How to Knit a Heart Back Home (22 page)

Lucy scooted farther forward and pressed her cheek into his, and he could feel her tears. “You loved him.”

“To have him die like that—in that kind of terror and pain—” Owen gasped. “I fucked up. It was my own shortsightedness. I was too close to him. He was lying to me, and I never noticed.”

He laughed and the sound of it was like ash in his throat. “My job was to catch liars. The one thing I know is lying. And he was so close to me. . . .”

“Owen,” said Lucy. The tears he couldn’t shed were in her voice, and then her mouth was on his, and she was somehow tangled on his lap, his hands in her hair, her arms around his neck.

Murmuring something he couldn’t quite hear, she spoke something into his mouth, words that made him regret the fact that they were in full public display. If they weren’t, if there was anything they could possibly hide behind, he’d have his hands up her shirt, under her bra—he’d suck on her mouth until she bit his lip even harder than she was now. And if they were behind a door, her pants would be a ball on the floor, and he’d be inside her within thirty seconds.

It took the two teens on skateboards shattering the air with ear-piercing whistles to break them apart. Gasping, Lucy pulled back first. Her lips were swollen, and Owen was astonished to find that he loved that fact. Good God, for the first time in seventeen years, he felt like marking someone with a hickey. Just a small one, on the side of her neck. A barely-there red mark.

Maybe he’d get a chance to leave her one later. She could give
him
one if she wanted to.

What the hell was this feeling in his chest? A lightness, like a damn hummingbird got loose in there? He wasn’t altogether unconvinced he didn’t need a medic. No, no left-arm pain, nothing like that.

He’d talked about Rob. Out loud.

To someone who mattered.

And she’d kissed him anyway.

Chapter Nineteen

Knit in public. Show them what they’re missing, and then put the yarn in their hands. Be the doorway to our world.

—
E. C
.

O
wen’s grin was so big it looked like it was going to split his face. It was one of the cutest, sexiest things Lucy had ever seen.

But Lucy knew if she didn’t get off this damn picnic table in about a second, she was going to fly apart.

“Want to get a drink?” she asked. She couldn’t ask him back to her place. Not this second. She knew he’d say yes. He wouldn’t even have to say anything—he could just look at her one more time like he had a second ago, and she knew that they’d run to his car and they’d be in her bed within eight minutes. She didn’t live far away, and she’d take any bet that he’d break every speed limit to get there.

Deal ’em out slow.
Whitney’s voice rang in her head. If she took Owen home, there would be no slow—there would be hot, and fast, and hard.

Lucy didn’t know if she was ready. She didn’t know if she was brave enough. She needed a minute to clear her head.

And that minute should probably be in public, where other people in direct view would keep her from removing first his clothes and then her own.

Or at least she hoped they would.

Owen held her hand on the walk to the Rite Spot, only releasing it as she darted inside Clamtacular to drop off the Tabasco bottle. He even held it as she pushed open the door of the bar.

She hadn’t held someone’s hand in here since . . .

Lucy couldn’t remember the last time. Stephen, maybe, although he’d been a bit shy about public displays of affection. He’d had rosacea and PDAs always made him blush. That was before he left her for his aesthetician.

Jonas. Oh, God. She hoped Silas wasn’t inside the bar, too.

But of course everyone was there.

Her father was playing checkers with Elbert Romo at the corner of the bar. They were both drinking frothy concoctions with pineapple toppers and pink umbrellas.

“Hey, Pop! Pretty drink you got there,” said Lucy. It was futile to try to slip under the radar.

“Honey!” said Bart. “Have you ever had a hurricane? Elbert here said he invented them when he was stationed in the Pacific.”

Lucy shook her head. “You have no shame at all, do you?”

“Nope,” said Elbert, as he jumped three of Bart’s pieces.

Bart nodded politely at Owen and Owen nodded back. Lucy was glad. Her father had been well trained by his wife—no matter what her brothers might think of Owen, Toots was a force to be reckoned with, and she’d embraced the idea of Owen Bancroft, so Bart would do the same.

“Perhaps you’d like to play the loser, son?”

Owen’s eyebrows shot up. “I’d like that very much another night, sir. Tonight I’m spending time with your daughter.”

Bart inclined his head and sipped his umbrella drink. “Well, I suppose that’s all right, then.”

Silas was in a booth with his iPod cords trailing out from under his red earflap hat, reading his Kindle in the dim light of the pool table. A plate of what looked like mini-cupcakes was at his right hand, and he moved them to his mouth automatically, one after another.

Whitney flitted from table to table, seemingly the ambassador of goodwill, doling out smiles and light kisses, along with more mini-cupcakes. No one seemed immune to her charm, and even Lucy found herself craving the chocolate, to her deep dismay. She was relieved when Whitney moved toward the dartboards.

Mildred and Greta were in the back of the bar in front of the karaoke machine, singing Patsy Cline’s “Crazy.” Each held a mike, each trying to drown the other out. Luckily, the volume had been turned low.

Molly and Jonas were both behind the bar. Lucy did a double-take. Jonas, sure. But Molly?

And even stranger: they were locked in prime flirt position. Lucy had seen Molly like this a million times before—when Molly cocked her hip at that angle, thrust her ample chest just a little higher than natural, dropped her chin to the right, lifted her eyes to the left, and looked dreamily angelic yet devilishly suggestive, all at the same time, she never failed to get her man. And yes, there it was, the patented sweep of the long black hair over the shoulder, leaving her fingertips to trail over her clavicle.

And Lucy’s brother Jonas was falling for it, hook, line, and swizzle stick.

Of course he was. He hadn’t had a girlfriend since his wife, Aggie, chewed him up and spat him out two years ago. And Molly was gorgeous.

Well, sure. Jonas and Molly were really good friends. They got along great. Lucy loved that her best friend was so close to her older brother.

But friends didn’t look at each other like that. Uh-uh.

Molly licked her lips in the way that had once garnered her a trip to the Caribbean, and then looked across the bar to meet Lucy’s eyes. Her posture straightened suddenly, and she reached for a bar towel.

A bar towel?

Lucy dropped Owen’s hand and sat on a stool.

“What’s going on?”

Molly leaned forward on the bar as if she belonged behind it. “Lucy! Hey! What’s up? You want a drink? I can fix you one! How about a gimlet? Totally the rage. Your Manhattan is
très
over.”

Confused, Lucy nodded.

While Molly—
Molly!
—fixed her drink, Lucy had no idea where to look. There wasn’t a single comfortable place for her eyes to rest. Her mother had arrived, and was showing off various nipple clamps to her knitting group. Jonas and Molly were touching each other completely inappropriately behind the bar, bumping into each other while reaching for bottles, and laughing every time they did.

And each time she ventured a glance at Owen, the heat in the room seemed to rise so high she thought she might spontaneously self-combust. Just the side of his jaw, the stubble along his cheek, was almost enough to make her lose all impulse control. What would that feel like under her tongue? What about that soft spot right under his ear?

Why couldn’t she stop thinking like this? When had her hormones started raging like this?

As soon as she’d seen him enter her bookstore almost three weeks ago, that’s when.

Molly slid her gimlet to her, and Lucy took a sip of it. Too sour. She should have stuck to her tried-and-true Manhattan, two cherries, no ice. But Molly wasn’t paying attention to Lucy’s reaction; she was too busy winking at Jonas.

Winking. What the
hell
was going on?

Owen gestured to Silas, still sitting alone at his booth. Whitney walked up to him and said something, moving the emptying plate of mini-cupcakes closer to him, but he barely looked up. “He seems pretty solitary.”

“He’s always been that way.” Lucy smiled. “Even in grade school, he sat alone at tables and talked to trees. He’s the smartest one in the family, and has no interest in anything but fixing things and reading his books. I wish he’d get a girlfriend, though.”

“Being alone doesn’t mean being lonely.”

“I know.”

“Sorry,” said Owen.

“But when you lost Rob—”

“Could we not talk about that?” Owen’s voice was sharp.

It felt as if she’d been slapped. Lucy stared at her drink, suddenly uninterested in it. She wanted to be home, in her bed. Alone.

“Sorry,” Owen said. “It’s just that . . .”

“Owen, it’s fine.”

He had told her the awful story of his own volition. She hadn’t wheedled it out of him. She hadn’t begged him to tell it. Lucy’d thought it had meant something to him—she’d felt special that he’d chosen her to talk to.

She tried to speak without betraying the wobble she felt rising. “I’ve had a great time tonight, but I’m pretty tired. I’m thinking we should wrap it up?”

“Lucy, I didn’t mean—” Owen’s cell this time, jangled over the jukebox noise of the karaoke in the back corner. Mildred and Greta were still back there, now launching into a rousing rendition of “Walking After Midnight.”

Owen looked at the caller ID. “It’s Willow Rock. I’m sorry, I have to take this.”

Lucy nodded and then watched as Molly dodged a playful tap Jonas directed at her rear.

Molly would use men to line a birdcage. Jonas thought women were something breakable to place on a shelf. They had no common ground. They would never, ever work. She hated to think of how hurt they could get.

Why hadn’t she seen this coming? What could she do about it? Even if she confronted Molly, would she be able to find the right words to tell her how she felt? Lucy’s left foot jiggled so hard on the footrest of the barstool that it slipped off with a bang.

She flagged down her friend. “Molly?” said Lucy.

“What’s up? You want another?” Molly looked pleased.

“Can we talk in the bathroom?”

Inside the restroom, Lucy leaned against the bright pink sink. “What’s going on?”

“Me? What’s going on with you? Were you holding Owen Bancroft’s hand out there? Because you have a lot to catch me up on since that kiss you told me about.”

“My brother?”

Molly turned toward the mirror and reapplied a layer of gloss to her lips. “Don’t change the subject.”

“You were behind the bar.”

“I’m helping him out.”

“
You flipped your hair.
”

“It was in my way!”

And suddenly the words were right there, ready to be spoken. “Molly! I know you better than anyone else. You flip your hair right before you flip a guy onto his back and ride him like a circus pony. And you do
that
right before you call him a cab and forget how to pronounce his name. If you ever knew it, that is.”

Molly recapped the gloss and put it in her purse. Then she said in a low voice, “You’ve never judged me before.”

“You’ve never tried to jump my brother before. And Jonas doesn’t date girls like you.” God, it sounded so much worse when she said it out loud.

Molly’s face, when she turned back to face Lucy, was serious. “You’re my best friend. I’m going to try not to take offense at that last comment, even though it sounded ruder than anything you’ve ever said before. But Jonas and I are really good friends, too, you know that. We’ve been friends for years now. He’s my confidant. He knows every conquest I make, and he laughs at me. No one but you laughs at me like he does. I’m not going to hurt him, Luce. I need you to trust me.”

Lucy took a deep breath, and at the same time, her cell phone beeped with an incoming text message.

“Well, at least I know it’s not you texting me,” said Lucy. This wasn’t over. Not just yet. Molly, hitting on Jonas. It was going to take more than just a quick chat in the ladies’ room.

Flipping open her phone, she clicked on the text.

I have to go—Owen.

“Lucy? What’s wrong?”

She looked blankly at Molly. “I think my date just split on me.” Without saying anything else, Lucy left Molly in the bathroom, the bathroom door slamming behind her. She felt awful.

Owen was still at the bar, shrugging into his jacket. He was pale. “My mom. She’s gone.”

Lucy’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, my God. Owen. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine . . .”

Owen looked horrified. “No! I didn’t mean that. She didn’t
die
. She’s just missing. I have to go help search—”

“Let’s go.” Lucy picked up her purse.

“No, no, I’ll take you home and then go search for her. Okay?” The final word sounded tacked on at the last moment.

“I’m good at finding things. I get it from my mom.”

Owen shook his head, and then exhaled with a whoosh. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. The sooner they got out of here, the better. She felt, rather than saw, Molly come out of the bathroom behind her.

Her best friend, whom she loved more than anyone besides blood relatives.

Then she thought again of Molly and Jonas, together.

Molly didn’t stay with anyone, she took what she wanted from men and left them crying in station wagons on dark highways. Lucy had always thought it was a trait of strength—something not enough women had. But when it came to Jonas . . .

Lucy and Owen left the bar without looking back. Her heart pounded a fast, steady rhythm, and once in the car, she tucked her hands under her thighs.