Abigail shook her head. “It’s only twenty minutes from where you live in town.”
“But think of the town, honey. It’s no metropolis.”
“You left that all behind years ago anyway. You should be used to it.”
“I suppose I am, but I am not used to this. Now, show me everything. Oh, my God, you have a dog?” Clara tried to jump on Janet, but Janet stepped to the side in a practiced move.
She was wearing an orange-and-fuchsia low-cut blouse that clung to her curves and showed to great advantage the chest that she had bought and paid for years ago. Her outfit was completed by a tight brown skirt with a long slit up the side and high-heeled brown leather knee-high boots.
“I can’t show you everything. Believe me, you don’t want to walk around the barns in those heels. I can barely manage it in tennis shoes.”
“I can go anywhere in these, darling. Lead the way.”
“The cottage first, then. It’s really all I can safely show you anyway.”
Janet’s perfect eyebrows went up, but didn’t ask.
They went up onto the porch, Janet making appreciative noises. Abigail opened the door.
“Oh,” said Janet. “Wow.”
“It needs a lot of work.”
“Understatement of the century. What is all this stuff?”
Abigail’s voice became lighter as she told Janet more about what Eliza had left for her. She showed her the partially set up wheels, and opened boxes to show her the stored fiber.
“Spinning wheels!” Abigail pushed four boxes aside to show her the Lendrum, already put together. “Tons of wheels, all kinds. Fiber in rolags and batts, all gorgeously prepped. Yarn, lots of it, from a vendor in Maine. Dyes, all natural. Look! There’s even a cash register, over here. Oh, it’s somewhere. But isn’t it amazing?”
Janet cocked her head and said, “It’s something, all right.”
“You have to admit that it’s awesome, right? Eliza is giving me not only the cottage but my dream as well.”
“Your dream was to sell yarn on a rural road twenty minutes from a decent cup of coffee?”
“I can make my own coffee here.”
“What does the cowboy think about all this?”
Abigail flushed, and she knew Janet noticed. She turned to close up a box. “He’s not too happy about it.”
“I’m sure. Will he get used to it?”
“He’ll have to, won’t he? I mean, he doesn’t have that much choice. This is my land, my place, my property, and I can put in a driveway out to that county road behind my pasture, if I have to. I got the license this morning, and met with the local business bureau, and it’s all set to go. As soon as I’m ready in here, I can open the shop.”
Janet put a finger to her cheek. “You have a pasture? Oh, darling, it’s too much. Show me your pasture.”
“I have alpacas, too.”
Janet’s mouth dropped open, and for once, she didn’t appear to have anything to say.
Abigail thought Janet did well, the next half hour, as she led her around the property. She made it across the dirt and into the shed just fine in the spiked boots. She seemed to adore the alpacas, although they didn’t look like they knew what to make of her, and shied away every time she approached.
Tussah, the female, was making great strides. She let Abigail approach her neck and touch her back. Merino didn’t shy too much from her either. Abigail figured the twice-daily feeding she’d been doing was starting to work.
Abigail made sure Cade’s truck was nowhere in sight and then showed Janet the main house. Janet loved the parlor the best.
Of course she would, thought Abigail. The one room she didn’t want to reenter, Janet swooned over.
“That lamp! And those windows! That piano! The whole room is perfect. It’s like something out of Little House on the Prairie.”
“Oh, please.”
“And just look at that fireplace, can you ever imagine anything more romantic? What you need to do, honey, is get that Cade in here one night, you give him a little whiskey or whatever it is the cowboys are drinking these days. A little smooch, and you get a little hot-cha-cha, right here,”—she paused, looking over the room—“right over there on that sofa, mmmm-hmmm.”
Abigail rolled her eyes and tried to sound nonchalant. “Cut it out.”
“Oh, honey, I’m only teasing you.”
“Didn’t you want to see the barn?”
“Of course I do. Lead on.”
Once outside, Abigail again carefully searched for Cade’s big old truck, but didn’t see it. She’d found in the past few days that the barn was a wonderful place to visit if she could sneak in by herself. There was always a sheep or two in one of the pens, not with the fold. Cade had four horses that he rode and used in herding the sheep, and they were kept either in the pasture to the immediate rear of the barn, or in their stalls. Two other working dogs lived out there, too, dogs that seemed completely flummoxed by Clara’s inability to do anything work-like.
Before she came here, Abigail hadn’t ever known how nice it was to hear a horse’s puffy breaths coming over a wooden door. She’d snuck in several times already to hear it.
“Horses! Oh, divine,” exclaimed Janet.
Well, at least she was an appreciative audience.
“Oh, look at the big beasts,” said Janet. “Look at how handsome you are, what a big boy you are, how gorgeous, that big soft nose, and those huge eyes…”
“Thanks. I love getting compliments like that from beautiful ladies.”
Both women spun around to find a man standing behind them, his arms crossed, a smile across his face, a cowboy hat on his head.
“Oh, divine,” breathed Janet.
“I’m Abigail. You must be Tom. Cade’s mentioned you.” Abigail stuck out her hand. His palm was huge, callused and rough.
“I’ve seen you up at the house from a distance. Been meaning to come up and introduce myself, but it’s been busy down here lately. I’m sorry for that.”
Before Abigail could respond, Janet stepped in front of her.
“My name is Janet,” she said, batting her eyes. Abigail hadn’t ever actually seen anyone do that before, and she was amazed.
So, it seemed, was Tom.
“T-Tom,” he stuttered. Then he cleared his throat. “Are you Abigail’s sister?”
“Aren’t you the sweetest? No, I’m in fashion. Imports.”
Tom looked confused.
“Luxury fibers, darling. That’s how I know our girl here. Actually, I’m the one who convinced her to write her first book. Now, you—you look like someone with a book inside you, just waiting to burst out.”
Tom grinned and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Well, that’s somethin’. I’ve been thinking a little bit lately that I’d like to write a book someday. Maybe a Western. Like Louis L’Amour.”
“Show me more of your horses, and maybe I’ll see if I can pull that book out of you.”
Tom grinned bigger. They wandered off down toward the other stalls.
Abigail called after them, “I’ll be at the cottage, then, okay? Cleaning!” Neither looked back at her. “By myself! Don’t worry about me!”
Janet gave a jaunty wave without turning around.
An hour later, Abigail was covered in dust, grime, and sweat. She had moved the bulk of the boxes into one half of the front room, culling the junk from the stuff that would be stock, marking on the sides of other boxes what the contents were. She had a plan for moving the boxes out of the hall and kitchen. While she did the grunt work, in her mind she was designing her bedroom-slash-writing studio upstairs, in the cupola.
It almost worked to take her mind off Cade.
She had, however, managed to decide that she would sacrifice having a big bed upstairs and just get a small one—it would be hard to get a big one up there anyway—in favor of having a larger writing desk in front of one of the many windows. The octagonal room itself had windows on all sides, and Abigail had ch
osen yellow walls with red-checkered curtains. The red would help keep the light out in the morning, and looked as cheery as the landscape outside.
Maybe she’d see Cade from up there, when she was working.
Not that she’d be looking.
She would give the rest of the cottage over to her new workshop. She didn’t really know what to call it in her head—store, shop, classroom? She wanted a limited amount of retail product available—some spinning wheels and oils, things like brake bands and bobbins. She pictured baskets in the corners with wooden bobbins that customers could poke through and pick from, bins of loose fiber that people could pull out, bundle, and measure on the scale that would stand on an old dark wooden desk. She didn’t have the desk yet. But she could imagine it.
But really, more than a store, Abigail wanted a place for knitters to gather, for people to be able to come and knit or spin in a beautiful place. She wanted couches and tables piled with books and coffee cups, and colorful walls, light and flowers. A sense of place.
She would change the downstairs bedroom into a small classroom. She wouldn’t have big classes, never more than seven or eight people—there was room for a large table or two, and comfortable chairs. Yesterday, when she’d been cleaning in there, she’d been surprised when she pulled back the old, heavy drapes and found a pair of French doors that opened onto a small deck, overlooking the alpaca pasture. The doors, along with the three windows, gave the room all the light they’d need to spin even the finest of downy fibers.
She wondered if Cade had ever seen anyone spinning, wondered if Eliza had spun anything for him.
No, maybe not. Eliza didn’t like to make things for people who wouldn’t appreciate the gift; she wouldn’t make handspun socks or hats, much less handspun sweaters, for people who would carelessly toss them into a hot washing machine. So Cade probably had little from her.
But Eliza had loved him. So he might have a store-bought-yarn hand-knitted sweater or two, she supposed. Eliza had always glowed when speaking of her nephew. She had been so proud of him, proud that he’d done so much with her land, with his life. She had been so proud that he’d taken after his father and not his mother, who had been a piece of work, apparently.
What would Eliza think now?
“Where are you?” whispered Abigail, wandering through the rooms littered with boxes. “Are you still here?”
She threw open the French doors again and wandered out.
Janet’s voice calling her from the front made her jump.
“I’m out here,” she called. “Come through the bedroom.”
Janet came out onto the deck, Tom following at her heels. He looked a little confused, like he’d been hit on the head with something. He didn’t seem to mind.
Actually, he looked besotted, his eyes locked on Janet’s face.
“We’re going to lunch. We just wanted to tell you, in case you were looking for me, or in case Cade looks for Tom.”
Abigail noted she was not invited.
“We’re going to talk about literature,” said Tom.
Janet shot her a cheeky grin, and they popped back through the French doors and out of sight.
She supposed that was what she got for taking Janet through the barn.
She would check on her livestock; that would cheer her up.
Chapter Twenty
I’ve always found it’s better to keep my fingers moving, knitting always. It keeps me out of trouble.
—E.C.
Abigail called Clara, who dragged herself out from behind a pile of boxes. It looked like she had been chewing a sponge. Great. Now the dog would be sick on top of everything else.
They walked out and around to the pasture. Abigail had left the door to the shed open to the field behind it. That way the animals could wander in and out at their whim, eating or drinking water, with the freedom that any alpaca deserved. Or at least, that’s what she assumed an alpaca deserved.
Tussah looked up when she opened the gate, did a small head toss, and backed up a bit. But she let Abigail approach her, not moving away as quickly as she had yesterday.
“What a good girl.” Abigail looked around. “Where’s Merino?”
He must be in the shed, perhaps taking a nap.
It was dark inside, and Abigail strained her eyes. She peered into the corners. There was a dangling lightbulb overhead, but no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t see Merino.
“Tussah! Where’s Merino?” Yeah, asking the other alpaca would work.
Clara, on the other side of the fence, cocked her head to the side, watching Abigail closely.
Then she saw it. Damn.
There was a rip in the fence so big it looked like it had been cut with wire cutters—Abigail wasn’t sure if it was new or if she’d missed it. Cade had checked also, hadn’t he? Had he missed it, too?
Or had he seen it and not mentioned it? It wouldn’t bother him much if she lost the alpacas.
She didn’t quite know what to do. She’d lost cats before, but beyond searching the backyard and calling their name around the neighborhood, there wasn’t much to be done about a lost cat.
She’d had a dog run away when she was a kid, right after her mother died, and she’d had a doubly broken heart. She knew that if her mom had still been around they would have found Lucky. Mothers were good at that sort of thing. She remembered being so furious at her father for not being able to find her lost dog.
It was nice that Clara was sticking to her so closely, like a shadow most of the time, unless she was chewing on things she wasn’t supposed to, like that sponge.
But now—yeah, now she had a problem.
How to look for an alpaca.
Should she drive? Should she look for tracks first?
Yes. Wasn’t that what they did out here on the ranch? Search for the tracks? She really had no idea what to look for, but she figured an alpaca footprint couldn’t be too hard to figure out.
She ran back past a startled-looking Tussah, to where the break in the fence was. Yes, here were prints. They were distinctive and clear, narrow, notched ovals, and they were on both sides of the hole in the fence. Abigail wished Tom hadn’t left with Janet; he could have helped search.
But as she headed up the hill, following a dirt track that Merino had apparently found appealing, she thought it was just as well. Tom would tell Cade, who would get a huge laugh at her expense. They’d sit around all guy-like and chortle. Probably spit off the porch.
No, she’d do this by herself.
It was a gorgeous, cool, foggy day. The ground was still slightly wet. Thank God. Merino wasn’t proving hard to track at all.
Or maybe she was just good at this. Sure, she was a city slicker, or at least not a country girl, but these tracks were easy. They seemed purposeful—Merino was headed in one direction with what seemed like intent. He didn’t veer from the track he was on. His clear footprints led her forward, to a stand of oak trees.
Once in the trees, it got a little harder to follow him. Her newfound confidence didn’t flag, though, and she was prouder by the moment each time she found the disturbed place in the leaves that signaled where her animal had stepped.
The oak leaves crunched under her feet as she went, and looking back she realized that even her own footprints were evident, now that she was trying.
She glanced up between footsteps to survey the land around her. She wasn’t even sure this was still Cade’s property, although since she hadn’t had to climb over a fence, she assumed so.
The track veered now to the left, going a bit downhill. Abigail skidded on some leaves and almost fell.
Easy. This was no place to fall.
The signs were harder to find now. She struggled, taking minutes at a time between track identifications. There were other markings now, and she had no idea what kind of animals they belonged to. She hoped they were nothing that liked alpacas for dinner, though. Did mountain lions live up here?
Then she lost Merino’s tracks en
tirely. They were suddenly gone, the earth too hard or the leaves too thick for her to pick anything up.
She sighed and pushed her hair out of her eyes. She’d probably been following a deer for the last half mile, anyway.
Now, to figure out which way was back to the cottage.
She stood in one spot, then headed a little bit uphill.
Yes, this was the way she had come.
But she hadn’t noticed that stump with the red paint before, and surely she would have, right? Why would a stump be painted red, all the way out here? She turned again, looking behind her.
She couldn’t identify anything.
This was ridiculous.
She walked farther. She kept walking, clambering over fallen logs, praying that she was avoiding the poison oak she knew was all around. Nothing looked familiar in the slightest. But why would it? Trees looked like trees, and she hadn’t been paying any attention at all to the land around her while she was tracking Merino—her head had been down, eyes focused only on the ground.
Maybe it might help orient her if she went uphill. She had gone downhill, after all, for quite a while, and if she got up high enough, maybe she’d be able to see the cottage or the ranch—anything.
Panting, legs burning, she climbed up. At the top of a hill, she turned all the way around, but the trees still blocked her view.
Nope. No earthly idea where she was. And she knew that Cade’s land was bordered to the north by conservation land, which could stretch on forever.
She might die in this forest.
Okay, she could admit it wasn’t really forest. At all. It was rolling hills thick with live oaks and eucalyptus.
The redwoods! She remembered that there was a stand of redwoods to one side of Cade’s ranch, and those should be easy enough to spot if she got high up enough. If she climbed one of the trees…
One oak had low, spreading limbs, and it looked like the kind of tree she had loved to climb when she was a kid. Of course, that had been years and years ago. But wasn’t it like riding a bike?
It had been years since she’d ridden a bike, too.
How to Knit a Love Song Page 13
