Last Chance Knit & Stitch (18 page)

Bubba snorted a laugh, and Molly found herself taking another look at Simon Wolfe. Maybe he hadn’t lost his southern accent or attitude. He’d just used the word “reckon” twice in a row.

When he talked like that, it was deeply seductive. But she ought to resist. She was still Coach’s daughter and could get in a lot of hot water with her daddy for stealing things. Even if the stuff she was stealing was her own property.

“You know, maybe we should rethink,” she said. “I really want that car back, but we’re going to get into trouble. I mean, when the car turns up missing, everyone is going to know it was me who stole it back. And I’ll bet Miz Linnette hasn’t given a key to anyone else. So they’re going to know that Simon helped. And since the Shelby is
in bits and pieces, naturally they’ll assume that Bubba or Les helped with the truck. And I don’t even want to think about the crap I’m going to get from my daddy for doing something like this.”

“I don’t care what people think, not even Coach,” Simon said with cool resolve. “I’m not going to let my uncle steal your car, Molly, and we have to do it this way because he told me this afternoon that he’s got a buyer for it.”

“But he can’t sell it. He doesn’t have—”

“He can sell it, and he will. He’ll find some dirty, underhanded way of doing it, and he’ll pocket the money. And it will be a done deal while you’re still interviewing lawyers. So it’s now or never. He can’t accuse you of stealing your own car. And I have permission to be in the dealership. It belonged to my daddy. So what if I let you in to get your belongings, too. What can he do to you?”

“Plenty. He’s got the money to hire lots of lawyers.”

“And you have a bill of sale and a title.”

“Coach is not going to be happy about this, and—”

“Why not?” Bubba asked. “Simon’s got a point. I mean, it’s not stealing if you’re just taking back what’s yours to begin with. The only thief in this scenario is Ryan Polk.”

“But we still have a problem,” Molly said. “Once we take the car from the dealership where the heck are we going to stash it?”

“We’re going to stash the car at the Coca-Cola building,” Simon said.

“But you’ve rented it already.”

“That place is cavernous,” he replied. “You can have the area right by the loading dock. It’s perfect garage space. And I’ll take the front room with the windows.”

“Oh, my God. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Molly threw her arms around Simon’s neck and gave him a big hug and a kiss.

But something went seriously haywire with that kiss the moment her lips touched the stubble on his cheek. She got stuck there and made the double mistake of breathing in. Bad move. His scent was intoxicating.

And then he put his arms around her waist and held her there for just the smallest fraction of a moment. A moment that expanded in time so it was long enough for Molly to feel the pressure of his thighs. Long enough for her to taste his cheek with the tip of her tongue. Long enough for her hormones to pitch a full-out, no-holds-barred female tizzy.

Time started flowing again, and she pulled away. But her face felt like it had been blowtorched.

Ricki ran from the Knit & Stitch without any real conscious thought of where she was going. She just needed to run—to get away from Muffin’s defection and the sorry state of her life. She’d thought things were looking up for her, and then,
wham
, here she was dogless, and jobless, and all in the space of a few hours.

It would have been much better if she’d been wearing a pair of running shoes, or even the Skechers she used to wear at the Kountry Kitchen, because the heel of one of her little red shoes got caught in a sidewalk crevice. Her ankle turned, and her leg collapsed, and down she went, right onto her leopard-clad butt.

She must have cried out in pain or something, although really it was mostly her butt that hurt. Anyway, the next minute, Les Hayes was there being all big and manly and
surprisingly tender. He took charge, and that was nice. He wouldn’t let her get up.

“You could have really broken or torn something. I’m taking you to see Doc Cooper.”

“I’m okay, really.”

But Les was exactly the kind of tenderhearted, take-charge guy she had a weakness for. So when he hoisted her from the sidewalk and started walking toward the clinic, she let him. It took him almost ten minutes to walk there, and he didn’t falter once. “You must work out,” Ricki said as he carried her through the doors.

“A little.” A blush ran up his cheeks. She inhaled him. He was one part gasoline and two parts de-greaser, with a hint of good clean soap. He didn’t smell like Randy, that was for sure, but boy, there was something about him that ran circles around her ex.

Probably the fact that he was twenty-five years younger. That cooled her jets a little bit.

A moment later Les deposited her on one of the examining room beds. Annie Jasper, the nurse, bustled in, and Ricki gave her all the details of her fall. Les hovered beside the bed.

“Did you try to put weight on it?” Annie asked.

“No.”

“No?”

Ricki glanced at Les. “Uh, well, Les picked me up and carried me here.”

Annie turned around and gave Les one of those measured looks. “Really?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Les said, and his face got pink again.

“Does it hurt to move it?”

“Not really. Not anymore, I mean.”

“Right.” Annie gave Ricki one of her stern looks. “Why don’t you hop down from there, gently, and see if you can walk it off.”

“Okay.”

She slid from the bed and gave the ankle a little test. Of course it didn’t hurt. But with Annie Jasper staring at her, she suddenly felt like the biggest jerk in the universe, not to mention one of those cougars who prey on younger men. “It seems to be okay.”

“Annie, you need to check her over top to bottom. She took a bad tumble. I saw it happen,” Les said.

Bless his heart, Les cared.

Annie glared at her, and Ricki had no problem interpreting that look. The whole town would be saying very mean things about her tomorrow morning. About how she was making a play for Molly Canaday’s man. And with Ricki losing her job, people would put two and two together and come up with the wrong answer.

God, could her life have gotten more complicated in the space of twenty-four hours? She forced one of her waitress smiles to her face. “I guess I’m okay, Les. Thank you for being so chivalrous. But I think I can make it home now.”

“I’ll walk with you.” This was not a request, and it really worried Ricki when Annie Jasper rolled her eyes.

But there wasn’t any way she was going to get rid of Leslie Hayes. Under other circumstances—like in a big city where nobody knew anybody’s business—Ricki might have let herself enjoy the sudden attention of a very handsome man. But this was Last Chance, where everybody passed judgment on everybody’s business, so there would be no enjoyment of this moment.

“Thanks, Annie,” she said and headed toward the door. Les trailed after her.

She had taken a few steps down the sidewalk in the direction of her apartment when her cell phone rang. She pulled it out of her purse and checked the number. It was Molly.

Damn, was she already checking up on Les? She gave him a glance where he strolled beside her, looking kind of grim. “It’s Molly,” she said, then she pressed the talk button.

“Hey, Molly.” She tried to keep her voice as neutral as possible. She was starting to think it had been a very bad idea to make such a scene during the Purly Girls meeting.

“Honey, I’m sorry about your job. Really and truly. I don’t know if I can afford to hire you back, but right now I need you.”

“You need me?”

“Yes, I do. I have an errand I have to do, and I left Angel in charge of the shop. He may be able to knit like nobody’s business but I don’t really know him, you know what I mean?”

“Uh-huh.”

“So I’m hiring you back. I need you to go keep an eye on things and help Angel. And I need you to stay open for the gals who come in this evening for knitting lessons.”

“But, Mol, I don’t know how to teach anyone to knit.”

“It’s all right. Just get Angel to do it.”

“Okay.”

“You’re the best, Ricki. And I promise I’ll find some way to get your job at the Kountry Kitchen back for you. Don’t you worry, now, you hear?”

Ricki refrained from telling Molly that she didn’t want
to go back to waitressing. She liked knitting a whole lot better. But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and Ricki had been a beggar for a long time.

She turned toward Les. “I gotta go back to the store. Molly’s rehired me just for tonight.”

“Oh. Uh, well, that’s great.” They had reached the parking lot at Bill’s Grease Pit, where Les’s truck was parked. “I guess I gotta go then.”

She stood there awkwardly. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

“It’s okay. I probably deserved it. I’m glad your ankle is okay.”

“About that, I—”

He held up his hands. “I still think Annie Jasper should have called for an X-ray or something. My heart stood still when I saw you topple over.”

“It did?”

He nodded, and his cheeks got just a little red again. Man, he was cute when he blushed like that.

“Well, thank you for carrying me. That’s the nicest thing anyone has done for me in ages and ages. Maybe ever.”

He smiled. And when his mouth quirked up like that, it stole Ricki’s breath.

“Maybe I’ll see you sometime down at Dot’s Spot.”

“Maybe you will.”

S
imon liked order in his life. He kept his drawers and his closet and his work organized. Every day, when he stepped into his studio, he knew where all his tools were, and he knew which part of a painting he was going to attack. He knew what he wanted to accomplish. He set goals for himself. He worked hard. And he always got up early in the morning.

It was barely dawn on Thursday morning when he opened the Coca-Cola building, made himself a strong cup of coffee in the old coffeemaker he’d borrowed from his mother, and regarded the Harrison commission.

All his focus and all his organizational skill could not save him from this disaster. The colors were wrong, the heart of the painting was missing, and he felt no deep, burning desire to finish it. He was lost and had no notion of how to get back on track.

He stood there a long time, paralyzed by his indecision, until someone started banging on the front door. It was surprising that anyone was awake at six in the morning.
But this was Last Chance, where farmers got up early and listened to the agricultural talk show on WLST.

Simon was pretty sure a farmer would have better things to do at six in the morning than bang on his studio door. Unless, of course, the farmer was ticked off about having to go eighty miles to get warranty service on his truck.

Simon was also pretty sure Uncle Ryan wasn’t out there disturbing the early-morning peace. Ryan kept banker’s hours.

By the violence of the pounding, his morning visitor was in a most unfriendly mood. So Simon ignored this interruption of his working day.

The banging stopped, thank goodness, only to be replaced by a rather urgent tapping on the front window. “Simon, open the damn door,” his visitor shouted in a slightly husky voice.

A jolt of recognition marched through Simon. He would know that voice anywhere. He looked up. Coach Canaday stood on the sidewalk glowering at him through the big picture windows.

Coach had gotten older and a little grayer, but his face, with its wandering nose, looked the same. His eyes were still piercing, and he still commanded immediate respect just by standing there.

Coach was an early riser, too. Simon had learned the value of getting up at the crack of dawn from the man himself.

He hurried to the door and let Coach in. He expected a slap on the back, or a handshake, or at least a “Hey, how’ve you been?” But he got none of that.

Instead, Coach stalked into the middle of his makeshift
studio, glanced at the disaster on the easel, and then turned toward Simon with a scowl.

Simon remembered that look. Coach could be a hard man at times. But he was always fair. Coach praised more often than he scolded, which was why his players loved him. But Heaven help the player who got on his wrong side.

“I have a bone to pick with you, boy,” Coach said.

“Sir?” It was funny how Simon immediately dropped back into old ways in the face of Coach’s disapproval.

“Don’t you act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Simon didn’t have a clue, so he said nothing. Silence was always a good policy when Coach was on the warpath. Ducking worked, too, because Coach was known to throw things when he got mad.

“I’m talking about my daughter.”

“Oh.” Of course he was. Molly had even warned Simon that this was coming. How could he have forgotten?

“Don’t you ‘oh’ me. You know darn well I have a policy that no player of mine messes with my daughter.”

“Sir, I don’t remember that policy. As I recall, Molly was about four when I was a member of the team. She was our good-luck charm. I used to rub her head before every kick.”

“Exactly my point.” The look on Coach’s face could only be described as “furious father.”

“She’s not four now, sir. She’s a grown-up. And I’m not
messing
with her.”

“No?”

“No,
sir
.”

“Then why is it all over town that you got her involved
in some kind of fight with Ryan Polk? She doesn’t need that kind of trouble.”

“Sir, my uncle stole her car. I only helped her get it back.”

“You know, it might have been better if you hadn’t.”

“But—”

“Look here, there are things going on that you don’t have any idea about. My wife walked out on me because of that car. And now I’ve got my daughter’s name being run down by the town’s biggest banker. And to make matters worse, she’s here camping out with you.” Coach pointed a finger at Simon’s chest.

Simon held his temper. “She’s not camping out with me. She’s working on her car whenever things at the Knit & Stitch give her time. And it’s only temporary. I’m leaving just as soon as my daddy’s will is probated and I can put Mother’s house on the market.”