The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club

by Lori Wilde

  “You’re not listening to me,” Beau said. “I tried my best to protect you from him, but like a moth to the flame you flew straight into the arms of danger. You were just like Jodi. What’s wrong with women? They have a good man yet they gotta have the bad ones.”

  “You’re mixing your metaphors,” Flynn said, her snarky mouth trying to hop in to save the day, create some levity, snap him out of this weird trance he seemed to have fallen under.

  “I did it all for you,” Beau said, completely ignoring her attempt to shift the tone. “Everything was for you.”

  Flynn could hardly breathe, she was so shocked at how far Beau had deteriorated. How had he gotten so lost? “You found out about the big insurance policy Jesse took out on the shop. That gave you a motive to pin on him.”

  “People in this town do talk. Mostly all you have to do is buy them a meal and it’s blab, blab, blab.” He brought his thumb up in a repeated motion, using his two middle fingers to mimic chatter. His eyes were unnaturally bright. “I’ve always tried to do the right thing. You know that.”

  “You have,” she said, ready to agree to anything if she could just see the old Beau again. This new guy was scaring the hell out of her.

  “Then why am I losing you to a scumbag convict?”

  “So you got drunk and you started the fire and tried to make it look like Jesse torched the place for the insurance money.”

  Her words seem to take the fight out of him. His shoulders slumped, his face went slack. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “What was it like then?”

  “I got drunk. I went to the motorcycle shop to see Calloway. He wasn’t there and I just knew he was with you.”

  “Of course he wasn’t there. It was three o’clock in the morning, but he wasn’t with me.”

  “I was drunk. I hadn’t thought it through, I just kept picturing him on top of you, inside of you.” A startled sound ripped from Beau’s throat and threw chills up her spine. “I got enraged.”

  “And then you burned the motorcycle shop down.”

  “No,” he said hoarsely. “I admit it, I saw the gasoline can in the back room and a box of latex gloves on the shelf. It wasn’t premeditated. It just happened.”

  Flynn nodded. Jesse had fueled up a motorcycle on Saturday so that a potential customer could take one of the Harleys out for a spin, and he kept latex gloves on hand for when he worked on greasy engines.

  “I grabbed the can, spread gasoline all over the place, and then…”

  “You lit a match and ran,” she said flatly.

  “No.” He shook his head, ran a heavy palm down his face. “No. I…the smell of gasoline snapped me out of my drunken rage. I realized I was making a big mistake and I threw the gas can in the Dumpster and staggered out of there. That must have been when Mrs. Baron saw me.”

  “Are you saying the place just caught itself on fire?”

  He shook his head, looked woeful. “There must have been a spark from the hot water heater pilot light that set off the blaze. I swear to you, Flynn. I did not light a match. I’m sorry I caused you to lose the shop. I know how hard you worked. I just want you back.”

  “It’s too late for that.”

  Anguish pulled at his mouth. “I love you so much, Flynnie.”

  “It’s the wrong kind of love. You’re trying to use me to fill up an empty space in your life, in your heart. I can’t do that. No one can fill it up except you, Beau. You have to look deep inside yourself and find what’s missing. Only you can fix you.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not going to do anything. You’re going to come clean to Fire Chief Rutledge and then you’re going to contact the proper authorities and make sure Jesse is pardoned for the crimes he did not commit. Because if you don’t, I will do it for you.”

  Flynn left the sheriff’s office and raced back to the hospital, anxious to be with Jesse again and tell him how sorry she was for doubting him. She hurried down the corridor and burst into his room, only to find the bed empty and the deputy who’d been guarding Jesse standing in the hall chatting up one of the nurses.

  “Where is Jesse?” she demanded of the deputy.

  “Doctor just released him.”

  “What did you do with him?”

  The deputy shrugged. “Beau said to cut him loose.”

  Some of the tension drained from her shoulders. “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know, but he said he had some thinking to do.”

  Flynn left the hospital feeling numb with exhaustion. So much had happened over the last forty-eight hours, she could barely think. She drove around town looking for Jesse’s Harley, but she didn’t see it anywhere. Driving past the burned-out motorcycle shop, seeing it in ruins, made her stomach ache. She went by Patsy’s house but no one was home. She headed over to the fire station. But neither Hondo nor Fire Chief Rutledge was there. Where was Jesse?

  She didn’t know what to do or where to go. She needed to do some serious thinking herself, but the house was full with Joel and Noah back home. She needed a space of her own.

  Her cell phone rang. She dug it from her purse, palmed it. “Hello?”

  “Rendezvous,” Jesse said, and then hung up.

  Flynn grinned and headed for home.

  Once there, she dug the canoe from the garage, dragged it to the water, and paddled for their secret meeting spot.

  The sun set on the horizon, descending into twilight. The air was alive with the sights and sounds of the river she loved so much. She paddled past the columns of the old bridge. The salvaged materials sat stacked on either side of the boat ramps, awaiting the start of the new construction. Her heart soared.

  As she rowed upriver, it felt as if she was rowing into both her future and her past. In that moment she was sixteen again, sneaking off for a rendezvous with the boy she hadn’t been able to admit she loved.

  Jesse.

  By the time she maneuvered the bend in the river and came upon the swimming hole, her heart was in her throat. There he was, on the bluff, waiting for her.

  The dying sunlight cast him in an orange halo of light. Her bad boy, who at his core was very, very good. She docked the canoe against the bank. He was there, reaching down his hand to help her ashore. His left eye was black and blue, he had a long scratch on his forehead, and his skin was blistered bright pink, but he was the best-looking thing she’d ever seen.

  “Flynn,” he murmured.

  “Jesse.”

  He stared at her for the longest moment. “You got Trainer to confess to everything.”

  “I did.”

  “You believed me.”

  “I should have believed you all along, Jesse. Forgive me for not believing you.”

  A smile quirked up the corners of his lips. “If you’ll forgive me for sending your letters back to you unread.”

  “Done.”

  He looked a little uncertain, cleared his throat.

  “Is there something you’d like to say?”

  He nodded, took her hand. “Let’s sit.”

  They sat on the bluff where they’d sat so many years ago and watched the sun disappear and the crickets start their chirping. “We’ve lost a lot of time.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve lost a lot of yourself.”

  “I wouldn’t say lost.”

  “But you haven’t had a chance to find out who you really are.”

  “That’s probably true.”

  “You have that chance now. The Yarn Barn is gone. Your brothers are growing up. Carrie can take care of herself. Your father’s gonna stay on the program.”

  She nodded.

  “That means you’re free. Free to be who you’re destined to be, not what other people want you to be.”

  “What are you trying to say, Jesse?”

  He looked deeply into her eyes. “I love you, Flynn. I love your smart little mouth and your sharp mind. I love how you take care of the people you love. How loyal and tr
ue you are. I love how you attract strays like Miss Tabitha. How you give so much of yourself without even thinking about it. I’m honored to know you, Flynn MacGregor, and I want to spend the rest of my days finding out more. I want you to be my woman. I want to ask you to marry me, but I can’t.”

  “No?” Her chest got all achy.

  “No. I can’t hold you back. I won’t. You need to explore. Find out who you are and what you want.”

  “I want you.”

  “You can’t just rush into me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “I don’t want you to ever have any regrets. I don’t want to be the thing that ties you down.”

  “Oh, you goofy man. There’s no escaping it. We’re knitted up in each other. There’s no denying it.”

  “Even if you can’t knit?” He grinned.

  “That’s what I have the Sweethearts for. Besides, I don’t need to look any further than my hometown for adventure. Everything I need is right in front of me.” She looked at him, at the man she loved, and she knew it was true. “Being with you is all the exploration I need. You’re just bad enough, Jesse Calloway, to keep me interested.”

  “Why didn’t you say so sooner, woman?” he asked. “Now, how about we go skinny-dipping in those underground caves?”

  Flynn laughed and stripped off her clothes. “Or,” she said, “we could just stay right here and make love in the moonlight.”

  EPILOGUE

  Flynn, embrace who you are.

  —The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club, embroidered on a pillow, 2009

  “I’ve got something to confess,” Flynn said to the Sweethearts on the Friday evening following the fire. They’d met at her house again. All of them gathered around in their rockers, their hands busy with their knitting—Patsy, Terri, Marva, Raylene, Dotty Mae, and Belinda. Even Miss Tabitha was there, curled up in Flynn’s lap. She cleared her throat. “I should have come clean a long time ago.”

  Everyone looked up at her, and she rested her knitting in her lap. The six women she admired most in town. The women who’d become surrogate mothers to her. The women who’d shared her laughter and tears. She was about to disappoint them, to shatter their faith in her. The lump in her throat swelled to a boulder.

  “What is it, dear?” Dotty Mae asked.

  “I…” She blew out her breath. “This is going to come as a shock.”

  Belinda reached over to pat her hand. “You don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to tell us.”

  “But I do want to tell this. You guys deserve the truth. You’ve been there for me in bad times and good, but I feel like my secret is a huge barrier between us. Although, after I confess, you’re probably not going to want me to hang out with you anymore.”

  “Good Lord,” Raylene splayed a hand over her chest. “What on earth did you do?”

  “Okay, here goes.” She was having the toughest time pushing the words past her lips. She’d kept her secret for so long, it felt odd to just come out and say it. “I can’t knit. Can’t purl. I don’t make scarves, I don’t know a ripple stitch from a seed stitch. My mother was a world-class knitter and I’m a big fat fraud. And a liar. A big, fat, lying fraud. Carrie’s been knitting all my projects for me.”

  Flynn expected to see stunned surprise on the faces of her friends. Instead, all six simultaneously broke into gales of laughter. “I’m serious.” She frowned. “I can’t knit to save my life.”

  “Honey,” Marva said, “just how dumb do you think we are?”

  Flynn blinked. “You knew?”

  “A ten-year-old can knit better than you,” Terri said.

  “Ten-year-old, hell.” Raylene hooted. “Miss Tabitha can knit better than Flynn.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “No offense, honey,” Dotty Mae added. “But your knitting stinks like year-old gym socks.”

  “You guys knew?”

  All six nodded in unison.

  Flynn was flabbergasted. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “We were afraid that if you knew we knew, you wouldn’t want to be in the knitting club anymore,” Patsy explained.

  “Wait a minute, let me get this straight. Even though I can’t knit, you wanted me in the knitting club?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But why?”

  “You’re our heart and soul, Flynn,” Marva said. “Don’t you get that?”

  “Me?”

  “You’re the thread that binds us all together.” Tears misted Belinda’s eyes.

  “You complete us,” Terri teased, mangling the Jerry McGuire quote to suit the situation.

  “You’re the one who remembers everyone’s birthdays,” Raylene pointed out.

  “You send get well cards to our kids,” Belinda said.

  “You listen to our troubles,” Dotty Mae contributed.

  “You crack jokes that keep us in stitches,” Patsy added.

  “And you remind us so much of your mother,” Marva went on. “Loving and giving and wise and sassy.”

  Something occurred to her then. “Did my mother know I couldn’t knit?”

  “She was your mother,” Marva said. “Of course she knew.”

  “Well, why didn’t she say something?”

  “Because you were trying so hard to please her. She knew you gave it your all and that you just didn’t have a knack for it.”

  “She praised the scarves Carrie made as if they were mine. That doesn’t seem fair to Carrie.”

  “Honey.” Marva touched her hand. “She was just so grateful to have you taking care of her. She wanted to boost your self-confidence. Besides, she and Carrie cooked up the scheme together.”

  “What!”

  “They just wanted you to feel good about yourself.”

  “I don’t get this.” Flynn got up from her chair and paced the braided rug, distress knotting up her chest. “Why did my mother want me to start the Yarn Barn if she knew I couldn’t knit? Why didn’t she just ask Carrie?”

  “Because she knew you needed us as much as we needed you,” Patsy said. “You’re so busy caring for others, you never realized how much you needed to take care of yourself. That’s our job, Flynn, to take care of you.”

  Suddenly they were all crying and passing around tissues and hugging and dabbing at their eyes, and Flynn knew that no matter what happened, the Sweethearts would always be knitted up into one another’s lives.

  “Hey,” Flynn said to Belinda. “You never did tell us the gossip about Trixie Lyn Sparks. What’s that all about?”

  “Oh, sit back and start knitting, girls, have I got a Texas-sized scandal for you…”

  An Excerpt from

  THE COWBOY TAKES A BRIDE

  Available 3/27/2012

  CHAPTER ONE

  Good sense comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from actin’ like a damn fool.

  — Dutch Callahan

  The naked cowboy in the gold-plated horse trough presented a conundrum.

  In the purple-orange light of breaking dawn, Mariah Callahan snared her bottom lip between her teeth, curled her fingernails into her palms, and tried not to panic. It had been a long drive down from Chicago, and jacked up on espresso, she hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. There was a very good chance she was hallucinating.

  She reached to ratchet her glasses up higher on her nose for a better look, but then remembered she was wearing contact lenses. She wasn’t seeing things. He was for real. No figment of her fertile imagination.

  Who was he?

  Better question, what was she going to do about him?

  His bare forearms, tanned and lean, angled from the edges of the trough; an empty bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold dangled from the fingertips of his right hand. Even in a relaxed pose, his muscular biceps were tightly coiled, making Mariah think of hard, driving piston engines.

  Like his arms, his legs lay slung over each side of the trough. He wore expensive eelskin cowboy boots. She canted her head, studying his feet.

&n
bsp; Size thirteen at least.

  Hmm, was it true what they said about the size of a man’s feet?

  She raised her palms to her heated cheeks, surprised to find she made herself blush.

  Question number three. How had he come to be naked and still have his boots on?

  Curiosity bested embarrassment as she tracked her gaze up the length of his honed, sinewy legs that were humorously pale in contrast to his tanned arms. No doubt, like most cowboys, he dressed in blue jeans ninety percent of the time.

  She perched on tiptoes to peek over the edge of the horse trough. The murky green water hit him midthigh and camouflaged his other naked bits. Robbed of the view, she didn’t know if she was grateful or disappointed.

  But nothing could hide that chest.

  Washboard abs indeed. Rippled and flat. Not an ounce of fat. Pecs of Atlas.

  A rough, jagged scar, gone silvery with age, ambled a staggered path from his left nipple down to his armpit, marring nature’s work of art. The scar lent him a wicked air.

  Mariah gulped, as captivated as a cat in front of an aquarium.

  A black Stetson lay cocked down over his face, hiding all his features, save for his strong, masculine jaw studded with at least a day’s worth of ebony beard. His eyes had to be as black as the Stetson and that stubble.

  Mesmerized, she felt her body heat up in places she had no business heating up. She didn’t know who this man was, or how he’d gotten here, although she supposed that drunken ranch hands came with the territory. If she was going to be a rancher, she’d have to learn to deal with it.

  A rancher? Her? Ha! Big cosmic joke and she was the punch line.

  Less than twenty-four hours ago she had been standing in line at the downtown Chicago unemployment office— having just come from a job interview where once again, she had not gotten the job— her hands chafed from the cold October wind blowing off the lake, when she’d gotten word that Dutch had died and left her a horse ranch in Jubilee, Texas.