Home Sweet Home (2 page)

As her grandmother tried to regain her breath, Andi couldn’t believe how translucent her skin had become. Evelyn’s hands had always been one of the most impressive things about her with long, slim fingers and nails neatly rounded at the tips. So strong, so tireless as she quickly knitted sweaters and blankets, the needles a blur as she chatted, laughed, and gossiped with customers and friends in Lake Yarns.

“You shouldn’t come to work if you have a cold.” Fear made Andi’s words harder than they needed to be, almost accusing. “You should be resting.”

Mostly recovered now, her grandmother waved one hand in the air. “I told you, I’m fine. Just a little coughing fit every now and then.” At Andi’s disbelieving look, she said, “Things like that happen to us old people, you know.”

Andi hated to hear her grandmother refer to herself as old, even though she knew it was technically true. It was just that she couldn’t bear to think that one day Evelyn wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be living and breathing this store, the yarn, the customers who loved her as much as her own family did.

A twinge of guilt hit Andi even though there was no reason for her to feel this way. Her mother and grandmother had always run Lake Yarns perfectly well by themselves. Nothing had changed just because Andi was going to be in town for a couple of weeks.

Still, she couldn’t help but feel that she should have been here before now. What if something had happened to her mother or grandmother while she’d been gone? Just like it had happened to her father.

“Have you seen Dr. Morris yet?” Andi asked, immediately reading the answer in her grandmother’s face. Sometimes Evelyn was too stubborn for her own good.

Andi grabbed the cordless phone and handed it to her grandmother. “Call him.”

“I can’t leave the store unattended.”

“I don’t care about the store, Grandma. I care about you. That cough sounded awful. You need to get it checked out, make sure it isn’t something serious.”

When Evelyn didn’t take the phone, Andi decided to take matters into her own hands. “Hello, this is Andi Powell. My grandmother Evelyn has a terrible cough and needs to see Dr. Morris as soon as possible.” After a moment of silence, where she listened to the friendly receptionist’s questions, Andi shot Evelyn a look. “She isn’t calling herself because talking makes her cough. Yes, she can be there in fifteen minutes.” She put the phone down on the counter. “He’s squeezing you in.”

“I won’t put a closed sign up in the middle of the day on my store. I’ve been open rain or shine for nearly sixty years.”

Andi found her grandmother’s purse behind the counter and forced her to take it, just as Evelyn had forced her to take the needles and yarn. “I’ll watch the store.”

“You?”

Evelyn’s disbelief was right on the edge of insulting. “Yes, me. How hard can it be?”

One neat eyebrow moved up on her grandmother’s pretty face, and Andi realized how insulting her response had been.

“I didn’t mean it like that, Grandma. Look, the register is the same one you had when I was a kid. I couldn’t have forgotten positively everything about knitting. If I don’t know something, I’ll figure it out. I promise.”

“Well, if you think you can handle it for an hour…”

The challenge in her grandmother’s voice had her saying, “After your appointment, I want you to take the rest of the day off. I’ll close up.”

But after Evelyn left, the bells on the door clanging softly behind her, Andi stood in the middle of the store wondering what the heck she’d just signed up for. With all the money Andi made in skyscrapers and on corporate campuses, she had absolutely no idea what she was doing in a place like this.

Still Andi told herself there was no reason to panic.

Anyone with half a brain could run a yarn store for a few hours on a Monday morning.

A few seconds later, the front door opened and a gray-haired woman walked in.

“Hello,” Andi said in an overbright voice. “Welcome to Lake Yarns.”

“Thank you. I’ve heard such good things about your store that I drove all the way from Utica to come take a look.”

Andi’s eyes widened. “You drove an hour and a half to visit this store?”

The woman gave her a strange look. “Yes, I did. Several of my friends simply rave about your selection and customer service.”

Andi hoped she didn’t look as horrified as she felt. This woman had traveled one hundred miles to shop here…and she was getting stuck with someone who didn’t even know how to knit.

Sorely tempted to run down the street to call her grandmother back, Andi told herself she was being ridiculous. How much help would someone need in a yarn store? If you were a serious knitter, shouldn’t you already know everything?

With another wide smile, Andi finally said, “Be sure to let me know if you need anything.”

She stared down at the ancient register, not really remembering how to use it at all, and wondered if there was an instruction booklet somewhere under the counter. She didn’t want to look like an idiot in front of her first customer.

“Excuse me?”

Andi straightened up from her fruitless search for a manual. “Yes? Is there something I can help you with?”

The woman held up a skein of yarn. “It says this is superwash, but I’m a fairly new knitter and I don’t know whether I should trust the label or not. Can you tell me how this actually washes? Does it pill or felt if you leave it in the dryer for too long?”

Andi carefully studied the label as if “100% Superwash Merino Wool” meant something to her. If she said she had no idea how it washed because she didn’t knit or know the first thing about any of the yarns in the store, the woman would be—rightly—disgusted. But if she lied and said it would wash well and then it didn’t, Lake Yarns would have lost a customer for life.

She’d never thought she’d have to think so fast standing in the middle of a yarn store.

How wrong she’d been.

Quickly deciding the truth was her best option, Andi said, “Actually I’ve never used that particular yarn.”

The woman frowned. “Is there anyone here that has?” she asked, craning her head to see if there was some yarn guru hiding in the back of the store.

“I’m sure there’s some information online about that brand. It will just take me a minute to look it up.”

Thank god she never went anywhere without her tiny laptop. Unfortunately, it seemed to take forever to start up. She felt like she was standing in front of one of her clients who wanted answers about their project and wanted them now. Andi usually worked double-time not to be put in this kind of position.

But her grandmother really had sounded terrible. Watching the store was the right thing to do.

“I’ll just find an Internet connection and then—”

Shoot. All of the nearby wireless providers were locked tight with passwords. Working not to let her expression betray her, Andi reached for her phone. But after what seemed like an eternity of trying to pull up her search page, all she got was a message that said, “Cannot connect.”

She couldn’t believe it. She was being beaten by a yarn store.

Shooting her clearly irritated customer a reassuring smile, she said, “I’ll have the information for you in another few moments,” then picked up the cordless phone and local phone book and went into the back.

Flipping through the pages, she found another yarn store in Loon Lake and quickly dialed the number. “Hi, this is Andi Powell from Lake Yarns. I have a quick question for you about—” The woman on the other end of the line cut her off. “Oh yes, of course, I understand if you’re busy with a customer. Okay, I’ll call back in fifteen minutes.”

But Andi already knew that fifteen minutes would be way too long. Desperate now, she walked out the back door and held her cell phone out to the sky, praying for bars.

“Thank god,” she exclaimed when the word
searching
in the top left corner of her phone slowly shifted to the symbol that meant she had a wireless connection. Typing into the web browser with her thumbs, she actually exclaimed “hooray” and pumped her fist in the air when the information she’d been looking for appeared.

A moment later, greatly relieved to find her customer was still in the store, she said, “Good news. It seems that everyone who has used that yarn is really happy with how well it washed. Plus it evidently doesn’t itch in the least.”

The woman nodded. “Okay.”

Uh-oh. That was less than enthusiastic.

Hoping that talking about the woman’s intended project might reengage her earlier enthusiasm, Andi asked, “What were you thinking of knitting with it?”

“A baby blanket for my new granddaughter.”

The woman pulled a picture out of her purse. The baby was chubby and bald and smiling a toothless grin.

“She’s beautiful,” Andi said softly.

The woman nodded, her previously irritated expression now completely gone. “I learned to knit for her.”

Just like that, Andi suddenly understood what her grandmother had been talking about: this baby was the reason this woman was falling in love with knitting. As Andi instinctively ran the yarn’s threads between her thumb and forefinger, a shiver of beauty, of sweet, unexpected calm suddenly moved through her.

At long last, the knot in the center of her gut came loose, and she told the woman, “I think it will make a really beautiful baby blanket.”

Andi wasn’t trying to sell the woman anything anymore.

She was simply saying what she felt.

N
ate Duncan heard the phone ringing on his way out of his office at city hall, but he didn’t want to be late to pick up his sister, Madison, from school. He was waiting on a call from the Adirondack Council about funds for an important riverbed restoration project, but he didn’t believe in mixing work with play.

His sister was the most important person in his life. The people of Emerald Lake who had rallied around him when he needed them most came next. Everything else could sit on the back burner, if necessary.

Before jumping into his truck, he made sure the canoe, paddles, and fishing poles were secure. It was time for their first fall fishing trip.

Madison swore she hated fishing, that she’d rather be doing anything else. Nate smiled, thinking that her complaints didn’t change the fact that his ten-year-old sister was one hell of a fisherwoman. A picture of Madison holding the sixty-pound pickerel she’d caught last winter when he’d taken her ice fishing hung above their mantel at home.

Pulling up outside the elementary school, he saw his sister talking animatedly with her best friend, Kayla. Her friend’s mother, Betsy, smiled along with the girls.

As soon as he walked up to the group a minute later, his sister hit him with, “Nate, can I sleep over at Kayla’s house tonight?”

“It’s a school night. Besides, we’re going fishing.”

“But Kayla’s my partner in natural science, and we were going to work on our wildlife project together. It will be so much easier to do it at her house. And Kayla’s mom was going to feed me, too. I can easily get there in time for dinner after fishing. Please, Nate, can I sleep over at her house?”

Betsy gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Nate, I shouldn’t have planted the idea in their heads. I just thought they could work on the project. Would it make things better if I fed you dinner, too, Nate?”

He and Betsy had so much in common. She was a single mother, and he had been a full-time parent to his sister since she was a month old. Plus, Betsy was an attractive blond, always smiling, always happy to take Madison for the night if he needed help. She looked great in her jeans and sweater, like a woman who was comfortable with herself. He loved that he could count on Betsy to look after his sister when she was with Kayla.

But no matter how much he wanted Betsy to be his type, she wasn’t. For some reason Nate couldn’t understand, he hadn’t yet managed to fall for her, even though she was a sweet, attractive woman.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll have to take a rain check on dinner.”

He didn’t want to give Betsy false hope. She was too nice to get tangled up with a guy who didn’t have anything to offer her.

“But I can go to Kayla’s tonight, right, Nate?”

On the verge of saying no, Nate looked down at his sister’s pretty face, her hopeful eyes, and saw himself for the sucker he was.

“Fine. But you’re not ditching out on fishing with me first.” He looked between the girls, who seemed positively gleeful about their new plans. “And you both have to promise to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.”

Madison and Kayla both nodded and said, “Of course we will,” at the same time, but he’d been raising this little girl for long enough to know better.

“I’ll drop Madison off in a couple of hours if that’s all right, Betsy.”

He could tell the woman was smiling through her disappointment. “Great. And if you change your mind about dinner, there will be plenty.”

Feeling like an idiot for not wanting something any other sane guy would have, he said, “Good day at school?” as he and his sister walked to the truck.

“Yup,” she said, tucking her backpack under the passenger seat before she climbed in and put on her seat belt.

Used to be, he couldn’t get her to stop talking. Four, five, and six had been the chatty years, when he thought his ear was going to fall off from the long, winding stories she would spin for him day after day. Lately though, getting anything out of her was like pulling teeth.

“Anything exciting happen?”

She didn’t say anything at first, and when he looked over at her, she was blushing. “There’s a new kid.”

“What’s her name?”

She shook her head, just like Nate had suspected she would. “It’s not a girl.”

Working to ride the fine line between interested and neutral, he asked, “What’s his name?”

“Jaden.”

Nate was split. On the one hand, he thought it was cute that his sister had her first crush on a boy. On the other hand, she was only ten. He hadn’t thought they’d be getting into boy-girl stuff for at least a couple of years.

He’d thought he’d get her all to himself for a little while longer.

“Cool name,” he finally said. “So where’s he from?”

“California.” The floodgates suddenly opened, and she told him, “His parents are scientists from Stanford who are studying stuff in the Adirondacks. But he’s only going to be here for one year.”

Nate’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. It figured that neither he nor his sister could do things the easy way, didn’t it?

Instead of falling for people who were going to stick around, they couldn’t stay away from the ones who were inevitably going to leave.

But he could tell she was dying to talk to him about the kid, and he’d always vowed to be there for her. So he said, “Tell me more about him, Mads,” and for the next fifteen minutes, he heard more than he’d ever wanted to know about a ten-year-old boy. Fortunately, by the time they paddled out onto the cool lake, his sister seemed to be all out of Jaden fun facts.

Floating on the lake, surrounded by the patchwork colors of the mountains, hearing a loon calling out to its mate a hundred yards away was the perfect way to spend a fall afternoon, especially when Madison reeled in another good-sized bass with a grin.

“I’m on fire today!”

Nate recast his line. “Got any tips for your big brother? If it weren’t for your success, I’d swear nothing was biting.”

“Yeah, I was thinking it was weird that you’re not catching anything. What’s up with you today?” Madison suddenly frowned. “Hey, you know what I’ve just realized? You haven’t done your fall speech yet.”

She lowered her voice and imitated him. “
Look around, Mads. You see the leaves changing on those trees? You feel the nip in the air? It’s fall and there’s magic everywhere. Anything is possible.
”

Laughter rumbled through him, joining with Madison’s to skip across the surface of the still water. Of course he’d had hopes and dreams that he hadn’t been able to see come true. He’d never been able to play college football. He’d never experienced carefree dating. He never got the chance to live in a big city and be surrounded by all that speed and light and sound and excitement.

But getting to laugh with his happy sister, being able to see that pretty smile on her intelligent face, was easily worth any sacrifices he’d had to make during the past decade.

Finally he felt a nibble on his line. He gave a quick yank to set the hook and reeled the fish in.

“Wow.” Madison’s eyes were huge as she looked at the huge pickerel flopping around on the bottom of the canoe. “I think that might be bigger than the one I caught last year.”

Nate didn’t even have to think about it as he carefully unhooked the two-way spinner from the fish’s toothy mouth. This might be the biggest fish he’d ever caught, but there was no way he was going to beat his sister’s record.

“This guy looks like he’s got a lot of life still left in him. Want to bring a little fall magic to his life and help me throw him back in?”

His sister cocked her head to the side. “You really are acting weird today, you know.” But she picked up the back half of the fish, and they threw him back in the lake on the count of three.

As they watched the fish float there for a few seconds before abruptly coming back to life and swimming away, Nate actually envied the fish his second chance…and found himself hoping that the fish managed to escape the lure the next time it flashed before him, so shiny and tempting.

Finally alone again, Andi tried to focus on tidying up the yarn displays throughout the store. But it was difficult to keep her focus on yarn when she knew she was only avoiding the inevitable.

Nate Duncan was the town’s new mayor and, as such, head of the architectural review board. Andi should have already called him to set up a meeting, but every time she’d picked up the phone, something had stopped her. Nerves that didn’t make any sense. Along with memories that were too clear, almost as if she’d said good-bye to him yesterday instead of ten years ago.

Instead of getting the job done like she always did, Andi had let the idea of coming back to the lake—back to Nate—completely unravel her.

No. She wouldn’t—couldn’t—let that happen.

Resolved to take care of business as efficiently—and with as little emotion as possible—Andi quickly found the phone book and looked up the number for the mayor’s office. If she was at all relieved that her call went to voice mail, she would never admit it to herself.

“Hello, you’ve reached Nate Duncan at city hall.”

Relief didn’t last long, however, not when the sound of his voice immediately had her palms sweating and her heart pumping hard in her chest. It had been so long since she’d spoken to him, and in her head he was still the same boy he’d been at eighteen. Not a man with a deep voice that rumbled through her from head to toe before landing smack-dab in the center of her heart.

“Nate, it’s Andi. Andi Powell. I’m back in town for a little while and, well, it’s been a long time, and I was hoping we could catch up on old times and get current with each other.”

Pushing aside the little voice inside her head that told her she should be more up front with her reasons for wanting to meet with him, she quickly said, “I’m free tonight, if there’s any chance that would work for you. My cell phone reception is pretty spotty, so if you want to call me back, could you try me at Lake Yarns?”

She knew she should hang up already, but now that she was finally—almost—talking with him again, she couldn’t bring herself to sever the connection so soon. “I’ll leave you a message at home, too. Hope to hear from you soon!”

Feeling like a thirteen-year-old who’d just left a rambling, somewhat embarrassing message for the boy she had a secret crush on, Andi forced herself to quickly make a second call to his house. When she finally hung up, she had to take a few moments to try and regain her composure.

What was wrong with her?

Anything that had happened between her and Nate a decade ago was water under the bridge. They’d thought they were in love, but really they’d just been childhood sweethearts who couldn’t have possibly known what real love was yet. Besides, everything had worked out perfectly for both of them, hadn’t it? She was a successful management consultant now, and he was mayor.

Everything would work out fine.

After dropping Madison off at her friend’s house and going for a punishing run up a narrow mountain trail, Nate was about to crack open a beer when he saw the blinking red light at the bottom of his phone.

Something had happened to Madison.

This was why he hated letting her stay over at a friend’s house, why he knew he sometimes hovered over her.

He couldn’t stand the thought of something happening to his sister. Almost ripping the phone off the wall, he dialed his voice mail code, but it wasn’t Betsy’s voice that came over the line.

It was Andi’s.

Even after ten years, he would know the slightly husky voice—so at odds with her polished veneer—anywhere.

Nate’s relief that everything was okay with his sister was quickly replaced by surprise—and alarm—that Andi was calling him out of the blue to get together and catch up on old times.

Instead of slowing down, his heart rate sped up even more.

For ten years he hadn’t heard from her. Not a birthday call or a Christmas card. Why would she be calling him now?

Even though something told him it would be smarter to keep his distance, the truth was, Nate simply couldn’t resist the thought of seeing Andi again.

He picked up the phone and dialed Lake Yarns.