Cedar Creek Seasons (31 page)

“It’s a moebius.”

“‘Maybe-Us’?”

“Technically, it’s pronounced more like a blend of an
o
sound and an
ay
sound with a little bit of
uh
.“

“Moo?”

“Think umlaut. German.”

“Like most of Cedarburg.” He reached for the skein of Shetland she’d taken from him but not yet returned to its spot in the birch basket. Her grip tightened.

How did he manage that? The skein untwisted between them, no longer tight as a fresh french braid but drooping like loops of overcooked pasta.

His face scrunched into an unspoken apology.

Beth stretched out her hands as if telling a Cedar Creek—or any other location, for that matter—fish story. The loops grew taut. She held the left loop of wool still, flipped the right loop five times, and marveled again that an act like twisting a rubber band toy could restore the too-beautiful-not-to-be-called-art skein.

Derrick grinned. Something in the room brightened. Maybe the ancient electrical system was doing that funny surge thing again. One more item to add to the list of repairs she’d need to tackle.

Historical buildings’ virtues sometimes hide behind cracked plaster.

She slipped the tourniquet twist of the right-hand loop of wool into the left. All better. A perfect twisted braid again. With a couple of flicks of her wrist, she had fixed the mess he’d created. The skin at the corners of his eyes crinkled with—

“Your eyes.” She stared but couldn’t make herself quit. “They’re two different colors.”

“Recall,” he said, emphasizing the first syllable of the word.

“What?”

He closed and opened first one eye then the other. “Tinted contacts. This one”—he pointed toward the Pacific blue rather than the Caribbean blue—“was recalled by the manufacturer.”

There was something to be said for both bodies of water. She caught herself debating which was her favorite. Favorite?

He laced his fingers together then pressed his palms in front of him as he stretched outward and up. With a metallic clatter, the tin shade on the ceiling light wobbled. He grabbed the edge of the shade and recoiled. “That’s hot!” The light swung wildly. “Sorry.” He picked up a Zimmermann knitting book from the stack near him and used it to still the light fixture … in more ways than one. With a sizzle and pop, the lightbulb voiced its protest. “Let me change that bulb for you.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

He reminded her of a Great Dane puppy skidding on ice—fun to watch but dangerous to those standing too close to its flailing appendages. Someone might get knocked off her feet.

But who could stay irritated with a man who apologized to light fixtures and made a living as a brownie
artiste
?

Derrick picked another skein from the wooden barrels angled on the display wall. A creamy alpaca. “Wool, huh?”

Nice segue, Derrick
.

“Then why is your place called the
Yarn
Shop?” He gestured with the skein toward the logo on the price tags, the information signs, and the checkout counter.

She replaced the alpaca and mentally asked it to forgive Derrick’s obvious lack of respect. “Because of the stories.”

“What?” His tone revealed a genuine desire to know.

“The stories. The yarns.” Beth turned toward the back corner of the shop, where a conversation group of overstuffed worn leather chairs, empty now, encircled an occupied high-backed upholstered rocker. The antique man, as in age rather than interests, lifted a frail hand and waved at Derrick and Beth. That simple gesture would always warm her heart. “His stories bring in more customers than a sidewalk sale. My grandpa—Oompa. He just got back from his army unit’s reunion in Janesville. Have you met?”

Derrick’s eyes glinted. Warm-water seas do that. In four long strides, he was at the rocker, hand extended. “It’s a pleasure, sir.”

That familiar lump formed at the base of Beth’s throat, the one that reacted when someone treated her grandfather with the respect he deserved.

Derrick crouched at the side of the rocker, which made his face eye level with the rocker’s occupant. Resting his forearms on his knees he said, “So, I hear you spin a good yarn.”

“Don’t get him started,” Beth teased. “What he hasn’t experienced in eighty-two years of living and working in Cedarburg, he’s heard for so long, the lines between ‘I was there’ and ‘I wish I’d been there’ aren’t as distinct as they once were.” She knew Oliver Schurmer would agree with her and retain his sense of humor about it. What a blessing!

Within minutes, Derrick claimed one of the leather chairs, his knees bent almost to his Adam’s apple, and his ear bent to Oompa, who started somewhere in the middle of Cedarburg’s rich history and wove stories both directions.

England. She could call England with Oompa comfortable and occupied and the brownie guy entertained.

Or … she could listen in and let her heart warm to the sound of a creaking rocker, a timeworn voice, and laughter.

When torn between joy and responsibility, why did Beth always cave to responsibility?

Did Life by Chocolate do any business at all? Derrick might as well post a sign on his shop that said, “I’m never in. Check two doors down. If it’s a brownie emergency, help yourself and leave the money in the tip jar on the counter.”

How was it he could always be underfoot and still have fresh brownies on display every morning when Beth swept the sidewalk and then swept in front of Up the Cedar Creek so she could get close enough to Derrick’s shop to check out the specialty of the day?

Oompa was in his element with Derrick so often a fixture in the Yarn Shop. Fresh ears for his stories. “Young man, did I tell you about the time …?”

Without fail, Derrick answered, “No. I’d love to hear about it.”

But she had work to do. She couldn’t afford the distraction of a man whose morphing facial expressions held such fascination, a man who lit Oompa’s countenance when he walked through the door, a man who—

Any man. No time for
any
man other than the fragile, gentle blessing in the rocking chair.

What would she have done if Oompa hadn’t taken her in? What if he hadn’t loaned her every penny she needed for college? What if he hadn’t been willing to wait as long as it took for her to pay him back?

She owed him so much more than however long he needed a caretaker and a manager for the Yarn Shop. Her plans could wait. They had to. He needed her.

Beth arranged her latest half dozen moebius scarves—autumn’s best russet, claret, goldenrod, tawny, acorn, and cinnamon—on thick wooden pegs on the wall behind the cash counter then turned to see why the undercurrent of chatter in the back corner stopped.

She’d never seen color drain from someone’s face from forehead to chin. Oompa turned from pale to colorless and slumped forward. Derrick caught him before he could tip out of the rocker onto the floor. The older man lay cradled in the younger man’s arms.

“Call 911!” she barked.

Derrick looked at her over the limp lump of her grandfather. “You call 911! I’m a little busy here.” He wrestled the weight to the floor and rested two fingers along the man’s carotid artery. “Okay, he has a pulse.”

He undid the buttons on Oompa’s worn-to-flannel oxford shirt. Was Derrick expecting to perform open-heart surgery or what? She knelt beside the man who’d years ago taught her that love is patient and the man who now tested her patience as a hobby. Derrick took her hand and squeezed.

Without breaking amateur EMT stride, he reached behind him for a thick, oversized skein of wool and tucked it under Oompa’s neck. “I’m pretty sure he’ll be oka—” Derrick jerked into motion as Oompa’s lips turned blue and his breathing stopped. Derrick checked for a pulse again then fist over fist, started chest compressions.

Beth felt her own life draining through her toes. But her heart was still beating, hard enough to make her nauseous.

“Beth! Did you call 911?”

D
errick watched Beth’s soft-as-spun-wool fingers dance with her knitting needles. Such a smooth, graceful motion. Other knitters he knew made great sweeping movements when they twisted the yarn around the needle. Beth’s seemed delicately choreographed, an efficiency of energy.

The project in her lap grew as they waited for a doctor’s report on Beth’s grandfather. What had she called him? Part of a polka. A tuba sound. Ah, Oompa. As in oom-pa-pa.

Derrick’s feet formed giant barricades for the others in the waiting area. He tried to keep them tucked in the corner where two vinyl love seats met with an end table between them. He tapped his toes inside his shoes to the steady rhythm of Beth’s needles.

Was knitting Beth Schurmer’s version of pacing?

He shifted his position, groaned, and arched his back.

Beth half turned, her needles silent.

Nice work. Her grandfather fights for his life down the hall and you have the gall to complain about a tight muscle
. “Back labor,” he explained, instantly regretting the use of humor.

She moaned and dropped her chin to her chest. Sobs shook her shoulders.

“I’m so sorry, Beth. It’s not a time to—” His words were broken. Maybe an arm around her shoulder would serve as a better apology.

Stirring a whiff of something like lily of the valley, she lifted her head. The grimace he expected was curled on the ends. A smile. She was laughing!

“Thanks, Derrick. I needed the comic relief. Back labor, huh?”

“I’m funnier on paper.”

“Seriously?”

“No. Humorously.”

She made a face like a pinched cry, but the sound that came out was definitely laughter. It didn’t last. Tears took over. “It’s because of him.”

Derrick snatched a tissue for her from the box on the end table. “What is? And who’s the
him
?”

“Oompa. Your back. It’s from bending over him all that time doing CPR.”

Derrick squirmed, inside and out. “I trained for a while as an EMT.”

“So you said.”

He palmed his knees. “I normally don’t keep going until the victim begs me to stop.”

“I figured.” That smile again. Like the swirl on a good truffle.

“Your Oompa has a lot of lung power for a man his age.”

Beth rolled her knitting project around her needles and tucked it into a bag at her feet. She leaned back, resting her head against the wall. The blond/caramel/cinnamon streaks in her hair fluffed against the bland wall like an expensive work of fiber art. Or a perfectly toasted marshmallow on his S’Mores Brownie.

The shop! How many customers had he lost when they noticed his
Be Back at
1:00 sign lied? He glanced at the wall clock. Four thirty. If he were going to pull off this my-reason-for-living-is-to-bake-brownies front, he’d have to at least keep the shop open until—

“Do you think he’s still breathing?” Her question was all air, no real sound.

He knew better than to promise the unguaranteeable. “Beth, would it be okay if I prayed with you?”

She looked up at him, an unreadable expression on her face. He’d offended her. Why couldn’t he just keep praying for Oompa silently without risking a “don’t push your religion on me” or “fine for you, but leave me out of this” debate with a woman who obviously considered him stranger than strange and who, from that angle, could see right up his nose hairs?

“Where two or three are gathered …” she said.

Huh. Suh-weet.

If Beth were his sister, he’d reach for her hand to pray. If Nicole were here, she’d sit on the other side of Beth, saying perfectly comforting words and making Beth feel better just by her presence. He’d have to muddle through without Nicole.

Derrick turned his hands palms up on his knees. His eyes hadn’t been closed two seconds before he felt a silken hand slip into his.

Silken and sticky.
Sticky?
Un-prayer-like, his eyes popped open.

Beth’s hands rested in her lap. The one in his belonged to a pigtailed kidling, a half-eaten Cedarburg caramel apple in her other hand.

“You’re my
puzzitt
,” the young thing said. Then, without turning, she hollered, “Mommy, I found my puzzitt!”

A woman appeared behind the little girl. “Ella Marie, come here, please. “The mom tilted her head in apology to Derrick and Beth while tugging the child by polka-dot suspenders. “Dad’s in radiology. They think he aspirated something. He choked on an apple seed. Not Ella. No, she can handle anything.”

Ella took another slurpy bite of her apple, the caramel connecting her to the confection like good pizza cheese. Her mom bent to wipe apple slobber from Ella’s chin. “Precocious isn’t a strong enough word for my daughter. She—”

“I’m his puzzitt, Mommy. He’s a giant.” She pointed with her apple.

Beth grinned at him. Derrick concentrated on not looking so giant-like.

“And I’m a dorf.”

“That’s
dwarf
, honey. And no, you’re not.” Sighing, the mom continued her cleanup efforts.

Derrick wiped the stickiness onto his jeans—another instant regret. “You just haven’t grown all the way yet, Ella.”

Beth smacked him on the arm.

“What?”