How to Knit a Heart Back Home

by Rachael Herron

  To hide his eyes and his thoughts that had no place around her, Owen turned and stared at the countertop of the sideboard he’d been wrestling with. He pulled on a drawer. It, too, was stuck.

  “This is even worse than I imagined,” Lucy said.

  “Yep,” said Owen. She was more right than she knew. He cleared his throat.

  “How do you know where to start?”

  Owen jerked his thumb in the direction of the piles of crap behind him. “I come here every day and I push things around until I can’t stand it. When I get to the point where I’m considering arson, I leave.”

  “You mind if I help you? And look for more of those papers?” she asked.

  “Your tetanus shot current?”

  Lucy nodded.

  “Good luck.”

  And then, very simply, she helped.

  Stepping in next to him, Lucy moved boxes with him. She carried light pieces of trash to the Dumpster, and moved heavier things than he thought she’d ever be able to move, just by using her legs and pushing. She made short work of a file cabinet that Owen had opened more than once and closed again in despair. He watched in amazement as she pulled everything out, rifled through the pages, decided what to keep or recycle. When she passed him a stack of paper an inch thick and took out a Hefty bag for paper recycling, he was overcome again with the urge to kiss her.

  Who wouldn’t want to kiss this woman?

  “How did you do that?” he asked, when she entered the storage unit again, bringing with her the scent of sun and flowers.

  “What?” she asked, as she pulled down another box. “Oooh! Yarn!”

  “How do you just dive in and get this done?”

  “Not my stuff. It’s easier.” Lucy held up the ugliest-color yarn he’d ever seen, bruised yellow and acid green. She made a face. “I thought your mother was a knitter. This is acrylic. I’m horrified. This whole box has to go. At least there are no moths. Guaranteed.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Still moving, still emptying boxes at the speed of light compared to the way Owen moved through them, Lucy kept talking. “So Eliza Carpenter, the woman who wrote these papers I’m looking for, the ones we need to give back to Cade and Abigail, she was my friend as a child. She was the one who really taught me to knit, and more than that, she told the best stories in the whole wide world. Instead of laughing at a little kid, or ignoring me, she listened. She always had time for me.”

  Owen, in the same amount of time, had done half what Lucy had. He shuffled a box of old, chipped mugs. How could he just throw these out? His mother had loved this one with the cow on it. “So that’s why you want these patterns.”

  “Yep. But what I still don’t know is why your mom had them in her storage unit. Why wouldn’t Cade have them? When Eliza died, she’d left Abigail’s cottage full of things that Abigail would need to run the yarn shop, and she had everything else with her in San Diego. Were Eliza and your mother that close?”

  Running his finger along the sharp edge of ceramic mug, Owen thought. “She was the one with the long hair and those eyes . . .”

  Lucy grinned. “They sparkled when she laughed. You couldn’t forget her.”

  Funny, Owen actually remembered that sparkling. As a kid, he’d been drawn to that woman who knitted in the kitchen with his mother. It was one of the few times his mother would relax and really laugh. Once, when the woman who must have been Eliza was visiting, Owen had passed through the kitchen, and his mother had put her knitting on the table and reached out, pulling him to her, giving him a spontaneous hug as the other woman looked on, smiling.

  He remembered that hug. They were few and far between.

  Then Eliza had left for the day and his father had come home. The screaming had started again, and everything had gone back to ugly. Busted.

  Normal.

  Hell, it’s probably how most of these mugs got broken. Owen took the box outside and threw the whole thing into the Dumpster, listening as the ceramic shattered inside.

  Three hours later, they’d settled into a rhythm. Owen wouldn’t call it comfortable—how could anything be comfortable when he was so close to a woman who set his nerve endings on fire like she did?—but it felt good, this shifting of bodies in such a small space. She was good at it, so damn fast, and when he was stuck, she saw it and made the decisions for him. “No, not that, yes, keep that, no, are you crazy? Throw that out.”

  When she laughed, he did, too. She was infectious. It felt as if she was getting into his bloodstream.

  And then, in the early afternoon, he looked around and suddenly realized that he could see around the whole space. They’d done most of the work. He’d been dicking around by himself for a week and getting almost nothing done, and she’d been here for mere hours, and they were almost finished.

  Owen looked at her. She had smudges of dirt across her nose and cobwebs in her hair. “You’re amazing,” he said. The words were out before he thought.

  Then Lucy looked into a box and made a small squeak, which turned into a full-blown scream as something small and fast moving jumped out of the packaging and ran across the storage-unit floor. Her scream grew in volume and intensity as she stood, putting her hands to her mouth.

  “No, no, it’s only a mouse, Lucy, it’s okay,” Owen yelled, moving as quickly as he could toward her. He wrapped his arms around her, and her body was rigid against his. Her screams tapered off, but she still shook.

  “It’s okay, you’re all right.” All this for a mouse?

  Then something like a choked laugh broke through and she finally said, “I’m sorry, it’s a phobia. It doesn’t make any sense. Right up there with heights. I hate rats and heights. And probably tall rats. Rats on ladders.” She gasped. “Oh, hell.”

  “It was a mouse, I think.”

  She shuddered. “Only slightly less loathsome. Stupid. Hate being scared.”

  Owen drew her closer and used his thumb to stroke the side of her face. “You’re doing good, heart.”

  He didn’t know where that last damn word had come from. He wanted to take it back, to swallow it and hide it, put it away forever. And he wanted to hang it on a golden chain around her neck.

  “Oh!” She didn’t even seem to have heard him, thank God. She was peering down into a box at their feet, where the mouse had come from.

  “What?” Owen asked.

  “More! More papers. Eliza’s papers.” There was wonder in her voice.

  God, if she ever spoke to him like that, with that tone—what he wouldn’t do . . .

  Owen had to get a damn hold of himself. This storage space was just too small, that was all.

  She knelt. “This was the last box I had to open. And here they are.” Lucy looked up at him and smiled. Stars danced in her eyes.

  He wouldn’t kiss her.

  No.

  He would not kiss her.

  “Thank you,” Lucy said, reaching up to brush his hand with hers. “Thank you so much. Do you want to come . . .”

  And for just a moment, Owen stopped breathing as she looked up at him. He could feel her thinking about it, too, watched her eyes move to his lips and then back to his eyes. Her cheeks colored.

  She went on, her words hurried, “I mean, what I meant to say, is do you want to drive over to Cade and Abigail’s with me? To tell them about all this? I haven’t yet. I’ve been waiting until Abigail was out of the hospital. And now she’s home . . .”

  “I’d love to.” Owen grinned.

  “You would?”

  “Yep.” He wanted to go anywhere she was going. Owen didn’t care. He just wanted to be near her for a while longer. She could end up being more dangerous than any gun he’d ever held, but God help him, he’d always liked risk.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Humble pie is a dish not unfamiliar to the new knitter. Sadly, it isn’t that unfamiliar to the veteran knitter, either. Miscrossed cables and dropped stitches lurk, waiting for a moment of vanity to showcase
themselves in their full and obvious glory.

  —E. C.

  An hour later, Lucy led Owen up the dirt driveway to Eliza’s, the yarn shop Abigail had named for her mentor and her husband’s great-aunt. She looked in her rearview mirror, still almost unable to believe that the same blue Mustang that could set her heart to racing as a teenager was rumbling behind her, hitting the same potholes that her trusty little compact car was barreling through.

  Lucy’s heart sank when she saw the small parking lot—it was full of cars, and heaven help them, there was a tour bus parked next to the alpaca shed.

  This was going to be trickier than she’d thought.

  She pulled into a spot next to a small red car with a license plate that read K2TOG, and Owen barely fit into the last available space.

  Normally, she enjoyed the view. Cade ran sheep on the property he’d inherited from Eliza Carpenter, and they dotted the low green hills around them. Under an oak tree, a couple of pygora goats, raised for fiber, grazed. A footpath was well worn into the grass between the main house and the smaller, matching cottage, which housed Abigail’s yarn shop. Lucy had spent many a happy hour fondling the yarns, taking classes, just hanging out with other knitters. It had been too long since she’d been out here.

  Owen matched her stride as they walked toward the shop. “All these cars, are they employees of the sheep ranch?”

  Lucy said, “Nope.”

  “This is all for the yarn.”

  “You’re starting to get it now.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yep.” Lucy pushed open the screen door of Eliza’s.

  Inside, it looked as it always did: like paradise. High bookshelves ran along the walls, filled with every colorway of yarn imaginable. Blues and reds and yellows, the softests merinos next to coarser handspun local yarn made from Jacob sheep, showing off their natural black-and-white coloring. Yarn was heaped on dark wood tables scattered throughout the large room, every shade imaginable, silk and angora, alpaca and bamboo. Baskets sat on the floor, filled with sale skeins, castoffs that knitters hungrily pawed through.

  And everywhere there were women. Women chatting, moving, reaching, laughing, hugging, sitting, and knitting. Women on chairs, couches, and a few on the floor. Lucy knew a few of them by name, some by sight, but most of them she didn’t know at all. There had to be at least forty women in the room, as well as four or five men who were just as comfortable with the language of yarn as the women were.

  Owen, on the other hand, looked as if he’d put his shoes on the wrong feet. Lucy wanted to laugh but then decided it would be unkind, so she touched his elbow. He jumped.

  “It’s okay. None of them will hurt you. Not unless you stand in front of the cashmere, anyway.”

  He turned his head to look behind him, even though it was obvious he didn’t know what he was looking to avoid. Lucy left her hand on his elbow for longer than was necessary. She liked the way his arm felt.

  She liked it too much. She drew her hand back.

  Mildred popped out from behind a spinner rack of patterns. “Hello, you two crazy kids! Will you settle a bet between Greta and me?” Greta followed behind her, quieter, as usual.

  Owen smiled. “Hi, Greta,” he said.

  Greta looked pleased to be noticed.

  Mildred steamed ahead, still working on the sleeve dangling from her needles. “Did you, or did you not, date in high school? Greta says you didn’t, I say you most certainly did. And I’m always right about these kinds of things. So she’s going to owe me a milk shake at Tad’s Ice Cream.”

  Lucy felt her face flush as red as the display Koigu shawl hanging over Owen’s head. Should she answer this? Or look to him to do so?

  “We didn’t . . .” Lucy started.

  “I kissed her once,” said Owen. “Best kiss of my young life. Never forgot it. I should have dated her. But I didn’t. So I think both of you are wrong. No one gets the milk shake, except maybe for Lucy, if she lets me buy her one.”

  Both women looked pleased by his answer, and Lucy pretended interest in a row counter that she already had a million of at home.

  A small, round woman wearing orange wool from head to toe tugged on Lucy’s sleeve. “Do you know this store?”

  Lucy nodded, relieved. “What are you looking for?”

  “I can’t find the Cascade 220. Everything here is so expensive, and I just want to make my husband a dang hat. Is that so hard?”

  “Well, I can understand that; some of Abigail’s stuff is very nice . . . if you just look over here,” Lucy started to lead the woman toward a corner piled with neat skeins in a dark wooden bookcase.

  “Nice is one thing,” the woman snapped. “Extortion is another.”

  Lucy slowed and looked over her shoulder at the woman. Was she intending to sound that surly? It wasn’t a tone usually heard in Abigail’s shop. Maybe it was accidental.

  “Well, I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking—”

  “I’m sure I won’t. I don’t even know why I came on this tour. I never thought Eliza Carpenter was that special, and now I’m certain of it.” The woman’s voice got louder. Hisses of indrawn breath could be heard around the room as the other shoppers stopped talking. “This tourist trap is probably full of moths. I bet that Abigail they talk about never even really knew Eliza like she said she did. Just married her nephew and turned this old crap cottage into a place to fleece us.” The woman barked an ugly laugh. “Get it?”

  From her spot behind the register, two red spots flamed on Abigail’s cheeks.

  Lucy, still standing near the woman, desperately wished for something to say. Anything. Come on. But all words had deserted her. Just embarrassed anger that had nowhere to go.

  One small woman who had been bending over a basket stood up. “Beatrice, now stop it. You know you always overreact when—”

  The woman in orange continued. “I’m outta here. I’ll be in the bus, waiting for our ride back to the hotel. At least there I have real wool to spin, not like this junk that’s got more VM than my vegetable garden.”

  “Hey!” Lucy managed to squeak, but it was all she got out. Her heart was pounding too hard, and her hands were clammy. She had to defend Abigail. To say something to stand up for Eliza. But nothing came to her, the words were stuck in her throat. Dammit.

  In her ear, Owen said, “What kind of bitch was that?”

  Lucy shook her head, still mute. She led him to the back of the room.

  At the wooden counter, Abigail clapped her hands when she saw Lucy, the color still high in her cheeks, warring with her bruises. “Oh, hooray! You’re here! I’m so glad! And that witch is out in the bus, so all’s right with the world.” She came around the register, her belly slowing her progress. After she’d hugged Lucy, she embraced Owen. He looked startled, as if he hadn’t seen the hug coming.

  “What about that . . . ?”

  “Who cares about her? I get at least one like her a week. Most knitters are nice, but there’s a bad apple in every bunch. Not worth our time. Now I’ve got to take a break, and you’re the perfect excuse. Sara!” she called to a small, pretty woman with glasses who was helping a customer figure out how to Kitchener an underarm. “I’m going up to the house for a few, do you have it?”

  Sara waved. “Got it. No worries.”

  Expertly, Abigail wove her way through the crowd, nodding and thanking the customers that complimented her on her selection, murmuring the right things when they gasped their love of Eliza, leading Lucy and Owen out the front door and down the path to the main house.

  As they followed her, Lucy wished she’d said something to that woman. Something snarky. Something smart, clever, quick. But even now, she still had no rejoinder. Gah.

  In the hallway of the house, Clara the border collie padded out and lifted her head for petting. The kitchen was lit by sunlight. Lucy looked closely at her friend for damage. The side of Abigail’s face was bruised and mottled, and she still had a bandage on one arm, but
other than that she looked fine. Recovered.

  Abigail sank into the kitchen rocker with a huge sigh, her arms cradling her belly. “Oh, Lord. They’re wonderful. Did you see them? They have a tour bus! They’re from Michigan! They drove all the way to California to see Eliza’s ranch. Just to do this. To buy wool from her sheep. I still can’t believe it. I never believe this stuff. They’re amazing.” She laughed, and Lucy laughed with her.

  Abigail could have died, but she hadn’t. Lucy’s heart soared.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Abigail smiled. “I’m fine. Thanks to you two. Don’t think that we’re going to let you forget it.” She looked down at the swell under her hand and then back up at Lucy, blinking away tears. “I didn’t want you to come see me in the hospital because I didn’t want to cry there, but . . . thank you.”

  Lucy, overwhelmed by the tone of Abigail’s voice, didn’t know where to look. “We were just in the right place at the right time. And you’re welcome. You would have done the same thing.”

  “But it was you. And I’m here . . . and . . .”

  Lucy leaned over and kissed Abigail’s cheek. Abigail grabbed Lucy’s hand and clutched it tightly. For one long moment their eyes met. Lucy felt the gratitude and accepted it.

  Then Lucy gently took her hand back. She said, “Is your hunky husband around? We need to talk to him, too.”

  Abigail appeared relieved. “You’re lucky you just caught him. He’s got Lizzie upstairs, and then they’re going to town, to Tillie’s. Good timing. He’ll have heard us come in and be down in a second.”

  Sure enough, boots clomped down the stairs. Cade, dressed in a rugged brown sweater and Wranglers, held his small daughter in one arm. The other arm carried a very pink backpack.