The Lover’s Knot Read online

  "This is a bit less exciting than you're used to," Eleanor said.

  "That's a good thing. I've had enough excitement." I told her about the scene between Marc and Ryan.

  "Good enough for him," she said. "Did he think you would wait forever?"

  "It's been less than a week."

  "Long enough." I had to agree with that idea. "Ryan didn't think he was making a decision," she continued. "He thought he was delaying one. He didn't think about how it might change everything."

  "Because he's selfish," I suggested.

  "I don't think that's it. Scared, maybe. People make most of their worst decisions because they're afraid."

  I sat up. "I don't know whether I'm supposed to hate him or feel sorry for him."

  She smiled. "I felt the same way about your grandfather after he died. One too many beers and he wrapped his car around that tree, changing my life, your mother's, even yours, in a way. Of course, your grandfather couldn't have imagined that his decision would have that kind of effect. Just like now, Ryan didn't think that postponing the engagement would send you off with another man."

  I blushed and stammered for a minute until I could figure out what to say. "Marc's not another man, he's a friend."

  She sighed. "I don't mean to interfere."

  "You're not. Well, you are." I smiled. "But I could use a little wise interference. It could be your way of paying me back for all the help I'm going to give you around the house."

  "And at the shop, if you can. I took a lease on the diner to expand the shop."

  I practically jumped. "You did what? When?"

  "Why are you so surprised? It was your idea."

  "You've been in the hospital."

  "I had access to a phone." She rolled her eyes, but I could see she enjoyed being one step ahead of me. "I thought about what you said, and it made sense, so I made a few calls. I had nothing else to do, just sitting there like some sick person."

  I settled back down next to Barney. "Wow" was all I could get out.

  She patted my hand. "And it worked out perfectly, with you here to help. That will keep you busy."

  I stretched myself out on the bed, wrapping my arm around a sleeping Barney. "Not too busy. I have a limited amount of energy." I closed my eyes and was asleep to the sounds of Opie and Aunt Bee talking about their day.

  CHAPTER 16

  My grandmother's alarm went off at six-thirty in the morning, but I was awake for several minutes before. Barney had woken up and jumped off the bed, stepping over me in the process. My grandmother reached for her crutches and dropped them, saying in a loud whisper, "Damn," a word she'd never used before, at least not in my presence.

  "Let me help." I got up and the day began.

  I scrambled eggs according to my grandmother's strict instructions, and they weren't just edible-as they were when I made them in New York-they were quite good. I walked Barney, did the dishes, and brought down unfinished quilting projects so my grandmother could do some hand sewing. I made a list of all the needed groceries and errands she wanted me to run. When I got back, she told me, I would need to pack some of her old clothes into boxes for a charity drive.

  "One more thing," she said as I was walking out the door with half a dozen lists. "Stop at the shop. See if Nancy needs any help." I was exhausted, and it wasn't even ten o'clock.

  When I walked outside I half-expected to see Marc's truck and his ladder to the roof. I found myself a little disappointed when they weren't there. I wondered if he was finished with the roof, which would be a good thing, I told myself, since it looked like rain.

  I did most of the errands and managed to grab a cup of coffee at the diner before I walked to Someday Quilts. From the outside it looked quiet, but when I opened the door, I walked straight into a very frazzled Nancy.

  "We have to shut down the store," she said instead of hello.

  "What? Why?"

  "Ask him." She pointed to Marc, who was coming up the stairs with a toolbox and a measuring tape. I smiled, a little too happily, I knew, but I was glad to run into him.

  "Nancy," he chided, "Eleanor wants this wall knocked down as soon as the diner closes tonight. I can't do that with people walking around. There will be dust everywhere, power tools. If you don't care about the customers, think about the fabric." He was having fun with her, I could see, but Nancy wasn't interested.

  "Did she hire you?" I turned to Marc. "She didn't say anything to me."

  "She called me this morning. She said to get started right away. I think you were out running errands." Marc shifted a little but stood his ground.

  Nancy looked at me. "I'm sorry," I said. "She just told me last night that she leased the shop. And you know my grandmother. Once she makes up her mind, she doesn't like to wait."

  "Look, I'm all for this renovation," Nancy sighed. "But this one shows up without any warning when I'm trying to run a store." Nancy tilted her head toward Marc but looked at me. "I admire enthusiasm, but you don't want someone going off half-cocked."

  "Hey, I'm here." Marc leaned toward Nancy. "I could be at the track with your husband."

  Nancy rolled her eyes. "You could hardly do more harm there than you're doing here." She smiled at Marc as though he were a slightly mischievous puppy. "And before you get smart with me again, young man, remember I've known you since you were a small child. There's no fooling me with that charm of yours."

  "Yes, ma'am." Marc pretended to look contrite, and then smiled. Then he turned to me and shrugged. "What now, granddaughter?"

  I blushed, and I knew he could see it, so I looked around the shop trying to think of something to say. "The diner's closing tonight?"

  "After the lunch crowd. The owners told Eleanor she could have it all. Not that she wants a bunch of old kitchen equipment." He smiled. "Didn't Eleanor tell you all this already?"

  "No," I said. "Why don't you start work on the diner, then, pulling out the old stuff and getting it cleaned up. How long will that take?"

  "A few days."

  "Fine," I continued. "We'll close Wednesday, do inventory, and bring everything over to my grandmother's. Everyone in town knows where she lives. We can run the shop out of there for a few weeks. And Marc can wait until, say, Saturday to knock down this wall. In the meantime, we'll pack up whatever we can."

  "Fine with me," Marc said. "I have a doctor's appointment Thursday anyway."

  Nancy turned to me. "I'll call our regulars," she said, "and let them know we're moving to Eleanor's for a while."

  "You do that," I said. "And don't worry about Marc. I'll make sure he doesn't do anything without my supervision. Okay?"

  She laughed. "Good luck with that, dear." She drifted to the stairs and disappeared to the office below.

  "Good thinking." Marc threw an arm around me. He leaned his head in and rested it on mine. "I like the idea of you supervising me."

  I let out a nervous laugh. "Work fast," I said, then pulled away. "And don't cause any trouble."

  "Man, you are just like your grandmother."

  Less than twenty minutes after I arrived, Carrie was in the shop to confirm what Nancy had, apparently, told her on the phone. Several minutes later, Maggie arrived. Then Bernie. Then Susanne. Only Natalie was missing.

  Carrie said twice to me and once to Susanne, "Well, the shop needs to be bigger. I agree with that. But it's a shame to lose a place to get some coffee."

  "What about setting up some tables and making a little coffee shop in the store?" I suggested by way of compromise, and was verbally beaten in response.

  "We'll have coffee all over the fabric," said Nancy and Susanne.

  "You can't run two businesses and do them both well," declared Bernie.

  "Have you ever had Eleanor's coffee?" whimpered Carrie. I had actually had my grandmother's coffee. And while it wasn't a halfdecaf soy latte, it was quite good.

  I could see that no one was interested in a coffee and quilt shop. "Just throwing out ideas," I said in my defense. "I'm sur
e my grandmother knows exactly what she wants in the space."

  "She certainly does," Marc finally spoke.

  "Thank you, Marc, but we'll talk with Eleanor about her plans." Maggie gave him an icy stare I hadn't thought she was capable of. Only Carrie smiled at Marc and said she'd be interested in hearing what he had in mind.

  "Can I start doing anything now, boss?" Marc asked, smiling broadly.

  I looked around at the shop. "We can move stuff away from the wall you're going to open up." I looked toward Nancy. "But only while I'm here helping." She nodded her approval.

  "Why don't you bundle up some of the out-of-season fabric?" Maggie suggested.

  Nancy leaned against the checkout counter. "I want to go through that for inventory first. Maybe pack up here, behind the register."

  Marc moved toward the register, but I stopped him. "You grab a box and Nancy and I will take the stuff out of here."

  "I'll help," Carrie volunteered, and stepped next to me.

  I reached my arm into the deep shelf underneath the register, while Carrie hovered nearby.

  "Be careful," Maggie said. And no sooner had the words come out of her mouth than something bit my hand. I pulled it out immediately. Blood was running from my fingers.

  "Oh, dear," Carrie gasped, and grabbed antiseptic and a bandage from her tote bag. "One good thing about having small children is you're prepared for anything."

  I went downstairs to the bathroom and tried to wash the blood away, but it kept coming. Just the tips of two fingers had cuts in them, but they were deep. I finally gave up trying and put the antiseptic and bandage on it, then went back upstairs.

  Nancy was holding a flashlight and scanning the dark shelf. "Found it," she said. Carefully she held up a rotary cutter-a tool that looks like a pizza cutter but is designed for quick cutting of fabric. "It was open." She turned to me, a concerned look across her face. She put a cover over the sharp blade. "These are really dangerous. You're so lucky it wasn't worse."

  I nodded. "Maybe that's enough for today," I suggested. "Marc, just clean up and we'll worry about all this stuff after Wednesday. I'm going home."

  "I want to drop in on my son Brian," Maggie announced as she picked up her purse. "Nell, can you give me a lift? It's on your way."

  While Nancy and the others stood watching Marc, he just smiled at me and went back to measuring. I grabbed my keys and headed for the door, wondering just what I had gotten myself into by volunteering to stay in Archers Rest to help my grandmother.

  CHAPTER 17

  Maggie gave me the directions to her son's house as soon as we got in the car, and then we drifted into an uncomfortable silence. She fidgeted with her purse and looked out the window. I stared straight ahead at the road. Alone with her for the first time, I felt a little like a school child, afraid to talk in case she "sssh'd" me. With the members of the quilt club she seemed like a different person, relaxed, younger. But with me, she was every bit the stern librarian she'd once been.

  "Is this the son who's a state representative?" I finally asked.

  "It is, but that's just a stopping point. He'll be governor one day," she said proudly.

  "My grandmother told me you have quite accomplished kids. Your son, plus a doctor, two lawyers, and an artist."

  "Sheila isn't a artist. She owns a kind of art gallery. She doesn't actually make the art herself." There was a vague disapproval in her voice, but it quickly softened. "She does have a good eye, though. She always finds something."

  "I wanted to be an artist when I was a kid. I used to love to paint. In fact, when I moved to New York I wanted to work in an art gallery, " I confessed. "Hanging out with artists all day seemed really fun. But I couldn't find a job, and I guess I sort of took a different road."

  "You have time to choose whatever road you like." She took a deep breath and changed the subject. "I wonder if Eleanor knows what she's doing. She takes people at their word, an admirable quality if she isn't being lied to."

  "What do you mean?"

  "That's it on the left," directed Maggie, and I pulled over to a pretty brick house with a well-tended garden.

  "Maggie, can you please tell me what you meant?" I asked again.

  "I didn't mean anything, except I think that Eleanor needs to be careful, and if she won't be careful, then you need to be careful for her."

  "Well, that certainly clears things up for me," I said as Maggie got out of the car.

  "You have her sarcasm," Maggie said. "Never cared for that in Eleanor." She started to frown, but instead she shook her head and smiled. "You really are like her."

  I laughed. "Is that a compliment?"

  Maggie laughed back. "Sometimes," she said, and headed toward her son's house.

  "I hear that you've been getting me out of trouble," my grandmother shouted to me as I walked in the house. "And getting yourself into it."

  I peered into the living room, but she wasn't there. I walked back to the kitchen. She was hobbling around on her crutches, making sandwiches.

  "What trouble am I in?" She pointed to my bandaged hand as she took a slice of bread from the loaf.

  "I can do that. You shouldn't even be out of bed." I took the bread out of her hand. "What trouble did I get you out of?"

  "At the shop. I guess Marc was a little enthusiastic. I hear you smoothed things over with the girls."

  "I did good?" I was not about to let a possible compliment go unnoticed.

  "No, you were just happy to see Marc, but you got me out of trouble anyway by putting off the renovation until Saturday. It gives everyone a chance to get used to it."

  For just an instant I felt the need to deny my interest in Marc, then I decided it was better to let the comment pass. My grandmother was right, and she knew it. There wasn't any point in trying to explain something I didn't even understand myself. "You kind of surprised me too, hiring Marc," I said as I cut a pat of butter.

  "You're doing it wrong." Eleanor had moved on to my sandwich-making skills.

  "How could I be doing it wrong?" I was spreading butter on bread, not exactly a skill requiring an advanced degree.

  "Less butter, and do both sides-it keeps the sandwich moister that way."

  "Have you ever stopped to consider that we simply have different, yet equal, sandwich-making techniques?"

  "Not really, no."

  I buttered both sides her way, put the turkey and tomato slices on the sandwich, and cut it on the diagonal, as instructed. Eleanor sniffed at it a bit, refused to say anything nice about it, but finished it in seconds.

  "I'm dying to hear what you and Marc have planned for the shop," I finally admitted.

  A glint came into her eye. "We'll cut a hole in the wall, make a doorway to the other side, and add shelves for more fabric." She started sketching on a napkin. "And here in the back we'll build an office where the kitchen was, and next to it there will be a small classroom."

  "Is Marc doing all this?"

  She made a face at me. "Don't get too attached."

  "I'm not attached. I just wonder if he's up to the task."

  "Well, when he called me he was so enthusiastic. He really wants the chance to prove his worth, and I like that. No one thought I could run a quilt shop, a widow with two small children and no experience running a business. But I did okay. Sometimes you have to give people a chance."

  "I don't think Maggie likes him. Or Natalie."

  "Well, they have their opinions." She turned back to the napkin and a subject she clearly preferred. "I want to put up a whole wall of quilting tools, but I can't decide where."

  "I have some ideas," I said. Eleanor smiled and handed me the pen, and together we arranged and rearranged the shop until every detail was worked out.

  "This is a great plan, but it's a little ambitious, especially for the crew you've got. Marc isn't a real contractor, Nancy's never run a business before and, let's face it, I don't know anything about any of it."

  "I'm not worried about any of you," she
said, and then smiled. "Well, I'm not worried about Marc or Nancy. Your sandwich-making abilities are a little sad."

  CHAPTER 18

  Over the next several days I split my time between doing my grandmother's errands and being her spy at the shop. Nancy complained hourly about the noise Marc was making next door as he pulled old booths and kitchen equipment from the diner. For each regular who came by to express her excitement about the shop expansion, another would predict dire consequences-it was too much work for Eleanor, it would be difficult to make enough money to pay for expansion, it would ruin the coziness of the place.

  We closed the shop on Wednesday and I drove Eleanor over to sit in a corner and bark orders while Nancy and I did the inventory. Nancy spread boxes on the floor and began sorting the fabrics into categories from Christmas to children to plaids. When I incorrectly identified a fabric with ducks on it as children's, rather than Easter, I was taken off fabric duty. Instead Eleanor had me sort through the quilting tools. It was amazing to me that despite the seeming chaos, everything was catalogued and accounted for. When the inventory was done, there wasn't one missing pack of needles or thread color anywhere.

  "I'll make one more check downstairs," I said.

  "Be careful, Nell," Eleanor shouted after me. "I mean it."

  She didn't have to warn me. Not since I'd fallen down the stairs myself, not that Eleanor knew that. Nancy had done an amazing job of bringing all the boxes upstairs and the place was clean and empty. But when I peeked into the little office on the side, I found another story. Boxes were half-packed with old files and binders, and a large box in the corner was filled with cut-up pieces of fabrics and threads. It seemed like a job for Nancy, who would have a better idea which, if any, of this stuff was worth keeping.

  "We should start taking stuff to the car," I said as I came back upstairs.

  "Remember to put supplies for the quilt club in a separate box," Eleanor directed.

  "Like what kind of supplies?"

  Nancy handed me an empty box, then began pointing out a variety of rulers, rubber mats, and rotary cutters. "You'll also need a good pair of these," she said, and handed me heavy metal scissors.