Do not flush, do not flush, Melba commanded herself as she waved away the comment. “Don’t be ridiculous. If he was checking on me, it’s just because he knows how rough things have been. He helped me with Dad the other day when things got...difficult.”
“Clocks or mountains?” Dad hollered from the puzzle aisle as if he’d heard Abby’s whisper of his name.
Melba put her hand to her forehead, unable to take assaults from two fronts at once. “Um...how about mountains?” Perhaps the exchange would put a stop to Abby’s direction of conversation.
It didn’t. “Word is he also helped you with dinner that night. That’s above and beyond my definition of rescue.” When Melba glared at her, Abby threw her hands up in defense. “Small towns have big eyes and big ears.”
“And bigger mouths,” she shot back. Was having everyone sticking their nose in her business the price she paid for a tight-knit community? It didn’t seem like much of a fair trade at the moment.
“Gossip is one thing,” Abby conceded. “But the way that man peered around my aisles was another.”
It was obvious. She had to grant Abby that. “He’s been nice to me.”
“It’s a nice thing to have a nice man be nice to you. I’m all for it.” Abby winked. “Just in case you’re looking for someone to back you up.”
In this case, “back you up” was starting to look far too much like “match you up,” and that was the last thing Melba could handle right now. “Abby—” Melba looked her straight in the eyes, trying to send the clearest possible message “—whatever you saw, thought you saw or wished you’d seen, this really isn’t the time.” It was the truth.
“Clocks it is,” Dad called loudly.
“Really not the time,” Melba emphasized. At almost the same moment, the two women realized the “clocks”-“time” ironic connection, and began to laugh. It broke the mild tension of the moment, and set Melba at ease again. She cleared her throat and squared her shoulders, hoping to broadcast the end of that conversational topic. “The kits don’t have needles. Have you got enough for everyone?”
Abby gave her one long, woeful look, then reached behind her for a notebook and flipped it open. “Let’s check. You said size eleven or thirteen, right?”
“Those are best. And we’ll only need four, since Tina and I already have our own.” The store had the appropriate needles in stock, so everything was in place by the time Dad sauntered back with a puzzle depicting an intricate pen-and-ink drawing of several clocks.
“Clocks.” He placed it on the table with pride, pointing to the label in one corner that said “Challenging: 2000 pieces.”
“Loads of ’em. And no colors to cheat by.” Abby sounded genuinely impressed at the black-and-white illustration. “That takes confidence.”
“Order in a few more,” Mort said, pushing the box across the counter to her. “You’ve got nothing else up at my level.” There, right in front of her, was the old Mort Wingate. Wearing the same stubborn expression that allowed him to tackle the thousand endless problems of running a resort for thirty years. Mama always said he chewed at a problem like a dog at a bone—relentless until he managed a solution. Every time Melba sank into despair that her father was disappearing right in front of her eyes, he’d reappear as his old self, strong and solid.
On the one hand, the shows of strength were treasures, footholds in the fog. On the other hand, they made the weaker episodes so much harder to bear. “Oh, by the way,” Mort said with a twinkle in his eye, “if it’s all the same to you, I’ll take this hard one up to church the next time we go. It’ll give Pastor Allen and me something to do until fishing season. That man don’t know much about fishing if he thinks anything’s biting this early in the year.”
Melba could only smile. “It’s just fine by me.” She glanced at the clocks and thought something celebrating the passing of time wasn’t the kind of thing she wanted to spend hours staring at these days. Time felt too much like her enemy. “Looks over my head anyway.”
Mort gave a grunt. “Nonsense. You’re smart.”
Melba imitated his derisive noise. “You’re smarter.” You were, she thought silently. You still are in lots of ways, if I can only try to remember that.
* * *
“I can’t see how this is going to comfort anyone.” Marge frowned at the inch of knitting she’d wrestled into being over the last half hour. “I thought it was a nice subtle color but now I think it just looks like seaweed.”
This part of the yarn—for Melba knew it changed colors gradually—did have an unfortunately murky green hue. Marge’s first attempt at knitting wasn’t helping the metaphor, filled with knots and holes as it was. During their last session, Abby had brought over an enormous basket with the kits Charlotte had shipped and let everyone pick their colors. It had made Melba smile to watch, for she could tell so much about each woman by the color they chose. Between that and the first lesson on how to knit, she’d already felt strong friendships growing with each of them. If that had ever happened so fast at any of her city knitting nights, she couldn’t remember it.
“What’s wrong with that? Botanical is very ‘in’ this season,” Abby remarked from over her sky-blue swath of stitches. “And besides, we live on a river. We don’t get seaweed, that’s an ocean thing.”
Marge poked her finger through one of the larger holes. “Well, then it looks like something that washed up out of the river.”
Tina left her stitching to reach over and touch the green inch. “It’s very soft. You don’t often get that kind of fluffy quality in a machine-washable yarn. I bet your company sells a lot of this yarn, Melba.”
“It’s one of our bestselling products. Even before so many people made prayer shawls with it.” It was so delightful to be talking about fiber and knitting again. Not only because she loved those things, but because it had felt like that part of her life had been cut off until now. Talking textiles made Melba feel like Melba again, not just Mort’s scrambling caregiver. Had Pastor Allen offered to keep Dad company because he recognized how badly she needed this time? Or was that just God’s grace showing up where she least expected it?
“Oh, I almost forgot.” Violet put down her bright pink yarn. It hadn’t surprised Melba a bit that Violet had chosen a near-neon pink or that the tiny woman had taken to knitting like a duck to water. She’d come back after the last session with nearly two feet completed. Fishing around in her knitting bag—one from the cover of Melba’s employer’s latest catalogue—Violet pronounced, “I need a man.”
Conversation ground to a halt. Marge’s eyebrows shot up nearly to her hairline.
“Good gracious, ladies, I mean I need a man’s head.” Violet laughed, producing a bright red knit hat Melba recognized from one of the free downloadable patterns on the company website. “How on earth do I know what size a college student’s head is? I took a look at a photo of Jason holding a basketball and tried to eyeball it, but who knows if I even came close?”
“You made a hat? Already?” Tina’s voice held the masked disappointment of a woman whose knitting superiority had just been thrown into serious jeopardy.
“It’s just like the shawl, only smaller. When I got to the part where you decrease, I just looked it up on the internet. They had videos and everything.”
“You’ve done a wonderful job,” Melba praised, genuinely impressed.
“It’s red. Really, really red,” Abby offered. “I thought college students didn’t go for colors like that.”
Violet crinkled her eyes, peering at the little point that made up the top of the hat. “School colors. The other color is white. I thought about trying stripes, but I figured he’d end up looking like a candy cane or that fellow kids look for in books.”
This produced a bevy of blank looks until Abby’s face lit up. “You mean Waldo? As in Where’s Waldo? Oh, goo
dness, with Jason’s glasses he would look just like Waldo.” She giggled. “That would be funny, I admit.”
“Not to Jason. He likes to look serious.” Violet turned the hat this way and that, inspecting it.
“Serious? He’s going to look like an elf,” Marge commented. “You’ll spot the boy a mile away in that thing.”
“The boy is six foot five. He’ll hardly look like an elf.” She raised an eyebrow. “A white pom-pom?”
The suggestion made Abby Reed burst into laughter. “Vi,” she said, “you do want your grandson to like you when this is over, don’t you? No pom-poms. Really.”
Melba nodded in agreement, trying to imagine a six-foot-five version of Waldo. “It’s fine just the way it is, Violet.”
“Fine? It could be huge or too small for all I know. Which is why,” Violet said looking around the room, “I need a man.”
“What about Pastor Allen?” Tina offered.
“He’s out with my dad,” Melba answered. “I’d try it on myself, but I don’t think that would help you. It looks like the right size.” She really wanted to encourage the way Violet had dived into the craft, wanted to give her the thrill of seeing something she made on the head of a man the size of her grandson. A woman’s first knitted garment was a memorable achievement—she still had her first scarf, sloppy and lumpy as it was.
Her solution presented itself when Melba spied Clark Bradens walking down the street in the direction of the firehouse. “Ladies,” she said, holding up one finger as she jumped out of her chair, “I’ve got our man.”
Dashing down the hall, Melba pushed open the church’s side door to yell “Clark!” just as he was about to turn the corner. The megawatt smile that filled his face when he caught sight of her hitched her breath, and she had to remind herself this was for Violet’s encouragement, not her enjoyment. She called him over with a wave of her hand. “How tall are you?”
“Six-two. Why?”
“Can I borrow you for a minute?”
Melba never really thought of twinkling eyes as a masculine trait, but Clark’s eyes had a way of radiating energy and amusement that could only be called a twinkle. “Can’t reach the top shelf?”
She felt her own glow of energy. “Not exactly. You’ll be more of a mannequin than a ladder, really.”
Clark’s furrowed brows and frown were forced, not hiding his amusement one bit. “Oh, I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
She grabbed his elbow and tugged him in. “I need you for ten seconds to encourage a lovely lady.”
Now the twinkle in his eye took on what she remembered as the heart-slaying Clark Bradens gleam. “I’ll want more than ten seconds to do that.”
Melba laughed, unable to stop the heat from rising up in her chest. How could he look so nice and look so able to kiss a woman senseless at the same time? “I’m sure Violet Sharpton will be happy to oblige.”
Clark pulled back. “Violet?”
“Long story,” Melba said, even though it wasn’t. “Here’s your chance to get in with the church lady demographic.”
“I know I said the ‘old biddies’ were getting to me, but I wasn’t planning a promotional campaign.”
She tugged on his arm again, enjoying a sense of playfulness she thought she’d lost completely up until now. “Come on. I need you. Just for a minute.”
Chapter Ten
“You know, when the pretty lady said ‘I need you,’ I saw this going a whole lot differently.” Clark tried to find a way to stand so as not to look ridiculous in his current choice of headwear, but it was hopeless. Violet Sharpton had actually climbed on a chair to put the hat on him—something he strongly discouraged to no avail. The old ladies were having far too much fun at his expense. “Mrs. Sharpton, please get down.”
“Not...just...yet.” She adjusted the hat for the sixth time. He was pretty sure she was just messing with him, but she was so small and so adorable—and so very well respected in the church ladies guild—that he rolled his eyes and relented. “There,” she said, scanning him with narrowed eyes. “How’s it feel?”
He looked sideways at the old woman. He ought to be mad, but somehow he just couldn’t summon the irritation. “The hat or my dignity?”
Violet swatted his shoulder. “The hat.” Her assessing frown curled into a knowing smile. “And from what I hear, your ego could always stand a ding or two.”
The younger Clark—the angry young man with loads to prove—would have ensured a cutting comeback to a remark like that. Clark wasn’t that angry young man anymore. He still had a few things to prove, but none of those prevented him from raising one eyebrow in bemused agreement. Maybe he didn’t have to fight his previous reputation so hard, just connect with people the way he was now.
Even managing a begrudging laugh, Clark extended his hand and helped Violet off the chair. Melba caught his eye as he did, something that did not go unnoticed among the giggling circle of church ladies who currently served as his audience. If he were being strategic about the whole thing, he could rationalize that Melba wasn’t far off in her assessment that this would give him an “in”; the group before him represented some of the most influential ladies at Gordon Falls Community Church. Only it wasn’t some strategy. Clark found himself discovering he actually enjoyed being a nice guy, dropping the hard shell of his tough-guy past. If taking ten minutes of looking like an overgrown elf made him a bit like Pop, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. “The hat feels wonderful. Warm and cozy.”
Abby Reed narrowed her eyes. “It doesn’t feel too...what’s a word Ben would use...dorky?” Though she pretended to be focused on the hat, he’d caught her glance ricocheting back and forth between himself and Melba. It didn’t surprise him. Abby Reed was a notorious matchmaker—she’d taken credit for Jeannie and Chad after all—and Clark suspected even the furniture could pick up on the full-out attraction that hummed between him and Melba. An attraction that he’d resolved to ignore—just the way he’d ignore Abby’s assessing looks and would focus on the question she’d actually asked instead.
Of course it felt dorky. It felt beyond dorky, but he wasn’t about to say that to Violet Sharpton’s jubilant face. “You’re asking a firefighter if he likes wearing a red hat? That’s like asking a fish if he likes water.” Thanks, Lord, Clark sent up a silent prayer of gratitude that a suitable dodge to that loaded question had come to mind.
“I’m sure Melba could make you one,” Abby cooed. Melba hid behind her curls but he could still see her blushing wildly.
“I’m sure Melba has better things to do with her time,” he replied. He mugged at the group and made a slow turn before pulling off the hat. It was a bit tight, but surprisingly comfortable and very warm. He handed the hat back to Violet. “Your grandson will love it. Make him a scarf to match.”
Marge Bowers surveyed him from behind her crossed arms in an overstuffed chair. “You’ll do just fine, Clark. Do your daddy proud, you will.”
* * *
“You owe me pie,” Clark said, pointing at Melba with mock seriousness as he held open the church exit door. “Maybe even doughnuts.”
She grinned. “I owe you nothing. I just handed you the GFCC knitting guild’s seal of endorsement.”
“You’re a guild now, are you?” He pulled the door shut behind them, Melba hugging her elbows against the still-nippy April air. “I suppose I should be happy none of them got out their cell phones to take pictures. Had you done that at the firehouse, I’d have been up on the internet before Violet was down off her chair.”
“You were a good sport.” Melba laughed, and the sound hummed under his skin. Low and musical, its presence made him realize how much he enjoyed making her smile. Maybe that was because when she first came back to town he’d met her under such sorry circumstances—more than one sorry circumstance, actually. Maybe it
was that he could imagine falling for her all too easily. There wasn’t another sensible reason why he’d just donned the dumbest-looking hat he’d ever seen and pretended it was no big deal.
“I’ll insist you swear Jeannie Owens to secrecy. If Chad ever found out about this, I’d never hear the end of it.” Clark sighed, realizing there’d be no way to keep something this gossip-worthy under wraps for long. “I’m probably already sunk.” He should have been at P.A. Crimson to talk about those fire hoses twenty minutes ago, but he couldn’t bring himself to move off the church steps.
Melba touched his elbow. “It was for a good cause. Violet really is proud of that hat. I’ve never seen anyone take to knitting so fast and with that kind of enthusiasm. And at her age, even. I really like her. She must have been a firecracker in her youth.”
“See?” Clark resisted the urge to place his hand over hers. “You’re getting connected already. They adore you in there. They recognize you bring your own gifts, not just taking care of Mort.” He allowed himself one good long look into her eyes. “You’re stronger than you think, Melba Wingate.”
He’d struck a nerve. She looked around—everywhere but at him—while she pulled in a breath and blinked hard. “No, I’m not. I’m a mess at the end of my rope, that’s what I am.”
He could no longer resist reaching out to her, and she shivered a bit when he touched her shoulder. “But you’ve already tied a few good knots to hang on to. And God will send more as you need ’em. I know a survivor when I see one, and you’re going to do okay. Really.” One tear slipped down her cheek, and Clark felt his conviction slide down with it. “Tell you what.”
“What?” she sniffed.
“You go back in there and lead the faithful to their stitches, and we’ll go out on my boat tomorrow.” Was it a smart decision? No. But she needed a friend so badly—and he wanted it to be him. “Barney’s at your house all afternoon tomorrow, isn’t she?”
“Well, yeah.” There it was. That sparkle of hope he could never quite get out of the back of his mind. “I suppose it’d be nice to get away.” It only took the tiniest bit of encouragement to pull her back from her dark corners. She seemed so ready to hunt out the good in something—or at least she had been and had forgotten it. Just by watching her face, he could see the woman of extraordinary strength she would be when she came out of this tough time.
The Fireman's Homecoming Page 9
