How to Knit a Heart Back Home (27 page)

“You made pancakes?” Lucy was flabbergasted. “I had them here all along?”

“I had to improvise a bit, but yes.”

“Can I have one?”

Toots grimaced. “Oh, no. I only made enough batter for three, and I gave them all to Owen. I’m sorry.”

Owen, to his credit, looked horrified. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that was all there were. I would have saved two for you.”

“Mom!”

“I’m sorry, hon. I forgot you were up there.”

And that’s where the truth resided. Toots didn’t leave Lucy out on purpose, maliciously. She never had. But a combination of Toots always being busy with side projects, important community ventures, and Jonas and Silas being bigger, louder, and stronger, meant that Lucy had always come downstairs to find the pancakes were already gone.

She sighed. “That’s okay. I’ll get a doughnut at work.”

Toots brightened. “I’ll go to Whitney’s and we’ll get you something really yummy, how about that? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“It’s fine. Are you ready?”

Toots nodded.

Owen rinsed his dish and flipped the switch on the garbage disposal, which made a groaning, heaving noise.

“Oh, don’t do that! It’s broken.” Lucy leaped to switch it off. “It ate a spoon and I haven’t been able to use it since.”

He leaned against the sink and said, “You want me to fix it for you? I’ll start my handyman business with you. Maybe you can give me . . . a good reference.”

And just those words, rumbled near her, reminded her of what his voice sounded like in her ear, what he sounded like when he was inside her. Lucy’s knees went to jelly and she touched his elbow, trying to ignore her mother’s curious stare.

“Yeah,” said Lucy. “That would be nice.”

“It’s okay if I stay?”

“There’s a tool box in the pantry.”

“I’ll be creative.”

Lucy knew he would. Oh, God, would he ever.

In the car, her mother said, “Owen’s very attractive.”

Well, Lucy should have expected this. “Yeah.”

“And probably really hot-cha-cha in the sack, huh?”

“Mom!”

“Good,” said Toots. “I know that your dad and your brothers don’t trust him, but I’m fine with him, I really am. I swear it.”

“Really?” Lucy said. “You sound like you’re protesting a little much. And besides, it’s not serious. I’m just having fun. Doing something exciting. For once.”

Of course it wasn’t serious. It couldn’t be any kind of serious.

Toots nodded and looked out the car window.

“You always tell everyone to have fun, Mom.”

“Yep.”

“You gave me those condoms.”

“Honey, I just said it was good that you’re having a fun time. You always take everything to heart. Weigh things out, plan your life so carefully. And I agree with you. It’s time for you to embrace danger, have a fling, throw caution to the wind. Fall in love. Even if it means certain heartbreak.”

“I don’t think mothers are supposed to say things like that.”

“Watch out for the mailman. He’s going to pull out.”

“I’m a proficient driver, thank you. Been doing it for twenty years.”

“Just be careful.”

Lucy tucked the nose of her car into her mother’s driveway. “I don’t understand. You want me to go crazy, get all wild. But I should be careful?”

“Are you falling in love?”

Lucy didn’t answer. When she was around Owen, she wondered if she’d even really been in love before. She had no idea what she was doing.

And God, she’d wanted to talk like this, heart to heart, woman to woman, to her mother for so long. Lucy opened her mouth to ask her for advice, to ask how she’d know if, when, it was love.

But then her mother said, “Let your body have fun. But keep your heart from taking things so seriously. You don’t deal that well with change, and when I look at him, I don’t see his aura staying in Cypress Hollow long, so be a tiny bit careful, okay?”

Lucy wrapped her fingers around the wheel and pulled it toward her like it was the yoke on a plane, as if could pull herself up and out of the car. “There you go again. Do you want me to be wild or cautious?”

Toots went on as if she hadn’t heard her. “And let me know if you want to try this new thing out that I just got for my pleasure business. It’s this cone-shaped thing that you get on top of, and then I think the man positions himself behind—”

“
I will die if you don’t stop right now
.”

“Love you, too,” said Toots as she leaned to kiss Lucy’s cheek.

Chapter Twenty-five

The best way to peek inside a woman’s mind is to steal a glance into her notions bag. If her stitch markers are jumbled, so are her thoughts, I’d bet my last tape measure.

—
E. C.

O
wen gave the wrench one last twist and was tempted to stick his head under the cold water faucet.

Lucy was gorgeous. Even when presented with the disgusting slime at the bottom of her disposal, half his brain was still thinking about her.

Hell, she made overalls look sexy. Before he’d seen her wearing them, he would have said that it was impossible.

He rolled over and stared at the underside of the sink.

She was more than just sexy. He was in deep. Holy shit.

Owen had dated Bunny for only a year. Before Bunny, he’d been with a woman that he’d ditched after an argument over taco seasoning.

He’d wondered if he’d been broken—if in fact he’d spent so long outrunning his fractured childhood and chasing his career that he’d just never understood what his friends talked about, or couldn’t make sense of the reason they fought so hard to work the long overtime hours in order to pay for the weddings, the houses, the kids that made their faces light up like Christmas trees.

And then along came Lucy.

Owen twisted himself out from under the sink and felt suddenly nervous in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.

No way in hell could she be a firefighter, paramedic, EMT, or coastal search-and-rescue
anything
that required her being anywhere that wasn’t safe. At least, nowhere that he couldn’t protect her. And with the way that he got around nowadays, that was just about everywhere.

Owen knew too well it was the quiet nights when things went wrong—the simple calls, an old man having a heart attack, the medic not watching his back, completely unaware that the son was off his meds and triggered by a stranger touching his father, still writhing in pain. Or a simple domestic, and the brother-in-law no one mentioned pulling up with a gun. The medics were the ones in the most danger. They weren’t armed, not prepared, not trained. And in a sleepy town like this, where meth was going to be a problem, where the volunteer department did it all, combined firefighters and medics, cobbling them out of
citizens
? Hell, no.

Not Lucy.

Not after he’d found her. Shit, he couldn’t even run after her right now, and he’d been the fastest in the academy.

Owen stood slowly. Goddammit, his hip hurt. This was the worst pain he’d felt since recuperation, in fact. And damn, it was worth it.

Owen ignored the fact that it was already too fucking late, that his heart was already involved. It probably had been too late since she’d kissed him on the porch of the parsonage. Maybe since she’d kissed him at that high-school party seventeen years ago, if he looked the truth straight in the eye.

He’d left his holster and overshirt upstairs in her bedroom. It took him a long time to make it up the stairs—he could barely remember climbing them last night, which was a miracle in itself. He’d kissed her on every step, he did recall that. Now he took his time with each one. Stairs were the one thing that were sometimes almost unnavigable for him, and he breathed carefully, using the banister for support.

He liked that, last night, when they’d tumbled into her room, still wrapped around each other, the immense bed hadn’t been made. He didn’t trust anyone who was neat all the time. The downstairs was tidy enough, but this looked like she really lived here.

Now, he saw that a pair of jeans was in the corner of the room, next to an old wooden upholstered armchair, as if she’d shucked them off over there, in front of the window. An old lamp that matched the intricacy of the carved bedposts stood next to the armchair, which looked like an ideal reading spot. He could picture her there, her legs kicked over the arms of the also oversized piece of furniture, book in hand.

A nice, safe image. See? He wasn’t too sprung over her yet.

Unless she wore sexy librarian glasses when she read. Owen bit back a groan.

As he slung his holster on and then buttoned his shirt, he pulled open the closet door.

Nothing but clothes.

There. That should satisfy him. No skeletons. No ex-boyfriends’ bodies, no counterfeiting supplies.
Get over it,
he told himself.

But once a cop, always a cop. It wasn’t something he was going to be able to just turn off, not so quickly, not this soon.

He moved out of her room and down the hallway. In the bathroom, he took a quick peek into her medicine cabinet. Nothing but over-the-counter pain relief and three different kinds of toothpaste.

Behind the next door was a small office: a desk, two chairs, some boxes. A long bookcase ran the length of one wall.

You’re not a cop anymore.
Owen breathed more easily. What the hell was he looking for?

Pulling back the sheer curtain, he peered down into the backyard. A wooden table, flanked by four big wooden chairs, sat next to a barbeque grill. Lots and lots of trees. A small shed in the lower garden.

And a man, creeping through the yard, looking over his shoulder.

A man going toward the shed, and moving quickly.

Owen moved as fast as he could to the top of the stairs and then went down them slowly, clutching the handrail. God, that hurt. His hip protested so much he was surprised he couldn’t hear it grinding through his skin, and when his knee locked, he stumbled for a second.

Fuck.

But he’d be damned if fell down a flight of stairs while a burglar broke in to Lucy’s shed. He spun to the side and grabbed the handrail with both hands. He steadied himself. He was okay.

Owen felt himself switch into cop mode. The training hadn’t left his body. His heartbeat wanted to pick up speed, but he concentrated on slowing all his motions, all his reactions. And thank God he hadn’t stopped carrying his gun yet.

He didn’t go through the rear kitchen door; that was too obvious. He went out the front door, after checking out the windows in the living room. Nothing on the street but parked cars.

Owen moved to the right of the house. The gate that had been closed when he arrived now stood open.

He consciously lowered his center of gravity. Moving slowly, he kept to the side of the house. Whoever was out here was obviously stupid, moving through the yard, out in the open. He wouldn’t expect Owen, so he had the advantage of surprise.

He heard a scraping noise behind the large oak tree. The small storage shed’s door stood open. Good. Just a petty burglary. Easily handled. Small-town criminals didn’t want anything other than to find something of value to sell, usually so they could buy meth. They didn’t tend to have weapons, since they’d already sold them long ago.

Each one caught was another off the streets. For a couple of days, anyway.

Owen ignored the protest of his hip as he eased forward, staying behind the oak. A good look around the yard showed that the burglar appeared to be alone. If he’d had any kind of lookout from the front, Owen would have already known it—the lookout would have blown the warning, and the criminal would have run.

This was almost too easy.

At the door of the shed, he paused. Waited. Listened. The person inside rummaged through something. A scraping noise. A cough.

Owen took a breath. Slowed his heart further, moving the calmness into his abdomen. Seeing it exactly as it would happen.

He broke leather on his holster as he had a million times in training drills and on the street, and his Glock filled his hand as easily as air filled his lungs. Finger next to the trigger, not on it, but close, always so close.

And suddenly, it wasn’t easy anymore.

An image of Rob flashed into his mind—Rob, dying, bleeding. The report of the guns. The blue of the uniforms huddled around him, the roar of confusion, the stench of panicked sweat.

Owen’s gun felt foreign. His gut clenched.

Fuck that.

He spun around the door and into the shed, his arm outstretched. His legs were strong, his stance unmovable.

“Freeze! Police! Hands
up
!” he roared. His voice filled the small metal shed. His finger ached to pull the trigger, and at the same time, he was terrified he would.

The man in front of him was bent over something—all Owen could see was the ass of his jeans. He dropped what looked to be a pair of bolt cutters. His hands flew up, and then he froze, his back still to Owen. A red hat, something familiar . . .

“Lace your fingers behind your neck.
Now!
Back toward me, slow.
Slow!
”

Owen backed out of the door, into the yard. “Keep coming backward toward me. All the way out of the shed. One false move and I’ll blow your fucking head off.” He knew his words were true. He knew now he would shoot. Fifteen years of being a cop, and he’d only had to actually fire once. And he’d shot his best friend.

“No, n-no. B-borrowing.”

They all said that they were just borrowing something, picking up something promised to them.

“
Turn around
.”

The man turned.

Silas. The red bobbles dangling from the end of his cap jumped.

Owen’s breath left his lungs as if he’d fallen from a great height. “Fuck. Oh, fuck.”

“What the
hell
?” said Lucy from behind him.

“Fuck,” said Owen. There was no better word—it didn’t exist. No apology was going to take care of this one. “Why didn’t you
say
something?”