Last Chance Knit & Stitch (12 page)

“Are you about to give me a lesson in laundry?”

The apostrophes at the corner of his mouth curled. And that was so annoying because she wanted to punch him in his handsome face, except that he had a winning smile, had tamed a toddler, and had delivered Jane’s baby. So he clearly wasn’t evil.

“Do you need a lesson in laundry?” he asked.

She looked away. Why was he here? “Don’t you have someplace to be, like forcing people from their jobs or something?”

Her barb hit the mark. She knew because he compressed his lips as if he were holding in some wicked comeback. For an instant, she wished he would just say whatever nasty thing he’d trapped in his mouth. But he didn’t.

He paused and drew in a breath. And for an instant, it seemed as if he was actually capable of achieving all that transcendence crap Momma was always talking about, right after she’d finished meditating. It was a pretty neat trick. Molly sincerely wished she could figure out a way to keep her cool like that.

When he spoke again, there was no emotion in his voice. “My uncle Ryan closed the dealership. Not me. There was nothing I could do to stop it.” She wondered what emotions, besides being ticked off, he was trying to control.

He strolled into the Wash-O-Rama and began removing her clothes from the washing machines.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m ensuring that you don’t turn this underwear blue.”
He held up a pair of her lacy bikini underpants. They looked very tiny in his big hands.

Uh-oh, no one was supposed to know about that underwear. “Those aren’t mine,” she said quickly. She could have sworn someone had just taken a blowtorch to her face.

He twirled the panties around one of his long, elegant fingers. “Excuse me but aren’t you the only girl living at your house these days?”

“They belong to Allen’s skanky girlfriend.” It was the best lie she could think of on short notice.

He studied the panties. “They’re La Perla. Not exactly the kind skanky women buy. And not the kind of panties you should wash in the same load as blue jeans.”

“Okay, so his girlfriend isn’t a skank. And I’m sort of amazed you even know they’re La Perla.”

His lips quirked just a little as he picked up another pair of panties. These were a really pale shade of pink. “These belong to the skank, too?”

She nodded. And if she’d been made out of wood, her nose would have gotten a few inches longer. He put the panties in a pile in one of the baskets. “You don’t machine-wash stuff like that unless your washer has a delicate cycle. You might let your brother know that for future reference.”

He continued pulling out clothes and sorting them by colors, dropping each new pair of panties and her bras into a pile by itself.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, after about a minute of this odd humiliation.

He looked up. “Settling my father’s estate.”

“No, I mean here, at the Wash-O-Rama?”

“I came to collect my laundry.”

“So your mother doesn’t have a laundry in that mansion of hers?”

“The dryer is busted. Apparently it’s been broken for some time. Daddy was using a clothesline. I guess he didn’t want to be seen in a Laundromat.”

“And in contrast, you seem well acquainted with them. Do you always sort other people’s clothes?”

“I’m sorting your clothes because I need to apologize to you.”

Whoa. Hang on. That was a surprise. “Uh, yeah, you do need to apologize for a bunch of things. But which things were you thinking about?”

He continued to sort her laundry as he spoke. “I rented the building you wanted. And I’m sorry your boyfriend lost his job.”

“Les is not my boyfriend. He’s my partner.”

Simon nodded. “Sorry. I just got the impression from everyone that—”

“Les is not my boyfriend.”

“Okay. I stand corrected. And like I said, I’m sorry I leased the building you wanted, but it’s only short-term.”

“Whatever,” she said.

All she could think about was how her life had become one great big mess. It was like Simon arrived in town and her luck went south. It might have been cathartic to unload on him, but it would have solved nothing. Instead, she tried to be mindful, the way Momma was always talking about. She hadn’t actually read
One Minute Meditations
, but trying to be aware of her feelings gave her just a little bit of control over them.

“You have change for the machines?” he asked.

She dug in the pocket of her sweatpants and hauled out a mess of quarters she’d gotten from Flo at the Kountry Kitchen, after the excitement this morning. He took them from her hand, his fingers brushing over her palm for an instant. The touch was brief but it kind of lingered on her skin. And for some inexplicable reason, she curled her fingers up in a fist in order to capture and hold the sensation.

Why did this man unsettle her so deeply?

She folded her arms across her chest and leaned her hip on one of the empty washers. The silence became awkward as he methodically started each of the machines. The quiet room suddenly roared with the sound of rushing water.

“So I heard you’re thinking about selling your momma’s house.”

“She can’t live on her own.” There was a sadness in his words that Molly hadn’t been expecting. A little bit of her anger evaporated. His life had taken a big left turn last week, too. He’d lost his father, and it wasn’t Simon’s fault that Ira was dead. Ira had done that to himself, by smoking too much and not getting enough exercise.

She needed to remember that kindness was the opposite of anger. And she’d been battling her anger for years. So maybe instead of standing there stewing about it and trying to meditate on it, she could just do what Momma was always telling her to do.

Just be nice.

“If you’re looking for help with your momma,” she said, “there’s the senior center in Allenberg. You should talk to Shevon Darnell. She’s the one who organizes the Purly Girls meetings every week. Your daddy used to bring Charlotte to the meetings by car, but most of the girls come on the senior center bus.”

He looked up at her then, his deep brown eyes going liquid. Vulnerability flickered across his face and vanished almost immediately. And then he turned his back on her and headed down the row of dryers, towing a rolling basket behind him. She watched him for a long time as he took his clothes out of the dryer and carefully folded each item.

She wanted to dislike him. She wanted to be angry at him. But the picture folks were painting of him—as some kind of callous, insensitive idiot—was wrong. She’d watched him play with Junior. She’d seen the way he’d been with Jane. She’d heard his heartfelt apology. Maybe Bubba had been right about him. He wasn’t like Ryan Polk, even if he had that unmistakable Polk family look about him.

And she had to admit that watching him fold laundry was turning her on. Probably because she was so laundry-challenged. That had to be it. Didn’t it?

She didn’t wait around to explore those hot tingly feelings for more than a moment. Instead, she escaped the Wash-O-Rama and returned to the Knit & Stitch, where she allowed herself to be sidetracked into teaching Ricki how to make increases and decreases.

When she finally returned to the Laundromat a couple of hours later, she found her laundry neatly folded in her laundry baskets.

With all her lacy, unwashed panties piled on the top.

I
t was almost seven o’clock by the time Molly finally got home from the Knit & Stitch, the Wash-O-Rama, and the grocery store. She was exhausted, both physically and mentally.

She hauled her groceries up the front walk and braced herself as she opened the door, expecting to find the living room in the same disastrous state as when she left.

The scent of Febreze almost knocked her over. Someone had cleaned, dusted, vacuumed, and scrubbed the place. She hurried into the kitchen, laden with grocery bags, only to discover that it also sparkled as if Momma were still living at home. Not to mention that the carcass of the washing machine had been removed from the adjoining laundry room.

That’s where she found Les, wearing battered jeans, a flannel shirt with the sleeves cut off, and an old, sweat-stained Atlanta Falcons hat. Les was in the last stages of hooking up a new washing machine. Of course, it wasn’t exactly new off the showroom floor, like the front-loader
Allen had destroyed last night. It was obviously secondhand.

She peered at the knobs. Oh joy, it had a delicate cycle. She wouldn’t have to go commando tomorrow.

And then her joy faded. Because if she had a washing machine at home, she couldn’t justify hauling her laundry to the Wash-O-Rama where she could accidentally-on-purpose run into Simon and maybe get him to sort her darks from her lights.

While she watched.

She shook that image out of her head and focused on Les. “What are you doing here?”

“Allen called this morning.”

“And you came over and cleaned up his mess?”

Les finished hooking up the water and then shoved the washer into its space by the wall. “I had nothing better to do.”

“Did he help?”

“Some.”

“Les, you’re amazing. You’re sweet. I can’t believe you did all this. But you should have let Allen clean up the mess he made. You’re not doing him any favors, you know. Where is he now?”

“I have no clue. About noon, he got a call, and he told me it was an emergency. He took off on his motorcycle.”

“Typical. I bet he left right before you were about to clean the barf out of the schefflera.”

Les shook his head. “No. As a matter of fact, I made him and his friends clean up all the vomit.”

“Good for you, but I bet you did most of the work. You’ll need to tell me how much I owe you for the washer and—”

“It’s okay. Allen took care of that.”

“He did? Really?”

Les nodded.

“So you don’t know where he is?”

Les shook his head. “Nope. I reckon he’s over at Kacey’s place.”

“Kacey?”

“Kacey Travers, she lives in Allenberg. She’s a grocery checker at the BI-LO. She’s pretty new in town. I think she was married to someone who left her high and dry right in the middle of Allenberg without a dime to her name. I think Allen’s been helping her out.”

“Right. And sleeping with her on the side. She looks a little skanky to me. Who dyes their hair red and purple?”

“Don’t be ugly, Mol. She’s an okay girl, just kind of young and down on her luck.”

Molly held her tongue. Les was kind to a fault. And she loved him for it.

“I heard you had a busy day,” he said, changing the subject. “I stopped by Lovett’s Hardware, and Arlene Whitaker told me all about Jane.”

“Yeah, talk about having a mess to clean up. You know childbirth is not a very pretty thing to watch.”

“No?” He was smiling now.

“No. It’s terrifying. And Jane was freaking out, and … well … can we talk about something else?”

“You hungry? I got a pizza in the oven.” Les headed into the kitchen and started pulling out glasses and silverware like he actually lived here. He slipped on an oven mitt and pulled the pizza out.

It was another domestic moment in which Molly found herself the observer. What was it about the guys in her
life? They didn’t seem domestically challenged, whereas she was a total bust when it came to cooking and cleaning and laundry-doing. She caught herself. Simon wasn’t actually in her life, was he? He’d only done her laundry.

And seen her underpants.

Humiliation exploded in her middle like a Molotov cocktail, burning her face and neck and all the way down her back. Those panties were a secret.

Except, of course, Momma had seen her underpants plenty, because Momma did the laundry around here. Molly had never thought about that. Maybe Momma had misunderstood about those panties, and the matching bras. Maybe Momma thought her lacy underwear was a sign that Molly wanted to be more girlie.

Which of course she didn’t. She just liked nice underpants.

Les had a bottle of wine and a candle to go with the pizza. Holy God, this was shaping up into something terrifying.

“Les, what on earth are you doing?”

“Sit down, Molly. I want to talk to you.”

“Uh, I’m not sure I want to sit down.” But she sat in one of the kitchen chairs, and he sat facing her.

“Arlene told me something else when I ran up to the hardware store for a new doorknob.”

Oh boy, she knew what was coming. “Uh, Les, honey, I know Arlene probably told you about what Savannah said to me the other night at the book club. But honestly, you can’t put any store in that nonsense about Miriam Randall. I mean, of course she’s going to tell me to go look for someone I’ve known my whole life. I mean, I live here in Last Chance. So it stands to reason that, if I ever get
married, it’s probably going to be to someone I’ve known my whole life. But whoever it is—if I get married—I’m going to love him with all my heart.”

He blinked, and Molly realized that she’d once again failed to cushion her words. Why couldn’t she be good at sweet-talking? Heck, every southern female seemed to be born knowing how to soften the worst of blows. Except her.

Les’s bright blue eyes held steady and true. Which was unusual for him. Usually when she unloaded on him, he unloaded on her, and then the two of them were in an argument.

But instead of unloading, Les gave her a moony look and said, “I love you, Molly. I’ve loved you for years and years, and I reckon it’s time to say it out loud. And before you point out that I’m unemployed, you should just know that I’ve got some real prospects. You know, irons in the fire and all that. So, anyway, when Arlene told me what Miriam said, well, I just knew the time had come.”

Oh, crap.

It took a moment for Molly to get her act together. Les’s words had more than merely stunned her. They’d rocked her world. And not in a good way. It was like she’d just been shaken by an earthquake registering eight-point-oh on the Richter scale.

“Les, honey, you’re a great guy. Really. I mean, you’re way too good for me. Just look at what you did today. That was thoughtful. And I’m grateful. Sort of like that day Foster Boyd spit in my face …” Damn, she was babbling. She closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. It was really hard.