Chapter Twenty Nine
Knit… Purl… check on the cookies
I remember the day I saw the news story about what happened. I cried, despite myself. Not that I’d really harbored much hope for the happy ending, but it had always been there in the back of my head. It was possible. It had been possible. Not anymore, and I needed to move on with my new life.
I’d set up shop in a small, sleepy town, mostly living off of the money I’d squirreled away when I was working for the agency. It wasn’t as if that job gave me time for a social life, so living frugally had been easy. Now, though, I was glad my little yarn shop was taking off, because I was spending evenings out with my new friends, spending more in a week than I used to in a month. They knew me as a girl from the Midwest, who’d headed to the big city to try to make it big, and found she couldn’t deal. So I’d pulled up stakes and settled here, content to live a sleepy, small-town life. Privately, they all wondered why I thought I could have handled city living and the fast pace of a city job, because I was so suited to a slower way of life. Each took some responsibility for how much happier I’d become since I first showed up with everything I owned in a truck, and a sad, defeated expression on my face.
They all also knew there was more to the story than I told, probably having something to do with a man. Perceptive, these small-town folks. I was finding it harder and harder to hide my depression over the news from them, because why I would be so upset about some spies being caught in a shoot-out and corruption in a super-secret government agency was something I couldn’t explain. But I found myself sitting in my little apartment over the shop at night, staring at the necklace in my hand. I hadn’t put it back on, but I handled it every day. Every day I tried to put it on, but I just couldn’t. I had it in my mind that they day I did would be the day I’d be able to move on with my life.
The little bell over the shop door jingled, and Jenny walked in. She was an unashamed gossip and my best friend, even if she tried to hook me up with every man in the town. I think she thought that all I needed was a good roll in the hay to clear my head. But she meant well, and she was fun to hang out with, so I put up with her incessant match-making.
“Watch the place for me, would you?” I set down my knitting and picked up the little timer sitting next to me. “I need to grab the cookies out of the oven.” Not that I needed to have anyone watch the store, this was one of those obnoxiously picturesque towns where there was vanishingly little crime. I ran up the stairs as the timer started going off, and rescued the racks of cookies from the oven. I set them on coking racks and headed back downstairs. Two warm cookies in my hand. Jenny was fingering some lace-weight mohair I’d just gotten in.
“Lovely, isn’t it?” I held out a still-warm cookie for her.
“I was thinking it’d be perfect for that shawl I was going to make Nana.” She took the cookie and nibbled on it. “These are amazing! What’s in it?”
I winked at her. “It’s a secret.” I’d recently taken up dabbling in baking, and while I still had more failures than successes, I was getting better. I think Jenny encouraged it so much because she thought it would help me land a man. Everything came back around to men in her mind. I was pretty sure I wasn’t the one who needed a good roll in the hay.
“Have you given any thought to expanding your shop to include a café? The place next door would be perfect for it.”
“Are you kidding? If I added cookies and tea to the yarn, half the women in the town would never leave!” It was tempting, though. I could use the extra income, and I was really enjoyed making up new cookie recipes.
“Especially if you had, I don’t know, a handsome man working as a cook?” she said slyly. I shot her a sideways glance. She had that look like she was up to something.
“Which one of the Mathews boys fancies himself a baker now?” She’d been trying to get me to go out on a date with Jamie since the day I showed up. I think it was mostly so he’d stop chasing her, and I don’t believe he was any more interested in me than I was in him. We both humored her for different reasons.
“It’s a secret,” she winked back at me. “Come out with me tonight and we’ll talk about it.”
“Fine, where are we going?” I picked my knitting back up and started in on the sock once again. I only had a few more hours of work on it. It was my first pair, and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to wear them. Maybe I’d just frame them. Then I promised myself I’d tackle the dozen or so projects I’d brought with me from my previous life. I’m sure there was some psychological mumbo-jumbo to explain it, about embracing the new but not forsaking the old, but I just wanted to get some things done. Maybe it was about clearing the clutter, not only in my closet, but in my mind.
“It would be nice to expand my apartment,” I mused. Jenny smiled.
“You could turn the entire place above the bakery into a master suit with a gorgeous bathroom suite.”
“You’re just looking for a place to practice your interior design skills, aren’t you? You want me to be your guinea pig.” Though, in truth, I wouldn’t mind. I was comfortable enough in my shabby apartment, but Jenny had a way with interior design. She didn’t just throw together the latest trends and make a place look like a show room, cold and sterile. She took into account your personality and really made it into what you would have done, if you’d had the time and energy. The only problem is that I would insist on paying her, and she would refuse, and I’d feel guilty. She didn’t do it to make money, she told me. She had a trust fund for that. It was because she loved it.
“Perhaps. I was watching one of those design shows on TV last night, and this one designer glued hay to the walls. I’d have never thought of it, but maybe it’s worth a try…” She winked slyly at me.
“You’d never!”
“I might.”
I threw a skein of yarn at her, which she caught and started to pet. “Oooh, this is nice. Is it new? I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
“Yeah, part of that new shipment. I’m not completely sold on it, I think it might shed too much. Plus, I tried a swatch with it, and I don’t like the way it’s working up.” I held out the small knitted swatch to her.
“Hm, I see what you mean. Still, it’s lovely and gorgeous all wound up in a ball. And goodness knows at the rate I’m getting my projects done, it’ll be like that for a good, long time.”
“Isn’t that the truth? You and me both. So, what do you have planned for tonight?”
“Well, there’s that get-together and the Sampson’s, but I know you’re not fond of them.” She held up a hand to forestall my objections. “No one is. They’re boring and snotty, but they do have the best chef in three counties, so everyone goes to their parties just to eat. Trust me, you’re not alone in your opinion. Though I do think they are harsher towards you than anyone else, since you don’t descend for a noble bloodline.” She said the last in Iona Sampson’s nasal voice.
I laughed. “I would rather not deal with them tonight,” I admitted. “Usually I can deal with her, but I’m not feeling up to it right now. Besides, I’m more in the mood for something… exciting.”
“And exciting has never been used to describe any of the Sampson’s parties, unless you count the time the giant ice swan tipped over and pinned Iona to the ground between its wings. And even that was more a relief than exciting, because it gave everyone an excuse to leave early.” Jenny smiled at the memory. “Now, mind you, it’s not that anyone wanted to see her hurt, but as she wasn’t, well…”
“I completely understand. What else is going on?”
“There’s a bunch of us getting together at the pub, just and informal gathering. But it should be more fun than a stuffy party, even if the food is a bit more… plebian.”
She was up to something, but I wasn’t going to argue. It did sound like more fun than sitting at home, knitting by myself. And I needed to get out. A few days doesn’t a hermit make, but if I didn’t break out of my melancholy, I was bound to draw more attention than I wanted. And Jenny was too observant to throw off the scent.
“Fine, but dah-link, I have nothing to wear!” I drawled.
“I think we can work on that,” she said. “The party starts at eight, I’ll meet you here at five when you close up. There’s a dress over at Maddie’s that would look divine on you.” She sailed out the door with a backwards wave before I could object.
I groaned. A dress from Maddie’s would cost me an arm and a leg, and even though I know Jenny would insist on buying it for me, I wouldn’t let her. I’d better make tonight worth the cost of the dress, I decided, and went upstairs to pull out the pearl necklace.
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