Luna and Angelo said their good-byes, Luna with a lingering hug, Angelo with an extended handshake, leaving Will alone. Leaving Oliver to wonder . . . Hmm. What was going on?

He glanced from Will toward Kaylie’s closed door, wondering about the convenient timing of Dakota’s arrival. Had his own efforts turned up the missing Keller sibling, Oliver doubted he could’ve arranged such a heartwarming tableau.

Bowman, on the other hand, with the connections Oliver had recently learned the other man had, the access he would have to investigators . . . Huh. It seemed he may have been able to work the miracle Oliver had not, yet it was more than clear Indiana had given Oliver the credit. As soon as he could, he’d set her straight.

Will was walking toward him now, his head shaking slowly. Oliver frowned, not sure what to make of the gesture. And then in a voice as weary as the dark circles beneath his eyes, Will said, “Don’t tell her.”

He held Oliver’s gaze keenly, until Oliver let go of the door handle and nodded. “She thinks it was me.”

Will shrugged with a laziness Oliver didn’t buy. “Let her think that.”

But that wasn’t Oliver’s way. “I can’t.”

“For now, then,” Will said, shoveling his hair out of his face. “Just do it for now.”

“You’ll be back to tell her the truth?”

Will answered with a snort. “You know I’m leaving?”

“I do now. And if you don’t come back and tell her, or write and tell her—”

“It doesn’t matter, dude. Really, it doesn’t.”

“Yeah. It does. I love her. I’m not going to lie to her.”

“Fine. Just give me time to split. A week. I’ll wrap things up as quick as I can.”

“Where are you going to go?”

He grinned, raised both hands, and began walking backward down the corridor. “I’ll go everywhere, man. I’ll go everywhere.”

Then he spun and pushed open the door to the emergency stairwell, disappearing as the warning buzzer sounded, bringing two burly orderlies to investigate the breach.

Oliver started walking the other direction, thinking the two were wasting their time. They wouldn’t see so much as a flash of Will Bowman’s black hair.

CHAPTER TWENTY

N
ine months ago, when Indiana had purchased Hiram Glass’s overgrown fifteen acres, and wreck of a cottage, and thriving hives of bees, she never would’ve imagined that her first overnight guest would be the brother she hadn’t seen since the day he’d walked out of prison.

In the ten years since, she’d done her best not to think about that day. About the ride to Huntsville she’d made with Ten, their parents out of the country and too involved to get back. Waiting anxiously for a glimpse of the brother she’d been responsible for sending away.

She hadn’t realized until it was too late that the man with the broad shoulders and buff chest, the big biceps and crew cut, the man getting into the cab parked three car lengths in front of them was Dakota. That was the picture she’d carried with her all this time.

Her brother. Leaving. Gone.

His hair was longer now, his face without a shave for at least a couple of days. His body was even more fit than it had appeared in the brief glimpse she’d gotten that day. What had changed the most were his eyes, the deep lines cut into his temples, the dark circles carved beneath. There was sorrow there. Worry, too. Resignation.

As happy as she was to see him, those changes made her sad. She had caused whatever he had suffered. Her need to be noticed. To be wanted. To be as important as the climate and the glaciers and the clubbed baby seals, and Thea Clark . . . Could she possibly have gone about seeking attention in a worse way?

Because wasn’t that why she’d toyed with Robby? She’d seen Thea do the same with Dakota, Shelley James do the same with Tennessee. How sad that she’d ruined so many lives because she’d been looking for love. And she’d done so in all the wrong places, a thought that had her groaning aloud.

“If I’d known it was going to take you this long to make coffee, I would’ve just asked for a glass of water.”

“Oh, it’s done,” she said, shaking off the bleak musings. She would learn to live with what she’d done. The consequences. The whys. All that mattered now was having Dakota home.

Except when she turned to hand him the mug she’d just poured, she stumbled. Dakota grabbed the coffee before it spilled, but he was too late for her. She spilled everywhere: on the floor, curling in on herself as she leaned against the cabinets, onto herself, crying a veritable flood of tears that soaked her, then soaked her brother as he sat beside her and pulled her into his lap.

“I’m so sorry for what I did. What I caused to happen. I ruined your life.”

“Indy, no. Just stop.” Dakota stroked her hair from her face, held one arm wrapped around her. The hand of the other pressed her head to his chest. “Robby Hunt was a piece of shit. Tennessee and I both knew that. But he got us what we wanted. Cigarettes, beer. Pot. That’s all we saw. We never saw the ugly side of who he was, and we should have. We never saw what he might do to you until it was too late.”

“It wasn’t all his fault. I tried to seduce him. Not the night in the kitchen when he attacked me, but before.” She sucked in a deep breath, shuddered as she released it. If Dakota walked out on her now, so be it, but she had to confess the truth of her part in Robby’s sins. “I wanted a boyfriend. I wanted a boy to think I was sexy. The way you thought Thea Clark was sexy—”

“Thea Clark? Indy.” He shook his head when she pulled back to look at him, and gave a gruff sort of chuckle that held little humor at all. “That was nothing but sex. I was sixteen. She put out. I don’t know what about that you thought was sexy.”

“You wanted her. I wanted that from someone.” And that was all she could bring herself to say. How pathetic to have felt so
un
wanted.

“Oh, Indiana.” He closed his eyes, let his head fall back against the cabinets. She slid from his lap to the floor, crossing her legs, staying close.

It was hard to wait. Hard not to make him talk. Hard not to shake him until the words poured out because she couldn’t go on without hearing them. Thirteen years. What had happened to him while she was finishing college and establishing IJK Gardens and trying to convince herself she was worth forgiving for the things she’d done wrong?

“The day you walked out of prison, I didn’t even recognize you,” she finally said. “Your hair was short”—it was long enough now that he wore it banded at his nape—“and you’d obviously worked out a
ton
in the six months since I’d seen you, because I didn’t recognize your shoulders, these shoulders,” she said, squeezing the ball of muscle, then squeezing his biceps. “It was too late when I realized it was you getting into the cab in front of us. Tennessee tried to follow, but we were blocked in, and then you were gone.

“I’ve thought about you every day since. I’ve pictured you doing all sorts of things. Fishing in Florida. Fishing in Alaska. Working the oil fields in Alaska, or North Dakota, or South Texas, though if you’ve been that close all this time I’ll have to hurt you.” He grinned when she said it, but he didn’t interrupt, and so she went on. “I imagined you as a tour guide in Colorado. Rafting trips. Hunting trips. I never thought of you sitting behind a desk. It’s always been something physical. I guess because of how you swung that bat—”

“That bat was a very long time ago,” he said, one big hand rubbing at his forehead. “I don’t like thinking about it because of what that night cost me, but mostly because of what it cost you.”

“What it cost
me
?” Her stomach tumbled. She thought she might throw up. What in the world was he saying?

“I made the choice to swing,” he said, reaching for one of her hands, holding it, bouncing it on his thigh. “You did not make the choice to have Robby assault you—”

“You don’t know everything.” She bowed her head, her voice soft. “I teased him. I led him on. I—”

“Uh-uh. I didn’t come all this way to listen to you take blame for that night.” His voice was deep, raspy. Firm. “There’s one person to blame. And he’s not in this room. I don’t blame you for anything. I could never blame you for anything.”

When she looked up and met his gaze, she thought she might break into a million pieces. Oh, the sadness simmering in his eyes. His lashes were long like Tennessee’s, but his eyes were a golden brown, and the tears welling in them, spilling from them, slipping down his cheeks burned her as if she were the one in pain.

What had he gone through while he’d been away? What could he possibly be suffering from? “I love you, big brother. So very much.”

He nodded, lifted the hem of his Henley pullover, and wiped his face. Then he sniffed and he smiled and he actually ruffled her hair. “You’re not bad yourself. For a kid sister.”

“So are you going to tell me where you’ve been? What you’ve been doing? Why in the world you left instead of coming home? And how in the world you managed to show up when you did? Talk about perfect timing—”

A sharp rap sounded on the front door, interrupting; then the door opened and heavy footsteps echoed from the living room before Tennessee appeared in the cottage’s eating area, frowning down where Indiana and Dakota sat on the floor. “I’m not sure I want to know what’s going on here.”

“What are
you
doing here?” Indiana asked, following Dakota to her feet.

“Kaylie kicked me out,” he said. “Said she needed sleep and I needed to be with the two of you.”

“How did you luck into a gorgeous, sensible woman like that?” Dakota asked, grabbing Tennessee to him for a lingering, backslapping hug. “Especially looking at how you turned out.”

“If I had a clue, I’d figure a way to sell it,” Tennessee said, his eyes misty, his voice as gruff as their brother’s. “Now, fill me in.”

Dakota’s hands went to his hips as he looked from Tennessee to Indiana. “Indy’s trying to convince me she’s to blame for the swing that changed Keller history.”

“I
am
to blame,” she said, anxiety rising inside her like a flood. She was drowning with the need to atone for her sins. Unable to breathe through the band of guilt drawing tight around her chest.

“You are not,” Dakota said. “And I don’t want to hear those words come out of your mouth again.”

“I should’ve been the one to do it,” Tennessee said. “I was still a minor. I wouldn’t have gone to prison—”

“You don’t know that,” Indiana butted in to say. “You were seventeen and could have easily been tried as an adult and served just as much time.”

“Hey.” Dakota held up a hand. “We’re all here now. We’re together. Nothing else matters.”

“But we’ve lost so much—” Indiana began.

Dakota cut her off with a shake of his head. “We haven’t lost a thing. Yeah, there’s a decade in there we spent apart, but who says Ten and I would’ve made a go of Keller Construction the way we’d planned? I like to think he pulled it together because I wasn’t here, and because giving parolees a leg up—and yeah, I know about that—was more important than the two of us trying to make a go of a family business.”

Was that really the way he saw their ruined lives? This wasn’t just some show for her benefit? “What happened to you out there in the big bad world? I don’t remember you ever being so . . .”

“Mellow?” he said, a laugh rolling up from his chest. “It’s a long story.”

And finally,
finally
, they had time. She walked back to the coffeepot, poured two more cups. “So was it my investigator who found you? Or Oliver’s?”

“I was in a little town in your namesake state, and I’m clueless as to who the dude was or where he came from.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’re here now.” And then she was struck with the most terrible thought ever. “You’re going to stay, aren’t you?”

“For a while, yeah.”

“No, no, no. Don’t say that.” Her knees nearly gave out at the thought. “We’ve got years and years of catching up to do. I can’t even think about you leaving again.”

“Chill, baby sister.” His grin pulled wide through the scruff on his face, his dimples so familiar. “I’m not going anywhere yet.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

O
liver hadn’t gone home after leaving the hospital, but had driven all the way to Dallas before realizing where he was. He’d just needed to go somewhere, anywhere. He’d needed to breathe. He’d needed time and space to reflect. About birth and about death. About life and about love. About families. Parents, brothers. A wife.

He’d reached the ripe old age of thirty-two without thinking about getting married. Without thinking seriously anyway. Without thinking it was what he wanted. His mother wanted it. As long as he wed the right woman. Pedigree counted. Education. Social status. The Gatlin name wasn’t up for grabs to just anyone.

How many times had she drilled those things into him? Funny, that, because the name belonged to his father. His mother had taken it as her own with no pedigree or education, and a negative social status. She’d brought nothing to the table except a strong desperation to escape the circumstances of her life.

She’d never told him anything about her background. He’d learned some from his father, but discovered most on his own. Having Oliver know what he did would embarrass her. Humiliate her. She was such a proud woman, so incredibly imperious, yet she would never understand how admirable her accomplishments were.

She’d overcome so much to make the life she wanted. A life that suited her. A life that had probably saved her. Yet he couldn’t remember her ever appearing to be happy. Perhaps she found the emotion a weakness, or she was more concerned with keeping what she had than allowing herself to enjoy it.

She’d certainly never considered what would make him or Oscar happy. They’d had Belgian Malinois guard dogs, not pets. They’d played tennis, not football. When all he’d wanted to do was paint, she’d insisted he get his degree, then after Oscar’s accident, insisted he focus on a career that wouldn’t consume him.

And her matchmaking efforts . . . He didn’t want to think about those, but how could he not? He didn’t want what she and his father had. He wanted what Tennessee shared with Kaylie. What Angelo had found with Luna. Even what Mitch Pepper enjoyed with Dolly, both older, and wiser, this second time around.

And he wanted all of that with Indiana Keller. The idea that she might possibly be his for the rest of his life had him struggling to breathe, had him wondering if his heart would give out before he saw her to tell her. He floored the BMW’s accelerator and shot like a rocket down the highway into the night.

He couldn’t possibly get back to Hope Springs fast enough. He needed to be there now.

It was almost midnight when he arrived at the cottage on Three Wishes Road. Lights were on as expected; he couldn’t imagine Indiana not staying up with Dakota. And Tennessee’s truck was in the driveway as well.

He wondered how that conversation had gone, Kaylie most likely ordering the three Keller siblings out of her room so she could rest, and so they could get to know one another all over again.

Thinking back, he realized it had been seven months since Indiana had first mentioned her plan to find her brother. Seven months. He was pretty sure he’d fallen in love with her over breakfast at Malina’s that morning. But Will asking him not to tell her that he was the one who’d found Dakota . . .

If things went the way Oliver was hoping, that secret wasn’t one he’d be keeping for long. He’d promised to give Will a week, and he was a man of his word. But he was not going further into this relationship without a policy of full disclosure. Which meant he was going to have to do a lot of coming clean.

Indiana answered his knock with a loud, “Oliver! Where have you been?” and grabbed his arm and tugged him forward. “I left Kaylie’s room and you were gone. I must have called you a half dozen times.”

He took a single step inside and breathed in the scent of citrus that always hung in the air. But he smelled coffee, too, and what he thought might be biscuits and gravy. Comfort food for those needing comfort.

“I went for a drive. I needed to think. I turned off my phone.”

She cocked her head and considered him curiously while pushing her hair from her face. “That sounds ominous.”

“Not ominous. Just . . .” He shrugged because he wasn’t sure what else to say. A loud burst of male laugher erupted from the kitchen, reminding him she had important company, and the things he wanted to say to her could wait. “I’ll come back. I don’t want to intrude.”

“You’re not intruding,” she said, grabbing his shirtsleeve and nearly dragging him into the cottage’s front room. “You need to meet Dakota properly. And I need to thank you properly for the best gift I’ve ever received.”

His promise to Will weighed heavily, but it was a promise. “We’ll talk about that gift later. And as much as I want to get to know your brother, you need this time with him, and with Ten,” he added, hearing the voice he recognized above the unfamiliar one. And then, because he obviously wasn’t thinking straight, and he didn’t want to mess up the thing that had brought him here, he said, “I’ll catch up with you tomorrow.”

“Oliver. You’re not making sense. Why come here if you’re just going to leave?” She was frowning, her arms crossed in that way she had of showing her displeasure. “You look like crap, to be honest, and I don’t just mean the hair and the clothes and the bags under your eyes. Are you okay?”

The fact that he knew that about her stance and that she recognized that about him made him smile. “It’ll keep,” he said, though really it wouldn’t. The things he needed to say . . . He took a deep breath, blew it out, took another, and shoved his fists in his pockets. “Or you could come outside with me. Just for a few.”

This time she considered him with a wary regard, and really, he couldn’t blame her. The last few months he’d hardly been himself, and yet . . . That wasn’t true. He’d been his real self. His true, artistic self. And he had this woman to thank for giving him his life.

“Fine,” she said. She called toward the kitchen, “Be right back,” then followed him onto the tiny porch, her boots scuffing across the surface. The screen door creaked and latched behind her, and she led him down the steps to the swing she’d set up on a frame in the yard. It wouldn’t fit on the porch.

Nothing would fit on the porch, save for the small potted rubber tree he’d kept from Oscar’s funeral, one sent by the staff of the Caffey-Gatlin Academy and that he’d left without mentioning when visiting her on Valentine’s Day.

Why it had seemed to fit here instead of at home . . . Then again, the house he’d lived in all these years hadn’t felt like home in ages. He’d stayed because he needed to be where Oscar couldn’t be. For his mother. To a lesser extent his father. Mostly for himself.

But this tiny little nearly uninhabitable cottage where Indiana spent most of her time, yeah. It felt like a home. And when he was here, no, when he was with her, he felt like he was exactly where he belonged.

She dropped to sit on the swing, and kicked it into motion. As always, she wore the only pair of cowboy boots he’d ever seen on her feet. Except for Kaylie’s wedding, and the various holiday functions they’d both attended the last few months, they were
all
he’d ever seen on her feet.

He wanted to ask her about them, how long had she had them, did they have a special meaning, but realized all his questions were just a distraction when the whole of his future was on the line.

“Oliver?”

He shook his head, dropped it back on his shoulders, flexed his hands in his pockets as if he could grab the right moment and squeeze it into submission, because this wasn’t going the way he’d planned.

“Hey. You.” She stopped the swing, nudged his ankle with the toe of her boot. “What’s going on?”

“I want very much . . . I would like very much . . .” He stopped and cleared his throat, hoping the words he was looking for would fall into the space that was no longer clogged, because they weren’t coming. They just weren’t coming—

“Oliver. What is it?” she asked, planting her boots on the ground.

“Indiana Jane Keller, will you marry me?”

She held his gaze, a long, lingering moment of his willing her to say yes, of her saying nothing, of her eyes tearing up so that he didn’t want her to say anything at all.

He should’ve known better. He’d met her when he was someone else, before he’d grown into his skin. He couldn’t blame her for refusing him, for wanting what she thought she’d signed up for rather than the truth.

“I can’t.”

“Because of Will?” he asked, not sure why he would use the other man as an excuse.

“Why would you ask me that?” But she didn’t give him time to answer before adding, “No. This has nothing to do with Will.”

“My mother, then.”

“Oliver, please.” She stood, hugged herself, rubbed her hands up and down her arms. “It’s not your mother. It’s just . . . There are some things about me, things I’ve done . . .”

Funny. He’d never been on the receiving end of the “It’s not you, it’s me” rejection cliché. “What about you? What don’t I know? What don’t you want me to know?”

Eyes closed, she let her head fall back as she shook it, then turned and gave him a sad smile. “Do you realize we’ve known each other almost seven months?”

And wasn’t she the one who’d talked about knowing in six if a relationship was going to work? “Look, I know it seems as if I don’t know who I am, what I’m doing with my life. The painting . . . I’d given it up for a long time—”

“Oh, Oliver, no,” she said, and grabbed for his arm, squeezing his wrist, then his hand, then releasing him. “I love that you’re painting. I’m so far beyond happy about it that I can’t put it into words. When I said it was me, I meant it. You’re right that there are things I don’t want you to know. That I’ve never wanted anyone to know. Things no one does. Not Tennessee or Dakota. Not Kaylie. Not Luna.”

“Then tell me,” he said, and moved closer.

She countered by circling around to stand behind the swing. “I can’t—”

“Yeah. You can,” he said, and moved in, grabbing the chains and rattling them, the noise an echo of the commotion churning in his gut. “I’m not going to let you use some horrible secret you’ve been keeping get in the way of the best thing that’s ever happened in my life. I’m not going to give you up, give
us
up because you refuse to come clean.”

“What if I do come clean?” she asked, her voice soft, her head bowed. “And what if it changes everything?”

“It won’t.”

“You can’t know that,” she said, looking up again, her eyes wet and glistening in the light from the moon.

“I can know that. I do know that. Nothing you tell me will change how I feel about you.”

“You say that now . . .”

Knowing the next few minutes would define the rest of his life, he responded in the only way he could. “Then prove me wrong.”