Home Sweet Home (4 page)

“I can show you how to cast on if you want.”

Wishing she could be anywhere but Lake Yarns on a Monday night, Andi nodded. “Thanks.”

Rebecca deftly wound the yarn around the needles. “Any idea what you’d like to make?”

Andi began to shake her head, but then she realized that if she had to sit here all night, she might as well start something she might use when she was done with it.

“A shawl.” The one she’d been wearing in her earlier vision.

Rebecca nodded. “Good idea. With the size of these circular needles and the gauge of the yarn, it should knit up really quick and look great. How about a simple triangle pattern? You’ll only have to do a yarn over at the beginning and end of every other row with all the other rows being a simple knit stitch.”

After Rebecca quickly showed her how to do the alternating rows, Andi softly said, “You don’t know how much I wish you’d been here this afternoon when I took over the store for my grandmother. You would have been so much more helpful than I was at answering customers’ questions.”

“I’m sure you did great,” Rebecca said kindly, “but definitely call me next time you need help. I can run over from the inn.”

Oh no.
Andi had learned her lesson and learned it well. There wasn’t going to be a next time for her at Lake Yarns. From here on out, she was going to focus on her real job and leave the yarn to people who knew what the heck to do with it.

For the next hour or so, while the women in the group tackled their works in progress and talked about people she didn’t know anymore, Andi worked diligently on a shawl she’d never planned on making. She wasn’t a real member of the knitting group, and yet it was sort of nice to be in a room with a group of women relaxing together.

Suddenly Nate’s name came up in conversation. “I hear things didn’t work out with the woman from Albany.”

Andi’s heartbeat kicked up. They’d broken up so long ago that it shouldn’t matter to her if Nate had recently been involved with someone. Then again, nothing had made sense since the moment she crossed into the Adirondacks.

Maybe it was all the fresh air, all the beauty that was mucking with her system after a decade of pollution and recycled office building air?

“I don’t think she was too gung ho about having a ten-year-old girl around all the time.”

“Then I say, good riddance. Besides”—Dorothy made an invisible ring around her mouth with her fingers—“she wore too much lipstick. That boy is a saint. Raising his sister, holding his family together after what happened with his parents. He deserves better.”

It was a forceful reminder to Andi that Nate was far more than just a loving older brother to his younger sister. He was eighteen years old when his mother died giving birth to Madison, and his father had shot himself one month later. From that moment on, Nate had been solely responsible for things like getting his sister to bed on time and taking her to the doctor for shots. Andi couldn’t begin to imagine how he had done it.

Catherine singled Andi out again. “Didn’t you and Nate go out for a while?”

Oh no. Why did Catherine have to say that? Especially when she knew darn well that she and Nate had been an item.

Knowing there was no way to get out of it in front of everyone, Andi nodded and forced another one of those smiles. “We did.”

Helen’s mouth was an O of surprise. “How could you have ever let a man like that get away?”

“Nate is great,” Andi said slowly, not wanting to say more than she absolutely needed to. “But we were just kids.”

“So, do you have a new man in your life?” Dorothy clearly didn’t believe in bothering with subtlety.

“No.”

Andi refused to feel bad about it, either. She had a lot going on at work right now and didn’t have time to focus on a relationship, too. She hadn’t actually had time to focus on one since heading off to college.

Dorothy shook her head. “You girls all wait too long nowadays to look for a husband. No wonder your eggs are all drying up. If you ask me”—which Andi hadn’t—“you should take a page from Rebecca’s book. She’s marrying Stu in the spring.”

Thrilled by the chance to—finally—turn the focus away from herself, Andi asked, “Stu Murphy is your fiancé?” When Rebecca nodded, Andi said, “Congratulations! I’ll have to stop by and offer him my congratulations, too.”

Glancing up at the clock, Andi saw that it was almost 7:30 p.m. On the one hand, she was dying to get out of the shop—and away from the knitting group.

On the other, she was downright nervous about the thought of finally seeing Nate again.

Finally, women started putting their needles and yarn away in their bags. Andi put her knitting on the table and said to no one in particular, “I need to close up the register.”

It was such a relief to step away from the group—and their prying questions—that she nearly groaned aloud.

“See you next week, Andi,” Dorothy said as she and Helen came by the register to say their good-byes.

Andi found herself smack-dab on the spot again. She couldn’t insult Lake Yarns’s customers by telling them she’d rather do a swan dive into a boiling oil pit than sit through another Monday night knitting group.

“Mmm,” she said in a perfectly noncommittal tone.

As she waved good-bye, Angie joked, “Back to the monsters.” Catherine disappeared before Andi could say good night.

Rebecca hung back in the empty store, picking up the wineglasses and heading into the bathroom to wash them out in the sink.

“They also hit me with twenty questions when I first started coming to the group,” Rebecca said, empathy behind her words. “Why did I leave sunny California? How did I find Emerald Lake? Why wasn’t I married with a stroller full of kids yet? And then they proceeded to list the attributes of every unattached male below retirement age.”

Andi couldn’t help but laugh at Rebecca’s account of the trials and tribulations of being a newcomer in a close-knit small town. She was right. Andi shouldn’t take their questions and comments as a personal attack.

And she shouldn’t be worried about meeting with Nate, either. Just like she had said to Helen, they’d just been kids. A couple of high school sweethearts who’d gone their separate ways after graduation.

She and Nate would talk about what they’d been up to for the past ten years, maybe laugh over old times, and then she’d run her plans for the condos by him.

No big deal. It would go fine.

 
N
ate was halfway down Main Street when he saw Andi step off of Lake Yarns’s front porch toward a group of women chatting outside.

She was so beautiful.

He needed to get a grip and was glad he had another thirty seconds to try and get used to looking at her. Unfortunately he needed to do a heck of a lot more than just get used to looking at her. He needed to get his head screwed back on straight, needed to remember that tonight was about catching up on old times.

Nothing more.

“Nate!” His next-door neighbor Dorothy called out to him, pulling him into the group with a firm hand. “Did you know your old girlfriend was back in town? Isn’t she lovely?”

Andi’s face, which was already a little flushed, went pink. And still, she took his breath away, just as lovely as Dorothy had said. In any case, how the heck had Andi already hooked up with this crowd? And how did Dorothy remember that he and Andi had once been an item?

“We’re just meeting for a drink actually,” he told his extremely nosy but well-meaning neighbor. “You ready to head over to the Tavern, Andi?”

“You’re a dark horse,” Dorothy whispered in Andi’s ear, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You didn’t mention you had plans tonight.”

Without waiting for Andi’s response, Nate reached for her hand to take her away from the crowd. To have her all to himself.

She looked down at his outstretched hand, not taking it right away, and he swore he could see the pulse at the side of her wrist fluttering just beneath the skin.

Finally she put her hand into his and the shock of her skin against his made Nate wonder how he could have possibly waited ten years to touch her again.

Andi felt stupid.

So incredibly stupid.

How had she thought she could come back to Emerald Lake, see Nate again, and not feel anything? And why hadn’t she connected that new, deep voice on the phone to the fact that she should have prepared herself for the positively breathtaking man holding her hand?

Nate had been good-looking at eighteen, but his shoulders were so much broader now, his dark hair trimmed shorter, and the faint lines around his eyes and mouth gave proof to the fact that he smiled easily and often.

He wasn’t a boy anymore. Not even the slightest bit. A man stood in front of her, one who’d overcome more challenges in the past ten years than most people would during their entire lives.

And she’d let him go.

The thought shook her, almost as much as how good it felt to hold Nate’s hand now.

Panic had her suddenly pulling her hand away from his. For a split second, Nate didn’t let her go. But then, as he released his grip, Andi thought she must have imagined his hold on her.

Ten years. It had been ten years since she’d seen him. Since he’d held her hand. And now that he was here in the flesh, as they walked together toward the Tavern, she didn’t have the first clue what to say to him—or how to say it.

“I forgot just how small a small town can be, but the Monday night knitting group just brought it all home,” was the first thing that popped into her head, unfortunately. In a light voice that she hoped belied her nerves, “Parts of it were fun. It’s just when they get personal, they really get personal.”

His voice was just as light, just as easy, as he asked, “What did they want to know?”

“Oh, you know, the usual things,” she said. “Why I’m not married with babies yet. If I’m dating anyone.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.

She felt him grow still beside her, but then that easy smile was back and she knew she was imagining things again. The only problem was, his smile had always had the power to rock her world. Clearly, judging by the way her heart raced and her skin flushed, growing up hadn’t made a lick of difference.

Still, for all his easy charm, when he asked, “Are you?” his voice held a slightly rough edge to it that sizzled over her skin.

If only she was actually seeing someone, she wouldn’t have had to give such a pathetic answer. “Nope.”

Andi didn’t need to ask him. She already knew about the girl with the lipstick. About how he deserved better. And Dorothy was right. Nate deserved to be with someone amazing. Someone who would be there for him the way he was always there for everyone else. Someone who would love his town as much as he did, a woman whose dreams included high school football games and little children, who had Nate’s eyes, running on the beach. One day, probably in the very near future, there would be a wedding on Emerald Lake where Nate would slip a ring on someone else’s finger…and promise to love that woman forever.

Andi’s step faltered as he held open the bar door and she stepped inside.

Once upon a time she’d thought she could be that woman. But she should have known better, should have known the fairy tale wasn’t in the cards for them. She just didn’t have it in her to wait in the tower for the prince’s kiss to wake her up, didn’t have the first clue how to act the part. Not when she’d always known exactly what she wanted and refused to wait for it or to compromise on her plans.

Her stomach clenched into a tight little ball, and Andi practically bounced off of a man’s chest. Nate’s large hands came around her waist, pulling her against him to keep her from falling. But instead of feeling steady, Andi felt shakier than ever being so close to him.

“Andi,” Nate said, “I don’t know if you remember Henry Carson.”

The owner of the large general store had been a friend of her father’s, and she found herself pulled into a warm hug. She smelled wood fire and sawdust on Henry’s shirt, reminding her of how proud her father had been of his latent blue-collar skills. It seemed that whenever he was in town he would spend half his time chopping wood and lighting it on fire. She’d wanted so badly to be a boy back then, for her father to hand her an ax rather than telling her to get back inside before she got hurt.

“Andi, I’m sorry about Richard’s passing.”

Not wanting to get caught in the well of grief that always bubbled up in her when her father was mentioned, she forced herself to say with another one of those fake smiles she was really starting to hate, “Thanks. It’s nice to see you again, Henry.”

“You planning on sticking around town for a while?”

Her night with the curious—and meddling—knitting group took the edge off of Henry’s very direct question. “I’ll be here for a couple of weeks at least.”

Nate stiffened at her side in what she assumed was surprise.

“Good. Your father would be glad to know you’re home with your mother and grandmother,” Henry said. And then to Nate, “I’ve got the new blueprints you said you needed. You’d better put on your football pads for the next architectural review because I am going to come at you with everything I’ve got. This time, I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

“You’ll keep getting a no until your building fits in with the historical architecture of the town,” Nate said in a firm but friendly voice.

Henry raised his eyebrows at Andi. “Hard to believe us old folks are the ones who get blamed for resisting change. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this guy wanted to live in the Middle Ages.”

Andi forced a smile, but frankly all of this talk about architectural review committees—and Nate’s surprisingly firm stance—sent new shivers of unease up her spine. Up until now, she had hoped Nate would be as excited about her project as she was. But as they headed for the only open table, a very private, very small booth in a dark corner of the room, she suddenly wondered,
What if she was wrong?

But she couldn’t hold onto the question, not with one of Nate’s hands still resting on the small of her back, creating a patch of heat that burned up through the rest of her. Not when she was remembering a hundred times when he’d held her like that, so gently.

With such love.

“What would you like to drink, Andi?”

“Club soda and lime.”

“Just because I don’t drink, doesn’t mean you have to abstain,” he said softly, but there was a slight edge to his words.

“I had a couple of glasses of wine with the knitting club. That’s my limit,” she insisted.

In high school, when everyone else was experimenting with beer they’d smuggled out of their parents’ basement, Nate had always stuck with Coke. His father hadn’t been a nasty drunk; he’d just always had a can in his hand. Solidarity—along with the fact that cheap beer was disgusting—made her stick with Coke, too. More than a decade later, it was instinct not to drink when she was with Nate.

After Nate returned from the bar with their drinks, they sat down and both took a sip from their glass. Silence reigned until Nate said, “You look great, Andi,” and when her obvious response came, “So do you, Nate,” it was like she was watching the two of them sit awkwardly together from a distance.

Two people who had once been so close.

Two people who had no idea what to say to each other anymore.

Because they were two people who had left too many things unsaid for too long.

Suddenly Andi understood that all the hours, all the years, she’d spent trying to convince herself that she and Nate were nothing more than childhood sweethearts, that their past was water under the bridge, were just lies she’d told herself so that she could move on with her life. So that she could try to forget him.

But she hadn’t forgotten him. She saw that now. How could she possibly forget when the past was still holding them so tightly together?

Andi hadn’t been planning on having a big conversation about their past. But if they were going to have any chance of working together successfully on her condos, she knew they needed to have it. Now. Before things got any more awkward and stilted.

“I know we’ve never really talked about what happened with us. But maybe we should talk about it now.”

Nate’s expression didn’t change one iota. “There’s nothing to talk about, Andi. Not on my account anyway.”

She wanted to believe him, but she was too perceptive not to notice the way his fingers had tightened around his glass, white beginning to show beneath the knuckles.

“It’s just that I’ve always felt bad about the way things ended, and I guess I thought that if we cleared the air, then maybe—”

“We were just kids, Andi. Besides, what teenage romance ever works out anyway?”

Andi couldn’t do anything but nod and say, “You’re right. Never mind.”

She should be glad that he was letting her off the hook. But the truth was it hurt to know for sure that a relationship she’d thought had been so important didn’t actually mean anything to Nate at all.

No, it didn’t just hurt.

It was brutal.

Nate could see that his response had hurt Andi—and he hated seeing that flash of pain in her eyes, regardless of what had gone down between them when they were kids. Still he just didn’t think it was a good idea to go there.

Not when talking about their past was a one-way ticket to a potentially bad situation.

Really bad.

Still she needed to know that he hadn’t been sitting around for the past ten years nursing his resentment. “Look, Andi, things are good now. Real good.”

He didn’t want to look backward, didn’t want to have to see that kid who had struggled to recover from losing every single person he’d ever loved.

Anyone else would have dropped the whole thing by now, but he knew Andi too well, knew how persistent she was, and he braced himself for more prodding, more poking.

Instead, she said, “I’m really glad to hear it, Nate. And I’m so glad you made time to see me. How’s Madison doing?” Andi’s expression softened as she asked about his sister. “I’d love to hear about her.”

Nate usually loved to brag about his sister. He should have been relieved that Andi was doing exactly what he wanted her to do. She was dropping the whole subject of their breakup. And what had caused it.

But where relief should have been came a disappointment that didn’t make any sense, and he found himself gripping his drink hard. Too hard. As if he could somehow get glass to bend if he only worked at it long enough.

Slowly unwrapping his fingers from around the glass, he said, “Madison’s in fifth grade now. She has lots of friends, loves ballet and dancing. She hates fishing, but she humors me and does it anyway.” He smiled thinking of his sister. “She’s just a really happy kid.”

Andi was smiling now, too, and he realized it was the first real smile he’d seen yet.

“Do you have a picture of her that I could see?”

He pulled out his wallet and showed her Madison’s latest soccer photo, the one where one of her pigtails was falling out and she was missing a tooth on the right side of her big smile.

“She’s beautiful.”

She was staring at the picture of the little girl that meant everything to him, but Nate was looking at Andi when he said, “I know.”

Andi looked back up at him, her eyes big and full of emotion. He remembered when she used to look at him like that.

“Madison looks so much like you did in fifth grade. I can’t believe it.”

Her smile turned to a grin, and he saw a flash of the old Andi, the fun Andi, the sweet Andi. The Andi he’d been head over heels in love with.

“Now I know what you would have looked like with pigtails.”

Nate couldn’t hold back his own grin. It was nice, really nice just to be with her like that again. Just for one short moment to be like they used to be.

“Congratulations on being elected mayor,” she said suddenly. “How do you like the job?”

Disappointment flared again at how brief their moment of connection had been. But he knew she was right to move past it as quickly as she had. It would be better for both of them to keep things bobbing along the surface, rather than diving deep.

“I’m enjoying the challenge of the job. It’s definitely a change from being out there on the football field with the kids every day.”

“Do you miss the kids you used to work with?”

“I do, although I help out with the team whenever I can.”