How to Knit a Love Song (3 page)

He had work to do. But Tom would be in the barn, and he couldn’t face his friend and ranch manager giving him the third degree right now. Tom had grown up around here, knew Eliza, knew her well enough to perhaps be able to give Cade some words of advice, some piece of knowledge that would make this all fit, make this all right.

But Cade didn’t want to talk to Tom. No matter what he might say, it wasn’t all right. Some city girl had waltzed in, if you could call driving a stupid girl-truck waltzing, and scooped up a big piece of his land from under him.

It wasn’t his place anymore. Wasn’t only his.

In truth, it never had been.

Now it was hers, too, and he didn’t even remember what she’d said her last name was. Or where she was from, although he assumed—hoped—she was from San Diego, since that’s where Eliza had been for the last ten years. He didn’t know what she did.

For all he knew, she was a lawyer. She looked like a lawyer. She was pretty, that was true. In that citified, glossy way.

Okay, she was more than pretty.

Kind of gorgeous, actually. What a waste.

That thick, shoulder-length brown hair the color of coffee, those strikingly bright blue eyes, that perfect mouth. And her body, all breasts and hips and curves and long legs, in proportions that guys didn’t usually see in real life.

In any other situation, he’d be interested, all right. It was the first thing he’d thought, seeing her wrestling with the gate, that she was his type. Hell, she was any hot-blooded male’s type.

It took him only seconds to realize that this was the person the lawyer had told him about on the phone, the person who might be sharing his aunt’s estate with him, and one second more for him to loathe her with every fiber of his being.

He’d made her truly uncomfortable, he knew that. And at the same time that he’d hated acting like a jerk, he couldn’t change his attitude. Even if she hadn’t planned on being one, she was a thief.

Cade walked past the barn, hoping that Tom wouldn’t glance out the office window. Cade headed for the hills, literally. The land sloped up just past the barn, and a short walk would lead him to his favorite place in the world, an oak-studded knoll that looked down to the ocean. He needed the view and the wind to blow some sense of perspective into him, because otherwise, he was going to…

He didn’t know what.

But he’d rather not find out.

He started hiking up the hill.

Who did she think she was? He was goddamned sure that if someone had left him property, he’d make certain that it was up for grabs before laying claim to it. She had, at this point, a full cottage. The cottage and land that should be his. She had them free and clear, no mortgage, probably fifteen hundred square feet of California history, part of an old stagecoach stop, a beautiful home.

Even if it was uninhabitable.

God, she wasn’t going to be able to live there yet. Not for a while.

But he wasn’t going to tell her that. She could figure that out on her own.

Cade was used to his own space, his own company. It made him, he knew, a better businessman, better around the sheep. He was used to a calm life. Serene. Pastoral.

This girl was going to destroy his serenity. Already had.

Goddamn Eliza. Cade took a deep breath and wiped his brow. He was sweating more than he usually did on this climb. Anger.

And betrayal.

His grandmother’s sister, his great-aunt Eliza, had been the one to whom he had run when he ran away as a teenager. Eliza had told him he could stay and work with her sheep, and had talked him into calling his parents, acting like it was her idea that he come and stay a couple of months—things weren’t working with his mom and dad, even before his mom flew the coop. Eliza gave him a place to be, away from the never-ending arguments.

He
had
loved that woman. He had worked his ass off, going to school, getting his degree so that he’d know how to do it right. At twenty-two, he’d moved in with Eliza and taken over running the ranch. Eliza had been delighted. Since her husband Joshua died, Eliza had been running the ranch by herself. It had been her husband’s passion, never hers. Eliza’s sheep wandered off and she forgot to shear them in the spring, only remembering when she was low on fiber to spin. She wasn’t physically strong enough to do the heavy lifting required, and she preferred to stay inside, knitting with friends and designing her innovative patterns. She’d welcomed Cade with warm, open arms when he moved in, and gave the running of the ranch, what was left of it at that point, completely over to him.

He’d started his own herd: small, mostly Suffolk crosses and a few Corriedales. He started it the way he wanted, growing it bigger and right, until he knew what he was doing and talked the bank into loaning him the money to buy the ranch from her.

Money that Aunt Eliza had refused, asking him to trust her.

A misplaced trust.

Cade was almost there, almost at the top of the rise, and in a few seconds, there it was, he could see the ocean, the long line of it below him—silvery, almost too bright to look at. He sat on his favorite old stump.

He tried to breathe, but his lungs felt heavy. The air felt thick. He scuffed his boot in the dirt.

Cade had to get her off his land. And fast.

Chapter Four

Unless you learned to knit in early childhood, it’s natural to feel out of your element and clumsy. It’s natural to think everyone else makes it look easy.

—
E.C.

A
bigail put the key to the cottage in her pocket and walked outside. Cade had practically thrown it at her as he’d left the house.

Fine. She could handle it.

Even at a leisurely pace, it was less than a minute’s walk across the backyard to the cottage. Abigail stepped carefully up onto the narrow wraparound porch, not sure how run down the place actually was, scared her foot would go through old boards. But it seemed sturdy enough.

Abigail knocked before trying her new key and then felt silly for doing it. But the last time she’d walked into a house without knocking hadn’t gone so well.

The lock squeaked as the barrel turned reluctantly. She’d need to get this rekeyed anyway. As soon as possible. She knew people out in the country didn’t lock doors, but she always would. Safety first.

The latch finally slipped. She opened the door.

She gasped.

It was like a documentary on the dangers of compulsive hoarding. She could barely open the door; it got stuck on something halfway in and refused to budge again.

Abigail pushed her body through, just clearing the opening. It was dark, and she couldn’t make out exactly what it was she was seeing, but she knew it wasn’t good.

To her left, a window with its blind drawn. She reached her hand around to release the catch. The blind flew up and a little light filtered into the room. It looked to be a decent-sized living room. Abigail could only imagine that there was furniture in it somewhere, but the room was completely hidden by old cardboard boxes, some looking much the worse for wear, piled almost to the ceiling, on and in every available space, save for a narrow pathway through them.

Abigail moved forward. It was the only thing she could do.

She picked her way among boxes. Once through the first room, she was in what must have been a kitchen at some point but that was now filled with huge, black trash bags. Again, only a narrow path led through the room, and branched out at the back.

One direction led to a bathroom, also full of black trash bags, only the sink and commode exposed. When she pulled back the dark shower curtain, she found the bathtub itself filled with trash bags.

Damn. Did the water work? Abigail twisted the sink faucet. There was an ominous clanking under the cottage and the pipe shook, but nothing happened. She peered into the toilet. There wasn’t any water in the bowl.

She flipped the light switch to get a better look. Nothing. Great.

There was a small window over the tub covered with a thick green curtain. When she pulled it back, enough light came through to allow her to lift off the lid of the toilet tank. The whole mechanism inside appeared rusty but completely dry.

There was no water.

There was no power.

Where the
hell
was she going to sleep tonight?

A hotel down the road might work, but she’d seen No Vacancy signs on every one she’d passed on the drive. This was a beach community, after all.

And there was no way she was staying with that guy. Even if he asked her, she couldn’t trust him farther than she could throw him. Who knew what he was capable of, especially when he was this mad at her?

Abigail put her hand on the towel rail to steady herself. She would find something good about this place if it killed her. This was the opposite of what Eliza’s spare, spotless San Diego independent-living apartment had been. Abigail fought despair. No. Not till she’d seen the whole cottage.

Another path just outside the bathroom led to what must be a small bedroom, also full of boxes and bags.

She battled her way back through the house, trying not to think about the scurrying noise she heard in the kitchen. It was a rodent of some sort, she knew that, but her heart raced nonetheless.

She took a deep breath and stepped over a low box, pushing past three bags.

In the living room, Abigail moved box after box to clear a path just the size of her hips. The boxes weren’t heavy, but she noted that they were obviously full of something. She was too apprehensive to look.

A narrow, winding staircase stood in the far corner of the front room. She took the steps carefully, testing each one with half her weight before committing to it. At the top, her head poked up into another small room.

Oh. This room was different.

It was all light—windows on all eight sides of the room. An old-fashioned cupola. From up here, Abigail could see a sliver of the ocean over the tops of the trees. The fog was moving out for the day, and the sky was a silvery gray, dotted with scudding white clouds.

A battered green love seat sat sentry in the middle of the room. A lamp covered with a multicolored glass lamp shade rested on an ornate table next to the love seat. There wasn’t enough room to really move around—almost every bit of floor space was taken up by those black plastic garbage bags, as well as odds and ends of furniture, but it was nice furniture, pretty things that Abigail knew Eliza had loved.

The wooden floor had been painted the same dark green as the trim outside, years and years old by the look of the scuff marks. Abigail felt as if she’d suddenly climbed one of the oak trees to find herself in a magic tree house.

She knew without having to ask Cade that his great-aunt sat up here, knitting, for hours on end. This room had the feeling, the spirit of Eliza. Abigail longed to go get her needles and her current project: a man’s Guernsey she was designing in dark red handspun merino. Or better yet, she could get her spinning wheel, and sit up here, looking out at the countryside and sea. But she’d have to bring that stuff through the frightening first floor, and then fight to find the space up here to put it down.

Maybe she’d beat a retreat right now and go somewhere to think about all this, about how to start.

Really, she ought to open a box or a bag. Start clearing out all the crap she had just inherited.

As she tried to talk herself into getting started, she heard a loud knock from downstairs. She barely stifled the scream that rose in her throat.

“You okay in there?” Cade yelled into the living room.

Abigail took a moment to breathe, to still the frantic beat of her heart.

“I’m up here!”

“You okay?”

“I’m coming down,” she called.

Abigail made her way down the staircase and through the boxes, out to the porch, where he stood.

“I found the house key. You can make a copy of it.” He held it out for her, but Abigail was suspicious.

“Why?”

“If something in here doesn’t work. Did you check the water? I think it’s been off for years.” He looked down at his boot and scowled. “You might have to use my bathroom.”

Abigail nodded. “Yeah. Water’s not on.”

“You really going to sleep here?”

“Sure,” she said, trying to sound nonchalant. “Especially if I can use your house for the toilet and a shower until I get things fixed up around here. That would be great.”

“It’s a wreck. She’d come up a couple of times a year, and bring more boxes or bags, loading them in by herself, refusing all help.”

“You don’t know what’s in them? You never looked?”

“Nope. I’m sure it’s trash. Just more of Eliza’s craziness.”

“She may have been a little eccentric, but she was never crazy. If she brought that stuff here, she had a reason.”

Cade stepped in the door, and opened the box nearest him. “See? Nothing but newspaper. Saving it for Armageddon or something.”

Abigail’s heart sank at the sight of the yellowed paper in the box. “Maybe she was a little crazy. But not much. Not really.”

“Whatever you say.”

Abigail stepped out of the house, onto the porch, into the sun. Cade followed.

He leaned against the railing, then thumped the porch with the heel of his boot. “This place was built thirty years after the big house, about 1904. As far as I know, it’s sound, never had any problem with rot, but you should get that looked at. The chimney’s cracked and needs cleaning. The toilet isn’t seated right, and the tile floor in both the bathroom and the kitchen needs redoing. I think there’s carpeting under all that crap, and I can’t even begin to guess how long that’s been in there. I have no idea about the appliances in the kitchen, but I can guess they’re going to need some work.”

Abigail took a breath and stood up straighter. She made her voice light. “Well, shoot. That’s not too bad, is it? I can have that all fixed by tonight.”

Cade looked at her. He didn’t smile. Then he leaned forward and gripped the stair rail. “She loved this old cottage. I asked her every time she drove up if she wanted me to start work in here yet. She’d tell me to keep my grubby paws off it, that she was saving it for special.”