“She has a basket with a plate for money out on the road. It’s not like she’s set up a shop.”
“What’s to stop her? If you’ve got all the women on the Central Coast driving up our shared road?”
“County-owned and maintained,” objected Cade.
Pete continued, his face florid. “Up our road, with the intention of shopping, they’ll look for more to do. We’re known for our livestock here. We don’t want to be known for arts and crafts.” He spat the last words out as if they were dirty. “That belongs in town here. Why didn’t you keep that little girl from opening on your land? Even if you’re head over heels, be a man about it.”
Landers said helpfully, “There’s a vacant retail space next to the pulled-taffy store where the bead place went belly-up last month.”
Cade took a deep breath. “Number one, I am not doing this because I’m head over heels. Number two, I have no say in this. It’s not my land anymore. Aunt Eliza left me the house and the ranch. She left the girl the cottage and the land it sits on. You know that; I told you all that. And number three, and most important, it’s really none of your damn business. It’s only going to get word out about our valley, not entice Wal-Mart. Suck it up.”
The others shook their heads.
“Well, it’s still low,” said Pete. “Pretty damn low.”
“It wasn’t low, it was her right. It was her land. I’d just been working it.”
Landers said, “You’d put everything into that land. It’s all yours. She shouldn’ta done that.”
“But she did. And I still have the land, don’t I? Abigail only has the cottage. That’s a pretty small footprint.”
Pete said, “Not once all those cars start coming up your driveway. You gonna have to put down a parking lot?”
“Hell, no!” Cade was so vehement the other men broke into laughter. “There won’t be a parking lot. The dirt lot is fine.”
“How will people find her?”
“She might have put up a small sign.”
“How you feel about that?”
“It only says ‘Eliza’s,’ so it’s okay. I mean, it was Eliza’s, right?”
“But what about the girl?” asked Pete, never one to let anything go. “Word is she’s still in the house with you.”
“Yeah. Word’s right. I didn’t have any choice. She couldn’t stay in the cottage, not until she’s fixed it up.”
“When’s that gonna be?”
“Dunno. Haven’t been helping her, have I?”
“Oh, so you want her in the house with you? I would, too. She’s a looker,” said Pete.
“No! I only meant I’m not helping her…” His voice trailed off.
Landers said, “Cops pull you over last night?”
“Just John Moss.”
“He had something to say about why you were speeding.”
Cade could actually feel himself blushing, and hid his face in his coffee cup. “John’s gullible. I thought it might work. I still got the ticket.”
“Ovulating?” Pete’s voice was almost a squeak.
“It was worth a shot.”
The men hooted. Cade felt like he’d come home. This was what he needed.
Then Pete looked at him and said, “But don’t take up with her.”
Cade sobered. “Why?” It was the only word he dared say without giving himself away.
“Because then she’ll stay. And you want her to fail.”
All the men nodded. “Yep.”
“That’s right.”
“The sooner the better. Once her business goes down the tubes, you can buy the land back and it’ll be okay. And she’ll be gone.”
Cade felt sick. “Yeah,” he said. “She’ll be gone.”
He looked up and saw Bonnie York entering the diner. She was the local fire investigator. She walked past Old Bill and back to the old room.
“Cade?” she said. “I need to talk with you about that fire you had the other day.”
The men moved on to talking about the incoming storm, and Cade felt a different storm building inside his chest.
Chapter Thirty-one
Knit through everything.
—E.C.
Abigail opened her eyes slowly. Where was she? These weren’t her sheets. It took her a moment to adjust.
To remember. What she had done. How she had moved against him, how he had lifted and turned her, how he had filled her. How he had held her through the night.
She hadn’t slept well, the feel of his skin against hers a constant surprise. She drifted off into sleep, only to be startled awake again and again when he shifted in sleep.
It had been a long time since she’d shared a bed. But it felt good.
She stretched and looked out the window, squinting against the light. Sheep grazed the low rolling hills. It looked like a pastoral print at a gift shop.
Her stomach tightened, fluttered. She felt like she’d had four cups of coffee.
Last night, he had seemed so…
Attentive.
Caring. As he’d touched her, as he’d kissed her, over every inch of skin that his mouth could reach, he’d been passionate. As if he’d meant it.
She knew she’d meant it. She’d meant it all.
Abigail sighed and sat up. She swung her bare legs off the bed, scrunching her toes in the sheepskin on the floor.
She shouldn’t have meant it. She should be protecting herself more. Her last relationship turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes she’d ever made. How could she trust herself to judge the character of a man, when she’d been so devastatingly wrong about Samuel?
Even if Cade wasn’t anything like Samuel, look at Betty. That was Cade’s type. Abigail wasn’t, she was just convenient. In the right proximity. Good Lord, if he couldn’t get laid in his own house, by the woman living in it…
But it still felt like more.
In her heart, a lot more.
Did all his dates feel this way?
Did he touch them the same way, with trembling fingertips, with a mouth soft, then firm, then hot, then sweet? Did he hold them all night the way he’d held her, as if she was precious, even in sleep?
Did they all fall in love with him?
Love.
No. Not that. She looked at the clock. Almost nine.
She stood and moved to the window. She reveled in the feel of cool air against her nakedness.
She yawned, then stretched her arms over her head.
Cade.
She pulled his name through her mind, testing it like she tested fibers, drawing it out under her breath like the fiber drew out toward the wheel.
She tested two other words again: In love.
Oh, God. Oh, dammit.
Would that explain the feeling in the pit of her stomach, the nerves, the jangling in her spirit?
Would that explain how even when they avoided each other, she was always so aware of where he was? Her hearing felt fine-tuned. She could hear his truck a minute before he even turned into the driveway. She knew exactly where he was in the house, even if it was four or five rooms away.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about her new superpower, but she was beginning to understand it.
In love.
She hadn’t bargained on this.
Well. Cade was out and about, doing his ranch things, and she would start moving around, too. It was time to move, really move. It had been a month, the cottage was ready, and it was high time she got out of his space.
She stood, stretched again, and started working. Today would be the day she’d start over, in her new home.
She took her time, but the distance between the house and cottage was short, and really, she didn’t have much to move. Abigail had a strange feeling in her stomach, a reluctance she wouldn’t name. The stairs, while steep in both places, didn’t take that long to climb. She moved slowly and didn’t rush the customers that came by, only moving her things when no one was in the store, but by late afternoon, she had moved ev
erything to the cottage. She placed her few possessions on the shelves that lined the cottage bedroom.
Her room in Cade’s house was stripped of any sign that she’d ever been there. Eliza’s knitted blanket was folded neatly on the bed she’d used. It looked like a spare room again.
Done.
After her last few books were unpacked in her new, upstairs room, Abigail sat on her new bed and stared out the windows. Clara snoozed on her new green dog bed.
Abigail looked across the bright room at the old rolltop desk she’d found in an antiques shop in town. She sighed. It was perfect. It was the writing spot that she’d always seen in her mind when she pictured her ideal office. An endless, gorgeous view, her own space, room for paper and pens, her laptop, her idea notebook. Downstairs, a space for people to come and create their own visions.
Nothing could be better.
But it was missing something. Or someone.
God, it should be enough that she was here, that she had done this, that she had created this space, that she was ready to live the dream. She shouldn’t have this burning need to share it.
But she did. And while she was eager for Janet to see it completely done and ready, Abigail wasn’t thinking about Janet. Or of any of the knitting enthusiasts she knew.
Cade.
Abigail wanted him here, wanted his approval. She knew in her mind that she might never get it from him, that he might always dislike her venture, her shop, her dream. But to have him stand up here with her, one arm around her, as they looked out on this incredible view…
Okay, a girl could dream, right?
Or would he always harbor that grudge, deep down? Would Abigail always be the usurper, the one that came in and took space away from him? The one who took away his silent, solitary life?
She could change his mind.
After last night, she was willing to try.
She raised her hands to cool her burning cheeks.
She wondered if he’d heard back from the fire investigator. As she sat on the bed, she tried not to let her mind go to where it had gone earlier, when she’d almost panicked. She took a deep breath.
It couldn’t be Samuel who’d lit that fire.
Samuel didn’t have any way of knowing where she’d gone. He didn’t know Eliza, didn’t know she’d died. Didn’t know where she’d moved. Only Janet knew the exact address, and Janet would never give out that kind of information, to anyone.
And it would turn out that linseed or old wiring or something had caused the fire. She shouldn’t worry so much.
Dinner. She’d make Cade dinner tonight, and invite him to her place. A date at her new home. And maybe tonight, in her new room…
She could barely think about it. So she wouldn’t think. She would do. She would keep doing, moving, keep herself busy. Keeping Cade out of her mind until he was in her new home. Keeping Samuel out of her mind completely.
Abigail drove to the store in town, picked up groceries, and came home. She wrote on the side of a paper bag, “Dinner, The Cottage, 7 P.M.”
She walked over and taped it to the kitchen door. He wouldn’t be able to miss it.
This would be good. He’d love it.
Abigail’s new kitchen was small but adequate. It had a pie safe built into one wall that made her long to bake pastry. The old stove put out good, reliable heat.
She cooked chicken: chopped it, mixed it with artichoke hearts and pesto, and then made fresh linguine. Making fresh pasta was usually something she loved to do and simple enough, but today she struggled. She couldn’t keep her mind on what she was doing.
A few minutes before seven, she pushed a low table out to the porch and set it in front of the swing. She set two places with red napkins and silverware. She got out two glasses and opened a bottle of red wine. She left the food in the kitchen to keep warm. She put bread and brie on a plate. Clara remained well behaved, but never took her eyes off the cheese, and Abigail didn’t trust her enough to leave her alone with it on the porch.
Abigail sat on the swing and looked at her cell phone. Seven o’clock. She heard Cade’s truck roll up the driveway, and then heard him park. She couldn’t see that side of the house from here, but he always entered the house through the kitchen door.
Abigail smiled at Clara. “Soon,” she whispered.
She smelled a tinge of smoke in the air—it had been lingering for days, a souvenir of the fire. It was eerie. The way it started so quickly, the way Tom would normally have been around, but was in town with slashed tires…
Ridiculous. The fire chief had said it was probably linseed rags. Something like that.
Abigail took a piece of sourdough bread. She spread it with a little brie and stopped herself from having a second piece. Cade would be here soon.
It was just an old reaction, she told herself. Perfectly normal. She’d lived in fear for a long time, and it was probably just built in to her mind now. When something scary happened, the first thing she’d think of was Samuel. Natural.
It was just that the fire had scared her. That’s why Samuel was in her mind like this again. As scared as she’d been during the fire, it hadn’t been as bad as that night. The bad night.
It happened a couple of months after she’d broken up with him, after she’d told Samuel she wouldn’t see him again. The breakup had been bad enough: she’d been in love with him, which had been wonderful, but he wanted more than just love. First, he wanted a copy of her apartment key before she was ready to give it to him. Months after his nagging, she finally handed him one, at which point he wanted to move in with her.
During one of their arguments about their living arrangements, Samuel ended up yelling at her in a restaurant, towering over her while his hands clenched into tight fists. It felt as if the only thing that had prevented her from hitting her was the fact that they were in public.
He’d scared her that night, and no matter how she felt about someone, she knew it wasn’t right to be scared. Eliza had taught her better than that.
Abigail ended it with Samuel. A broken heart was better than a broken face. She called herself enlightened and congratulated herself through her tears.
Then he started following her.
Abigail had made a police report about it, of course. She’d even gone to court and obtained a restraining order. The piece of paper said he couldn’t make physical or verbal contact with her, and that he had to stay a hundred feet from her, but it didn’t stop him from being there, at every turn she made, a hundred and one feet away. The grocery store. The bank. The movies.
She learned there was nothing like fear to mend a broken heart.
Abigail called the cops anyway, every time. Just to be on the safe side. When they arrived, he drove away, smiling and waving at her. There was nothing the cops could do.
She found pink roses on her car’s windshield almost every morning, even when it was locked in the garage.
She changed the locks on her doors.
One night she’d come home from visiting Eliza, and as soon as she’d entered, she knew he’d been there. There was a feeling, a metallic twinge of electricity as soon as her door opened. Everything in the living room looked to be in place, but Abigail fled, pulling the door shut and running down the walkway. She got in her car, locked the doors, and called the police.
When they came, they cleared the apartment, making sure he wasn’t hiding, and then came out to her car, where she sat shaking. They told her that someone had turned her bedroom upside down. All her drawers had been upended, bookcases knocked over. The bed had been slashed with a kitchen knife, sliced through the duvet and sheets, down into the mattress. Pink roses lined the headboard.
Abigail nodded when they told her. She’d felt him there when she’d opened the door.
After she finished her statement, they escorted her into the apartment. They asked if she needed someone to stay with her while she packed a bag, but she said no, she’d be fine. She’d stay at a hotel tonight and get new locks and a
n alarm tomorrow.
After they left, she pulled out her suitcase. She wished for the first time for a gun. Or a dog. Maybe she’d get both. For now, what would make her feel better? A knife? No, she’d hurt herself. Something heavy that she could swing. The iron?
Abigail went to the tiny, narrow kitchen closet that housed both the ironing board and the iron. The small door was covered with a hanging tapestry that she loved. It was the only place the police must have missed. When she opened the closet, Samuel, wedged sideways inside, grinned at her and said, “Hello.”
Abigail spun and started to run, but he was faster than she was. He lunged out of the tiny space, the ironing board and iron crashing to the ground behind them. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled down, so hard that Abigail’s neck snapped backward. She lost her balance and fell. She hit her head as she went down and saw stars. She tried desperately to keep track of exactly where Samuel was, but he was on top of her before she could roll out of the way.
“I missed you, baby.”
“You’re fucking insane!” Abigail tensed her body under his. Everything she’d ever read about fending off attack flew through her mind. Don’t let him take her away from here. Don’t let him restrain her. Run. Fight.
Samuel used one hand to hold both her hands over her head. He was strong. His other hand held a gun, which he showed to her, holding it in front of her eyes. Then he pressed the muzzle to her temple, traced her eyelid with it, then moved it down her nose and to her mouth. He moved the cold metal against her lips. Gentle at first. Abigail kept her mouth closed.
“Open your mouth, lovely.”
She’d never seen him look like this. His eyes were dilated. He had to be on something. Abigail could see the blood vessels in his neck pulsing rapidly. Sweat ran off his forehead and hit her cheek. “Open.”
Not gentle anymore. The metal shoved against her mouth, and he used more pressure to force her lips apart. He scraped the gun on her teeth, until in sheer terror she let her jaw open. He pushed the entire barrel of the gun into her mouth, down her throat.
How to Knit a Love Song Page 24
