How to Knit a Heart Back Home

by Rachael Herron

  Lucy scooted to the edge of her chair and tugged on the hem of her old bookstore sweater. She had to explain to him her favorite find of all in the boxes. “See this? This was my grandmother’s sweater. She made it from Eliza’s pattern. I found half the pattern for this, the body part. But not the sleeves. I have to know if the sleeves exist.”

  Owen looked bemused. “I can see that the sleeves do exist. Full of holes, but they’re there.”

  “No, in her words. Her pattern.” How to explain it for the non-knitter? Lucy didn’t know how to make it clear how important it was.

  “Can’t you do something like un-knit it? Figure it out backward.”

  “Reverse engineering. You’re good.” Lucy was impressed. “But it wouldn’t be half as exciting as finding her real, original pattern—what Eliza Carpenter really intended.”

  Owen shifted his weight on his chair, obviously redistributing his weight off his hip, and Lucy was aware of the smallness of her grandmother’s old kitchen.

  “Will you make money from me?”

  “No! I can’t keep them. I have to give them back to you.”

  “What if I don’t want them?”

  Lucy paused and then said, “Well, I think you might actually have to give them back to Cade and Abigail MacArthur anyway, since they’re unpublished, and depending on laws that I probably don’t understand fully, they’ll revert to her heirs.”

  Without warning, Owen leaned forward, putting his mouth next to her ear. “What if we don’t tell anyone?”

  Lucy felt his warm breath against her cheek as he spoke. She focused on the corded muscles on the back of his hand resting on the tabletop.

  She froze in place. If she turned her head to the left, her mouth would brush his.

  No way was she doing that again.

  Leaning to the right, she reached for the salt her steak didn’t need. “Cat’s already out of the bag. Some of the knitters already know, and Mildred tweeted it, so now the whole blogosphere knows, I’m sure of it.”

  Owen leaned back, easily. Was he even dimly aware of what he did to her? “So what now?”

  “Are there . . . more? Of the boxes?”

  Owen shrugged. “The storage unit is packed like an insane person filled it.”

  “Who packed her stuff up?”

  “I did. But I was in such a hurry back then, when we were moving her out of her house, that if things were already in boxes, I just shoved them in. I couldn’t tell you if there were more of those or not.” He gave Lucy a searching look. “Maybe you could help me.”

  Lucy’s heart skipped. “Okay.”

  He grinned that devil’s smile, and Lucy saw the teenaged boy she’d had such a crush on again.

  “Come by anytime. We’ll go over there. It’s not pretty, I have to warn you. Hey, that gal . . . How is she, anyway?”

  “Abigail? She’s good.” Lucy smiled, and she refolded her paper napkin. “She’s really good. I’m glad we were there.”

  Owen nodded. “You did everything right. Not the normal kind of citizen assistance I’m used to.”

  Lucy didn’t feel like telling him that she wasn’t the normal citizen—trained in CPR, fighting fires, hose lays, search and rescue . . . She just wasn’t used to dragging pregnant friends out of imminent fireballs. “Are you going to miss that? Being the hero?”

  Owen shook his head and frowned.

  “What?” asked Lucy.

  “It’s not like that. You never feel like a hero. It’s not like you’re looking for a parade or a medal or something. You’re just the guy people call when they want someone to be in the right place at the right time.”

  “Still.” Lucy leaned forward and put her chin in her hand. “What are you going to do instead for excitement?”

  Owen’s face clouded and Lucy regretted the question as soon as it left her lips.

  “I mean,” she said, “of course you’re taking some time off, and figuring things out, you said that . . .”

  “I might do some handyman work. You know, pick up some odd jobs. Fix-it stuff.” He held up his arms and wiggled his fingers as if they didn’t belong to him. “I’m good with my hands.”

  “Oh?” she said politely. But how could someone go from being a police officer to being a handyman? From wielding a gun to a hammer? His eyes looked deadened, and his voice was flat.

  “My brother Silas does that,” Lucy went on. “He does home remodeling. Painting and electrical work. Plumbing. He’s slow to help his sister, though, and I have an ornery garbage disposal. It must be nice to have that talent.”

  “I can help you with that sometime, if you want,” Owen said, but it sounded as if he were injecting enthusiasm into his words artificially. “Maybe doing that kind of thing will keep me busy. If I figure a way to get it off the ground. Get a business license or something . . .”

  A flash lit the yard. The rumble followed shortly after.

  “Feels like the eye of the storm,” said Owen.

  The hair on Lucy’s arms stood up. “I hate lightning.” It was right up there with rats and heights in her book of favorite things.

  “You do? I love it.”

  Lucy looked at him.

  That was the difference. After having such an exciting life and getting out of Cypress Hollow, living in the big city, he probably just wasn’t scared of anything at all.

  “I’m going to go watch it,” she said. Before she had time to change her mind, before he had time to say anything in return, she let herself out the door.

  It was pitch dark. Terrifying. Lucy thought about turning around to let herself back in but the thought of him watching her from inside pushed her into the middle of the yard. She looked up.

  The wind gusted and knocked against her, spitting in her face. It was still a little wet, even though it wasn’t really raining. The air was cool and had a sharp, metallic smell.

  A huge gust blew through the yard, pushing Lucy. She moved sideways but retained her ground. She was terrified, but she ignored the part that told her to cower, to cover her head with her arms. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  The wind lifted the porch swing behind her and sent it sailing, four feet, then seven, loudly scraping the paving stones. Lucy flinched but stayed put. Shutting her eyes, she moved with the wind. It felt almost like being in the water at the beach, rocked by waves: a push-pull motion that left her in the same place.

  It was liberating. Exhilarating. Dangerously fun. She could see the appeal in this, standing in the middle of a good, scary storm.

  Then her head exploded.

  It was as if she had invented the loudest noise she’d ever heard. Nothing outside her could possibly be that loud. At the same time, the yard lit up. Everything—headstones, trees, the old sundial—went blindingly white and seemed to stay that way for a long time, even though it was probably only for a second. She could see every detail of the tree trunk across the yard, each knot and burl clearly delineated. Then blackness.

  Everything in her body collapsed.

  From a noise that refused to fit in her body, to nothing.

  She was sinking, falling.

  Strong arms from behind caught her. Lifted her. She closed her eyes.

  She didn’t understand anything.

  When she opened her eyes again, she was inside, in the parlor. Her head was cushioned by a magenta afghan her grandmother Ruby had knitted the last winter before she died.

  “Are you okay?” Owen knelt next to the couch. He was touching her, running his hands over her face, her shoulders, her legs. He put his hands at her waist and left them there.

  Her breathing, already rapid, quickened.

  “What happened?”

  “A bolt of lighting hit the tree right next to you. Not even twenty feet away.”

  “But I didn’t see it.”

  “You’re shaking. Are you sure you’re all right?” His hands, large and warm, wrapped around her forearms. Lucy liked the way they felt.

  In fact, she liked everyth
ing about him right now.

  “Yep. I’m fine.” She smiled.

  “Are you burned somewhere and we just can’t tell?”

  She thought about it. She wiggled her fingers and toes. “Nope, not burned.”

  His face was so funny, this close to her. He looked so concerned and at the same time so restless, like he had to do something. It was probably what he’d been trained to always do: Do something. Cops ran to help.

  But she didn’t need help. She wasn’t a damsel in distress who needed saving. Maybe she needed something else.

  Even though he was more dangerous to her than lightning.

  As he gave her another once-over, she slid her hand into his. He stilled.

  “What? What is it?”

  She reached her other hand up and put it behind his neck. He appeared so concerned about her that he didn’t seem to understand what she was doing until she brought his head down and lifted her lips to his.

  For the third time in her life, Lucy Harrison kissed Owen Bancroft.

  Even then, he didn’t seem to get it. Lucy felt wild elation in her chest. Almost struck by lightning. Kissing a man just for the hell of it.

  His lips were soft. Warm.

  His lips were gone.

  Lucy opened her eyes. Owen had pulled back and was staring at her.

  Oh, God. She hadn’t planned further than the initial kiss. Now he was going to ask what the hell she’d been thinking, and she wasn’t going to have an answer, that was for sure. She had no idea what she’d been thinking.

  But he didn’t look mad.

  Then his head came down fast. His mouth was demanding, strong.

  Her lips parted, and his tongue stroked the tip of hers. He bit her bottom lip and kissed her again.

  Lucy couldn’t breathe. She could only kiss him back.

  As his mouth held her, kept her, his hands moved again. They’d just been all over her a moment ago, but this was different. His touch before had been exploratory, testing, worried. Now it was different. The pressure was firm. His hands more demanding.

  Lucy moaned against his mouth and arched her back. Where had this come from? This hot need? This overwhelming desire for more?

  Owen grazed the side of her face with the back of his knuckles, keeping his lips on hers, while his hand slid under her shirt. He cupped one breast without hesitation and instead of being shocked, Lucy pressed herself into his hand. She wanted more. She needed him to slip the fabric down, yes, like that, like he was doing. His thumb and finger found the sensitive nipple and played with it, twisting lightly, as his mouth stayed on hers, nibbling her bottom lip.

  Brave. She was still brave, even though her blood raced through her veins in frenzied surges. Lucy pushed against his chest and sat halfway up. She stripped off her cardigan, then her tee shirt.

  What the hell was she doing? She never took the lead like this.

  But Owen was different.

  She reached to unclasp her bra, slipping the straps off her arms.

  Owen’s blue eyes darkened. He groaned, low, under his breath, a sound that quickened Lucy’s pulse and made heat flare inside her, rapid flames that spread to her fingers, her toes.

  He pushed her back against the couch cushions, claiming her mouth again, harder this time, greedier. Then he kissed his way down her neck, rasping his tongue along her clavicle, dipping it into the hollow at her throat, winding it between her breasts, and just when she thought she couldn’t stand it one second longer, he took the peak of her breast into his mouth and sucked, using his finger to massage the other one. Lord have mercy, he was good with his hands.

  Lucy writhed against him. She needed more. She wanted him, wanted him fast, and she needed to either cool off or figure out a plan, because in about three seconds, her brain wasn’t going to work at all.

  “Owen,” she whispered into his hair.

  He looked up at her and ran his tongue around her nipple again, and then bit it. She bucked, bringing her legs around him, pressing her hips against him as hard as she could. He groaned and sank against her, his face twisting in what looked like a combination of pleasure and pain.

  “Oh, God, am I hurting you?” Lucy had completely forgotten about his hip.

  “Do I look like I mind?” Owen ran his knuckles down her stomach, dipping his fingertips into the waistband of her jeans.

  “We have to . . .”

  Owen’s hand stilled. “If you tell me to stop, tell me soon. Please. Because you’re . . .”

  She was what? Lucy ached for him to finish the sentence. But like the breast damp from his kisses and cold to the air, his sentence was left incomplete. She was something to him, and she had to know what it was.

  “I’m what?”

  “You’re so . . . hot . . .” His voice trailed off.

  It wasn’t what he’d been going to say, Lucy knew it. She had no idea what he’d been going to say, but it wasn’t “hot.”

  Lucy sat up, her spine straight. She pulled the cardigan over her breasts. “We don’t want this. I should go.”

  This was where he would push her back into the couch and cover her with more of those intoxicating kisses and tell her what he really meant.

  Instead, he sat up straight as well, adjusting the weight on his hip, and said, “If you think that’s best. . . .”

  Lucy looked at him.

  No one ever stayed. He’d just been the first to go. Lucy scrunched her eyes shut and then opened them again.

  He stood. “You sure you’re all right?”

  Lucy didn’t know if he meant the lightning strike or the kiss, but she closed her eyes and nodded.

  “Can I have a glass of water?” she asked in a low voice. She wished for the excuse of the pager’s beeps, but she wasn’t on call tonight.

  While he was filling a glass in the kitchen, she put on her clothes and bolted out of the house and into the rain. Sitting dripping in her car, she saw him silhouetted in the light of the opened door. Then the door was shut. The porch light was turned off.

  Lucy’s hand shook as she reached for the ignition.

  Chapter Eleven

  Knitting disasters are never exactly that—yarn, even tangled to the point which resembles something beyond hope, really isn’t. Enough patience—and swearing—can resolve every snarl.

  —E. C.

  As Lucy shut her car door and started up the walk to her parents’ house, she could see her breath. She thought briefly of the lightning storm a week before, and the kiss, and then, even though it was cold and she only wore a thin red turtleneck and a ratty red wool sweater she’d knitted years ago, she paused on the walkway to crane her neck, looking up at the home she’d lived in for the first eighteen years of her life.

  This rambling old house, at least a hundred years old, three stories, many, many windows, all of them lit and shining out into the darkness, was where Lucy felt safest. Lucy loved the way it looked at night. Her mother, while always going on about conserving one thing or recycling another, didn’t feel badly about using electricity. She said she made a difference in the world in many ways, and she remained unrepentant about leaving lights glowing in every room. White twinkle lights left over from Christmas ran along the eaves in the twined wisteria vines that would bloom soon, and Lucy saw her father pass in front of the hallway window, his hand jammed absentmindedly into his hair, holding a book in front of his face. Without even being inside, she knew that in five seconds, he’d stumble on the old rug in front of the stairs and curse, dropping the book, losing his place. It was home.

  Owen’s mother was in Willow Rock. His father, she’d heard, had died in prison. What would it have been like to not have parents creating a safe home? To not be able to peek in from outside, into a place where you were loved?

  Lucy pushed open the door and tried to push Owen from her mind at the same time.

  Inside the house, her mother caromed past, barely seeming to notice she had entered. Lucy moved into the dining room and poured herself half a glass of
red wine from the carafe on the table. She looked up at the wall where Toots’s self-portrait hung—a study in green and yellow, the mouth off-center and drooping, the eyes wilder than they ever really were.

  Lucy’s mother, Toots, reminded her of a self-help book with a bright blue cover that proclaimed freedom from all problems in thirty days with a money-back guarantee. She was a dynamo, a force to be reckoned with. Lucy knew enough of her friends’ mothers to realize even at a young age that her mother wasn’t like anyone else. Back when she was a kid, her mother was a little eccentric. She’d hung her laundry and didn’t believe in dishwashers or microwaves. She was into everything, always. If there was a cause, she rallied behind it. She fought for animals, for plants, for peace, for all groups’ sexual rights. She was pro-choice, anti-war, and sex-positive in a small town and had taken flak in the past for it. But everyone loved Toots.

  Especially Lucy. She didn’t even mind very much that Toots had usually been too preoccupied to ever pay much attention to her only daughter. That was just her mother, just her way. Toots was always busy, usually making a difference in someone’s life in a meaningful way. Lucy wouldn’t have changed a thing about her.

  As Toots raced past again, going in the other direction, she said over her shoulder, “How are you, my little parsnip?” She wore a long gray cabled sweater with a belt and a red velvet floor-length skirt. A black snood-like hat perched on her gray curls.

  “Hi, Mom. Where’s the séance?”

  “Have to get the lamb out of the oven, sweets. Will you go light the fire in the living room, please?”

  Lucy wandered into the living room. Good, no one here. Lucy wasn’t that great at building fires. While her brothers had been Boy Scouting, she’d been busy knitting. Fire scared her. She usually preferred to play it safe, make someone else do it.

  But not tonight. She’d build a great fire. Two big sips of wine, and then she started.

  Grabbing the newspapers from their pile, she balled up some pages, placing them under the grate. She piled kindling, the small twigs and branches that her mother gathered on her long, rambling walks. A few more pieces of driftwood on top of these—they’d flash blue and green flames later.