The Comfort of Favorite Things (A Hope Springs Novel) by Alison Kent Page A

trucks. It was what they’d talked about doing while still teens. But as soon as he’d been free of the state and able, Dakota had split. Not even Manny had known how to reach him, which was exactly what Dakota had wanted.
    Freedom. Anonymity.
    Peace.
    What he hadn’t wanted then, and didn’t want now, was Tennessee counting on him. For anything. He didn’t want the pressure of living up to any expectations his brother—or his sister—might have. He’d been thinking about that a lot. Thinking what he might have to do about it.
    He took a big fat uncomfortable breath. “Good. Because after this job for Thea, I’m thinking about cutting out.”
    “Cutting out.” Tennessee’s hands went to his thighs. He stretched out his fingers before drawing them up into fists. His frown deepened between his brows. “You mean leaving? Hope Springs? Texas? What about the business? What about Indiana?”
    His brother’s questions flew at him like darts toward a board already full of too many holes to count. “Indiana will be fine whether I’m living here or not. So will your business. You can get any of Manny’s ex-cons to build barista stations in coffee shops.”
    “I don’t want any of Manny’s ex-cons.”
    “C’mon, Tennessee. It’s not like we’re working together.”
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Tennessee asked, scowling.
    Dakota crossed his arms. “Think about it. This last year. When have we ever crewed a job together? You go one way. I go another. Or I go out to do the manual labor, and you stay in to push pencils.”
    Time ticked slowly toward Tennessee’s response. “That’s what you think I do?”
    “I think what you do is what you’ve always done,” Dakota said bluntly. “Been the boss. Taken care of the company you built. Seen to the needs of your wife and your daughter. Indiana.”
    “You’re talking about family.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Your family. Not just mine.”
    “Yeah,” Dakota said again, the air around the word crackling.
    Tennessee swiveled back to his drafting board then shoved off his stool, pacing several steps away before coming back. He was rubbing at his forehead when he did. “Then there’s some kind of disconnect going on here that I don’t get.”
    Dakota didn’t expect his brother to get it. Tennessee wasn’t the one who’d spent three years behind bars and the rest of his life since aimless. “How about I work the Bread and Bean job, and we revisit this when it’s done? I won’t go anywhere, or make plans to leave before then.”
    It had been the wrong thing to say. “Do you want the answer I’d give another employee, or the one I’d give my brother?”
    Dakota’s spine stiffened. His gut knotted. He leaned his head to one side and cracked his neck. “I think you just gave me both.”
    “I need the work done right,” Tennessee said, his jaw tight as he ground out the words. “I need to know whoever is doing it is not taking shortcuts. That he’s not rushing through to get done and get gone.”
    Because that’s what he assumed Dakota would do. Which spoke to the heart of the matter.
    Tennessee wasn’t thinking about Dakota as his brother, much less his partner. He was thinking about him as an ex-con. “You run into that with a lot of the guys Manny sends you?”
    “Not until now.”
    And . . . stalemate. Tennessee wasn’t going to give an inch, but neither was Dakota. That said, Dakota wasn’t in the mood to fight, to argue, to explain—none of it. He’d been back a year. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected from his homecoming, but knew he needed to figure it out.
    He wasn’t going to be of any use to anyone until he did.
    He stepped down from the stool and took off, leaving the keys to the truck he’d been driving on the hood and setting off on foot for Indiana’s cottage.

    It had only taken Thea one look at Becca’s face to make her decision about Butters Bakery. Well more than one, actually. First there had been the disappointment