How to Knit a Heart Back Home (10 page)

She’d launched herself at Owen without provocation, then she’d run away without any explanation. She must have looked like a crazy person, running away like that.

Lord, that pager had been the best thing she’d ever heard in her life. Of course, he hadn’t known what it was, so he still probably thought she belonged in a mental institution.

And the page hadn’t even been for a medical or a fire, it had just been for backfill to the station—the ambulance had been sent out to difficulty breathing down in the valley, and whenever that happened, dispatch paged in two volunteers, in case another medical call came in while the primary paramedics were out. Lucy had raced to the station, wild-eyed, breathing heavily, still completely shocked by her behavior. She’d hidden it by hunkering down in one of the La-Z-Boy chairs, knitting on the sock until the truck captain, Milton James, asked if her needles were smoking.

Now, days later—still no sign of Owen—Lucy sighed and tucked the book under the counter. Maybe she’d write something down, jot ideas, like she used to in her old journal, the one she hadn’t seen in so long. She missed the feeling of the pen on the page. She wondered when exactly she’d given up that old habit of writing everything down. It had fallen to the wayside at some point. . . . But then she might want to write about Owen, and that would
not
help.

Maybe she needed a mystery novel instead. Something more involved, something to keep her brain busier, keep her from thinking about him.

Yesterday she’d seen Owen walking by the store, going down the path to the parsonage, but he walked with purpose, limping just the slightest bit, staring at the ground.

He never looked up at her. Just as well, too.

Lucy shivered, remembered the feel of his lips against hers. That fine, slight evening stubble that she hadn’t expected. . . . That taste of him that she’d desperately wanted more of, and
more.

When she remembered that kiss, the way he’d held her, just for that moment, she wanted to run back out there and try it again. But just as soon as the thought passed through her mind, she knew it for what it was: Crazy. Dumb. Irrational.

He’d left once. He was going to leave again. Everyone did.

She pulled Grandma Ruby’s sweater more tightly around herself and felt an ominous soft
pop
under her left thumb. Yet another strand had broken, another fiber worn through. No one would wear a sweater as ratty as this, Lucy knew, no one but her.

Lucy sighed and pulled the front left side out, holding it up to the light, examining the damage. It wasn’t good. She’d darned everything she could already, but now in some places there were holes next to other holes.

Grandma Ruby had made this sweater shortly before Lucy had graduated from college, when she’d been home on spring break. The Book Spire had been closed on the soft, warm evening, and Ruby had woven in the last few ends of the sweater. “It’s done.” She put it on, the yellow color suiting her soft gray curls and pink cheeks. “Let’s go for a stroll to celebrate Eliza’s clever pattern and my nimble fingers, shall we?”

The two of them had walked down to the edge of the water, as they often did together at dusk. It had been the perfect walk, up till that last moment, when they’d been standing there, looking at the last of the fading light, and Lucy’d heard her grandmother make a funny noise.

Grandma Ruby’s skin was ashen, her eyes closed. Her hand clutched at her left arm, and she swayed for a minute before she dropped to her knees in the wet sand.

“Grandma!”

“Help,” Ruby whispered. “Help me.”

They were the last words her grandmother ever spoke to her. Lucy raced up the beach to get help as fast as she could, her feet sinking into the sand which sucked at her heels as if she were in a nightmare. The volunteer fire brigade arrived and gave her grandmother CPR. Lucy watched helplessly, hot tears streaming down her cheeks.

Ruby died at the hospital, hours later. Lucy looked at the pile of clothing in the small emergency room, the yellow wool still bright and happy.

In the cold hospital, Lucy slipped the cardigan over her shoulders. Sand fell out of it to the tile floor.

It would be the sweater she wore in the bookstore. Always.

The bells on the front door jingled as it opened, jolting Lucy out of her memories. So much for a break. Lucy looked up and quietly groaned.

“Yoo-hoo!” Whitney Court gave a prom-queen wave as she entered. Her perfect brown hair fell in shining waves, her bright green eyes sparkled, and she was dressed in a sweet blue gingham dress that had to be vintage. Just looking at her caused an extra layer of bookstore dust to land on Lucy.

Whitney placed a plate of beautifully frosted cupcakes on the counter in front of Lucy. “I made too many, and they’re not all going to sell today. I thought you or your customers might appreciate a sweet little pick-me-up!”

“Thanks, Whitney,” said Lucy on a sigh. Sometimes she thought Whitney was one of those women put on the planet in order to make other women feel badly about not channeling their inner domestic goddess. If Lucy had spent two hours in front of a mirror, she still wouldn’t be able to pull off that kind of perfect wave in her hair, those beautifully made-up eyes that looked sweet and sultry all at once. Lucy was just lucky if, on the rare occasions she applied eyeliner, she didn’t stab herself in the eye.

And the problem, aside from Whitney’s immaculate presence, was that Lucy would have to eat a cupcake. Or a couple. Or all of them. Whitney’s creations were the best in town, hands down. She was a baking genius. Damn her.

“What’s new in the land of books?” Whitney leaned against the counter, her perfect manicure resting on top of a pile of Cliff’s Notes that needed shelving later. Weren’t bakers’ hands supposed to be burned and scarred from baking?

“Not much,” said Lucy, looking around for something to work on. There: those boxes she’d bought from Owen. She hadn’t gone through them yet and maybe she could convey just how very busy she was. Maybe Whitney would get the hint and leave. She put the top box on the counter.

“Pretty slow, huh? Oh, eww! That box looks like it has the skin of a . . . what is that on top?”

“Old cat fur, matted into the cardboard.”

Whitney wrinkled her nose. “Well, that’s disgusting. Whoever it belonged to should have cleaned that off for you. It looks like half the cat is still there.”

Lucy looked up at perfect Whitney. “Don’t watch, then. This is going to be boring. Is there something I can help you with in the meantime?” She opened the lid, parting the matted cat hair, and peered through.

Whitney wandered a little way, looking up to the stained glass overhead. “So, quiet day?”

Lucy ignored her and lifted out the top layer of old romances and studied them as if they were the most interesting books she’d ever seen. Everyone brought them to her, thinking she had a use for them. But her romance section was strained to the limit as it was. No one wanted to read bodice rippers from the seventies anymore, not when there were so many new love stories out there, with more than just bodices being ripped.

Whitney went on, “But you must be doing okay, though, right? My goodness, the bakery has been doing so well; I’ve almost doubled my receipts in the last two years. I heard something on the news that said in times like these people may be cutting back, but they still allow themselves the little treats, and that’s where we come in, right? They may not take their big vacations, but they’ll still buy lipstick from the drugstore, or éclairs from me, used books from you.” Her laugh was a perfect harmonic lilt, hitting just the right note of friendly conspiracy. “We’ll ride this recession all the way to the bank, right, Luce?”

Luce. No one but her family and Molly called her that, and while Whitney may be doing well, Lucy was just scraping by. She didn’t feel like hearing about Whitney’s fabulous life right now.

The second most difficult thing about her grandmother’s death thirteen years ago, after the grief Lucy had felt, had been saving the bookstore. No one in her family knew how close Lucy had come to losing it entirely. She’d kept it from them, not wanting them to worry. When Lucy took it over, when she opened Ruby’s bankbooks for the first time, she’d been horrified. The creditors had been breathing down Grandma Ruby’s neck for years, and it was only by playing every single one of her cards perfectly that Lucy had managed to hold on to the store. Even now, Lucy never felt like she was making enough to feel truly comfortable, and she certainly couldn’t say she’d doubled her receipts recently like the lucky Whitney had.

Gritting her teeth and wishing Whitney would say whatever it was she needed to say, Lucy finished emptying the box. Harlequins galore, circa mid-seventies. Basically worth nothing. She’d wasted fifteen bucks on these three boxes, fifteen dollars she could ill afford.

Lucy forced herself to smile at Whitney as she lifted the second box up to the countertop. She would get through this.

On top were more yellowed romances, the covers curled and worn. Great. Straight to the recycle bin.

“Is there something I can help you with, Whitney?” She kept her voice light. Polite. Get to the point.

Whitney’s smile lit up her whole face like a CoverGirl commercial. Were those false eyelashes? Who wore those anymore? She reminded Lucy of an exercise regimen book—equal parts chirpy encouragement and patronization, made of rules impossible to follow.

“Well, I was on the treadmill last night—you know I go an hour on it every evening, right?”

Lucy jerked her head in what she hoped looked like encouragement.

“I was thinking more about that party we should have.”

Lucy sighed. She found a layer of old Life magazines. Not worth anything more than a buck or two on eBay, but she’d enjoy looking at the pictures later.

“You and Owen are heroes,” Whitney said. “You need to be feted. Like I said the other night, I want to be the one to do that. Whitney’s Bakery will throw the celebration.”

Frowning, Lucy continued pulling out books. A couple of hardcovers, but nothing special, nothing more recent than 1980 that she didn’t already have three of on the shelf. “No way. That would be embarrassing. I don’t want that. Throw a party for Abigail if you have to do something, but not for us. I called the hospital, and she’s been released, but Cade said she doesn’t want visitors until the bruising goes down.”

Whitney clapped her hands lightly and said, “What if we did something together? A night to celebrate Abigail, where you have a sale on knitting books, and I bake cupcakes in the shape of knitting needles and sweaters and maybe we can hire a band! I’ve been meaning to approach you anyway. Our businesses are perfectly suited to work together, don’t you think? It could be the start of something good, something ongoing. We could do a night together once a month, and celebrating Abigail, and your heroism, could be just the start. . . .”

Entrepreneurial Molly was always going on about things she could try to make a bigger splash in town—have reading nights, clever themes, book parties. Lucy assumed Molly would love the idea of her working with Whitney.

But those ideas took work, and required taking risk, whereas going along as she always had was safe. Simply selling books and providing coffee was working out fine so far.

Safety always won.

“Mmmm. I don’t want to make money on Abigail’s tragedy.”

Whitney held a hand to her heart. “Of course not! I didn’t mean that!”

But Lucy wondered if she hadn’t. And a party wasn’t a horrible idea. But Lucy didn’t want to work with Whitney. Period.

She pulled out the next hardcover.

“Oh, holy crap.” A grin spread across her face. The book was an old Barbara Walker, a book of stitch patterns that was still popular and still in print. But this was an early one, a really early one. She opened the book to the copyright page. “Oh, man.”

Whitney looked on with interest. “Something good?”

“First edition.” Lucy couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. Was Owen’s mother a knitter? She had to be, this was just too good.

“Is it worth a lot?”

Of course, that would be the first thing Whitney would ask about. But Lucy nodded, a grin spreading across her face. “It’s worth some. But mostly, it’s just awesome.”

“Really?” Whitney asked.

Lucy moved another layer of paperbacks, this time old mysteries and put them to the side. Come on, early Meg Swanson. Or Elizabeth Zimmerman? Maybe a first edition of
Knitting Without Tears
? It was too much to hope for, and she knew it, but she couldn’t help feeling the same as when she rubbed off the coating on the lottery tickets she rarely bought.

Her fingers felt it first. Another hardcover, this one wide and heavy.

It couldn’t be what she thought it was. . . . Closing her eyes, Lucy took a deep breath before opening them again.

It was. Lucy whooped.

Silk Road
. In perfect condition, although for this particular Eliza Carpenter book, it didn’t matter what condition it came in. It was the Holy Grail for knitters.

She looked at the copyright page.

It was another first edition.

And it was signed. Eliza Carpenter’s clear hand, those loops that were so recognizable, trailed up the page in ink still dark.

Chills ran up and down her spine. This was the find of a bookstore-lifetime.

Lucy ran her fingers over the cover. The “Cypress Hollow Lighthouse” pattern was in this book. Generally agreed to be one of the most beautiful sweater patterns in the world, it was a fine-gauge, tightly cabled sweater that suggested the sweep and scope of the beam from the old lighthouse, the way it used to shine out to sea before the light became an auto-strobe and the lighthouse itself closed and became too dangerous to enter. In real life, she’d only ever seen one sweater made from the pattern, since the book hadn’t had a large print run and had gone out of print so quickly. She couldn’t even imagine how much it would go for on an auction site.

“You look stunned,” said Whitney.

Lucy held up the book. “The best. Absolutely the best.”