Damn.
He had caught her. She was really, really good. He was amazed at how
slick
she was, how he hadn’t seen this coming.
Cade cleaned up, went out to the barn, discussed the workday with Tom. Felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Did his chores. All the while, the slow burn of rage in his chest grew heavier, a thick braid of anger lodged in his body.
The more he pushed on fence poles, the harder he drove the tractor into the mulch pile he was working on, the more his body temperature soared. Under the scent of his own heat and sweat, he could smell her, that light, sweet smell, that scent that had masked what he’d found today. She was machinating, conniving. Was there even a guy who had hurt her in the past? He wouldn’t put it past her to just make that guy up. To get the sympathy.
The girl who had been on the couch with him last night—he had no idea who she was.
What she could be.
God, it just proved everything he believed about women. He grimaced as he pulled a burr out of the palm of his hand. He should be using his gloves now to move this pile of brush, but he didn’t want to.
All women. Just the same.
Just like his mother. She’d left his father after taking him for all he was worth. She’d used his father to move up in the world, out of her trailer and into his house. She’d given birth to Cade, and then left with all his father’s money, and most of his pride. Every couple of years she’d show up and move back in again, all tears and remorse. His father would fall back in love, then they’d start to fight. Cade hid under his blankets until he was old enough to run to Eliza’s. Every time his mother left, she took more of his father with her, until there was nothing left. When his dad died, he was nothing but a pathetic shell.
God, what a sucker Cade’d almost been.
That moment last night, when he had been drowning in Abigail’s eyes, in what had felt like her soul—that had been an act. A well-played role.
He’d fallen for it.
He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
When you join the arms to the body, make sure you’re in the mood to concentrate. Leave the play knitting aside, just for this row. This is serious.
—
E.C.
J
anet’s black town car crunched up the driveway. By the time Abigail got to the car itself, Janet had gotten out and was standing, hand over mouth, looking around.
Janet stage-whispered to Abigail, “Is it real?”
“It’s real.”
“And this little house? This is the new place? This is where the shop is going to be? Where you’ll live?”
“Theoretically. Although you’ll tell me if it is or not, I think.”
Janet grabbed Abigail and squeezed her, hard. Abigail responded by holding her and hugging back so hard that Janet gasped.
“Anything wrong, honey?” Janet took a step back and looked at her. “Everything all right out here in the wilds? It’s been two weeks since our lunch and I haven’t heard from you once. You’re one step away from home-brewing liquor in a still, aren’t you? I knew it.”
Abigail shook her head. “It’s only twenty minutes from where you live in town.”
“But think of the
town
, honey. It’s no metropolis.”
“You left that all behind years ago anyway. You should be used to it.”
“I suppose I am, but I am not used to
this
. Now, show me everything. Oh, my God, you have a dog?” Clara tried to jump on Janet, but Janet stepped to the side in a practiced move.
She was wearing an orange-and-fuchsia low-cut blouse that clung to her curves and showed to great advantage the chest that she had bought and paid for years ago. Her outfit was completed by a tight brown skirt with a long slit up the side and high-heeled brown leather knee-high boots.
“I can’t show you everything. Believe me, you don’t want to walk around the barns in those heels. I can barely manage it in tennis shoes.”
“I can go anywhere in these, darling. Lead the way.”
“The cottage first, then. It’s really all I can safely show you anyway.”
Janet’s perfect eyebrows went up, but didn’t ask.
They went up onto the porch, Janet making appreciative noises. Abigail opened the door.
“Oh,” said Janet. “Wow.”
“It needs a lot of work.”
“Understatement of the century. What
is
all this stuff?”
Abigail’s voice became lighter as she told Janet more about what Eliza had left for her. She showed her the partially set up wheels, and opened boxes to show her the stored fiber.
“Spinning wheels!” Abigail pushed four boxes aside to show her the Lendrum, already put together. “Tons of wheels, all kinds. Fiber in rolags and batts, all gorgeously prepped. Yarn, lots of it, from a vendor in Maine. Dyes, all natural. Look! There’s even a cash register, over here. Oh, it’s somewhere. But isn’t it amazing?”
Janet cocked her head and said, “It’s something, all right.”
“You have to admit that it’s awesome, right? Eliza is giving me not only the cottage but my dream as well.”
“Your dream was to sell yarn on a rural road twenty minutes from a decent cup of coffee?”
“I can make my own coffee here.”
“What does the cowboy think about all this?”
Abigail flushed, and she knew Janet noticed. She turned to close up a box. “He’s not too happy about it.”
“I’m sure. Will he get used to it?”
“He’ll have to, won’t he? I mean, he doesn’t have that much choice. This is my land, my place, my property, and I can put in a driveway out to that county road behind my pasture, if I have to. I got the license this morning, and met with the local business bureau, and it’s all set to go. As soon as I’m ready in here, I can open the shop.”
Janet put a finger to her cheek. “You have a pasture? Oh, darling, it’s too much. Show me your pasture.”
“I have alpacas, too.”
Janet’s mouth dropped open, and for once, she didn’t appear to have anything to say.
Abigail thought Janet did well, the next half hour, as she led her around the property. She made it across the dirt and into the shed just fine in the spiked boots. She seemed to adore the alpacas, although they didn’t look like they knew what to make of her, and shied away every time she approached.
Tussah, the female, was making great strides. She let Abigail approach her neck and touch her back. Merino didn’t shy too much from her either. Abigail figured the twice-daily feeding she’d been doing was starting to work.
Abigail made sure Cade’s truck was nowhere in sight and then showed Janet the main house. Janet loved the parlor the best.
Of course she would, thought Abigail. The one room she didn’t want to reenter, Janet swooned over.
“That
lamp
! And those windows! That piano! The whole room is perfect. It’s like something out of
Little House on the Prairie
.”
“Oh, please.”
“And just look at that fireplace, can you ever imagine anything more romantic? What you need to do, honey, is get that Cade in here one night, you give him a little whiskey or whatever it is the cowboys are drinking these days. A little smooch, and you get a little hot-cha-cha, right here,”—she paused, looking over the room—“right over there on that sofa, mmmm-hmmm.”
Abigail rolled her eyes and tried to sound nonchalant. “Cut it out.”
“Oh, honey, I’m only teasing you.”
“Didn’t you want to see the barn?”
“Of course I do. Lead on.”
Once outside, Abigail again carefully searched for Cade’s big old truck, but didn’t see it. She’d found in the past few days that the barn was a wonderful place to visit if she could sneak in by herself. There was always a sheep or two in one of the pens, not with the fold. Cade had four horses that he rode and used in herding the sheep, and they were kept either in the pasture to the immediate rear of the barn, or in their stalls. Two other working dogs lived out there, too, dogs that seemed completely flummoxed by Clara’s inability to do anything work-like.
Before she came here, Abigail hadn’t ever known how nice it was to hear a horse’s puffy breaths coming over a wooden door. She’d snuck in several times already to hear it.
“Horses! Oh, divine,” exclaimed Janet.
Well, at least she was an appreciative audience.
“Oh, look at the big beasts,” said Janet. “Look at how handsome you are, what a big boy you are, how gorgeous, that big soft nose, and those huge eyes…”
“Thanks. I love getting compliments like that from beautiful ladies.”
Both women spun around to find a man standing behind them, his arms crossed, a smile across his face, a cowboy hat on his head.
“Oh,
divine
,” breathed Janet.
“I’m Abigail. You must be Tom. Cade’s mentioned you.” Abigail stuck out her hand. His palm was huge, callused and rough.
“I’ve seen you up at the house from a distance. Been meaning to come up and introduce myself, but it’s been busy down here lately. I’m sorry for that.”
Before Abigail could respond, Janet stepped in front of her.
“My name is Janet,” she said, batting her eyes. Abigail hadn’t ever actually seen anyone do that before, and she was amazed.
So, it seemed, was Tom.
“T-Tom,” he stuttered. Then he cleared his throat. “Are you Abigail’s sister?”
“Aren’t you the sweetest? No, I’m in fashion. Imports.”
Tom looked confused.
“Luxury fibers, darling. That’s how I know our girl here. Actually, I’m the one who convinced her to write her first book. Now, you—you look like someone with a book inside you, just waiting to burst out.”
Tom grinned and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Well, that’s somethin’. I’ve been thinking a little bit lately that I’d like to write a book someday. Maybe a Western. Like Louis L’Amour.”
“Show me more of your horses, and maybe I’ll see if I can pull that book out of you.”
Tom grinned bigger. They wandered off down toward the other stalls.
Abigail called after them, “I’ll be at the cottage, then, okay? Cleaning!” Neither looked back at her. “By myself! Don’t worry about me!”
Janet gave a jaunty wave without turning around.
An hour later, Abigail was covered in dust, grime, and sweat. She had moved the bulk of the boxes into one half of the front room, culling the junk from the stuff that would be stock, marking on the sides of other boxes what the contents were. She had a plan for moving the boxes out of the hall and kitchen. While she did the grunt work, in her mind she was designing her bedroom-slash-writing studio upstairs, in the cupola.
It almost worked to take her mind off Cade.
She had, however, managed to decide that she would sacrifice having a big bed upstairs and just get a small one—it would be hard to get a big one up there anyway—in favor of having a larger writing desk in front of one of the many windows. The octagonal room itself had windows on all sides, and Abigail had chosen yellow walls with red-checkered curtains. The red would help keep the light out in the morning, and looked as cheery as the landscape outside.
Maybe she’d see Cade from up there, when she was working.
Not that she’d be looking.
She would give the rest of the cottage over to her new workshop. She didn’t really know what to call it in her head—store, shop, classroom? She wanted a limited amount of retail product available—some spinning wheels and oils, things like brake bands and bobbins. She pictured baskets in the corners with wooden bobbins that customers could poke through and pick from, bins of loose fiber that people could pull out, bundle, and measure on the scale that would stand on an old dark wooden desk. She didn’t have the desk yet. But she could imagine it.
But really, more than a store, Abigail wanted a place for knitters to gather, for people to be able to come and knit or spin in a beautiful place. She wanted couches and tables piled with books and coffee cups, and colorful walls, light and flowers. A sense of place.
She would change the downstairs bedroom into a small classroom. She wouldn’t have big classes, never more than seven or eight people—there was room for a large table or two, and comfortable chairs. Yesterday, when she’d been cleaning in there, she’d been surprised when she pulled back the old, heavy drapes and found a pair of French doors that opened onto a small deck, overlooking the alpaca pasture. The doors, along with the three windows, gave the room all the light they’d need to spin even the finest of downy fibers.
She wondered if Cade had ever seen anyone spinning, wondered if Eliza had spun anything for him.
No, maybe not. Eliza didn’t like to make things for people who wouldn’t appreciate the gift; she wouldn’t make handspun socks or hats, much less handspun sweaters, for people who would carelessly toss them into a hot washing machine. So Cade probably had little from her.
But Eliza had loved him. So he
might
have a store-bought-yarn hand-knitted sweater or two, she supposed. Eliza had always glowed when speaking of her nephew. She had been so proud of him, proud that he’d done so much with her land, with his life. She had been so proud that he’d taken after his father and not his mother, who had been a piece of work, apparently.
What would Eliza think now?
“Where are you?” whispered Abigail, wandering through the rooms littered with boxes. “Are you still here?”
She threw open the French doors again and wandered out.
Janet’s voice calling her from the front made her jump.
“I’m out here,” she called. “Come through the bedroom.”
Janet came out onto the deck, Tom following at her heels. He looked a little confused, like he’d been hit on the head with something. He didn’t seem to mind.
Actually, he looked besotted, his eyes locked on Janet’s face.
“We’re going to lunch. We just wanted to tell you, in case you were looking for me, or in case Cade looks for Tom.”
Abigail noted she was not invited.
“We’re going to talk about literature,” said Tom.