Last Chance Knit & Stitch (23 page)

She wasn’t prepared when Muffin suddenly crouched down and started growling and shivering simultaneously. Ricki looked up, and there was Les Hayes strolling down the sidewalk on the other side of Palmetto Avenue. Muffin was watching him like he was the devil incarnate.

Ricki watched him like he was a really handsome, unattached, sexy-as-sin male human being.

She and her dog were clearly not on the same page about Leslie Hayes.

She scooped the dog up into her arms, gave a quick look both ways down Palmetto, and jaywalked.

“Hey, Les, wait up.”

The big man turned, hesitated, and then gave her a mouthwatering smile. By the sudden spark in his baby blues, he was happy to see her. “Oh, hey, Ricki. I see that Molly’s taken you back full-time. I’m glad about that.”

“Yeah, I guess she decided to work on the Shelby while she has the space at the Coca-Cola building.”

“I’m glad you didn’t end up unemployed. I was only jobless for a couple of days, and it really sucked.”

Muffin yipped and then growled. Les gazed down at the dog. “She’s kind of high-strung, isn’t she? I had a dog once. His name was Rex. But he was a big ol’ coon dog. He didn’t shiver like that.”

“You know, it’s strange. She’s usually so sweet.”

“Not around me, she isn’t.”

Ricki thought about that for a moment. Les was right. Muffin was always growling at Les. It was like a sign. A very bad sign. “Maybe you remind her of whoever it was that abandoned her.”

“She was abandoned?”

“Yeah, I found her sleeping in the planter by my apartment. Who would throw away such a sweet dog?”

Les shrugged. “So, uh, are you headed for Dot’s?”

Ricki hadn’t actually been headed that way. The Wild Horses usually didn’t play at The Spot on Tuesdays, and she only went down there when they played. It was really
sad the way she still carried a torch for Clay. She needed to get over that. He was married and had a baby now.

“Is that where you’re going?” she asked.

He nodded. “I kind of don’t know what to do with myself since Molly and I had our falling-out. Why don’t you come with me? I could buy you a beer.”

“How about a glass of wine?”

“Whatever you like.”

She ought to keep her distance. Les belonged to Molly. And besides, Muffin didn’t like him for some reason.

But Ricki liked him a lot. A whole lot, in fact.

“Okay. I just have to take Muffin home,” she said. A little wave of guilt passed through her. Muffin would be lonely. And Muffin seemed to think that Les was someone Ricki should stay away from.

But guys as handsome as Les didn’t ask her out for a beer every day of the week. In fact, it had been years since anyone, handsome or otherwise, had actually offered to buy her a drink.

And she was getting too old to turn down offers like that.

Jane brought baby Peter to the book club meeting on Wednesday, and he immediately stole the show. For once, Molly wasn’t bombarded with knitting questions during the refreshment phase of the meeting, which featured a couple of Jenny Carpenter’s pies this week. Instead, the book club members passed the baby around like frat boys passing a bottle. And really the women got just as happy as frat boys.

The baby had some kind of magic impact on all of them. They made cooing sounds. They smiled and giggled.

And it all made Molly incredibly nervous.

That baby was tiny. And she was sure someone was going to drop him on his head or something. She wanted them to put him down in a safe place.

And then Cathy, who was the designated holder of the moment, turned to Molly and said, “Here, you take him. You practically delivered him.”

“Uh, well …” Words failed her. She wanted to point out that she’d watched while Simon had taken charge and that watching Simon deliver the baby had been sort of life-changing. At least her feelings about Simon had altered in that moment. Her feelings about babies, not so much.

But she didn’t say any of this because, the next thing she knew, Cathy was putting the baby in her arms.

The moment that soft, warm weight hit her, something kind of hitched inside of her. It was scary as hell, but kind of wonderful, too. Even so, she stood there superglued to the linoleum tile, afraid to move. Peter looked up at her, slightly cross-eyed, and the corners of his little, toothless mouth curled up.

“Look, he’s smiling,” Cathy said.

“It’s just gas, for goodness’ sake,” Lola May said.

Jane peered down at the child. “He
is
smiling,” she affirmed. “He likes you, Molly.”

Molly wanted to admit that she kind of liked the baby, but she had an image to maintain.

And then Pete stretched his little baby body, gave a sigh, closed his eyes, and went blissfully to sleep.

“Wow, Molly, you might be a baby whisperer in addition to having skills with yarn,” Jane said. “I’ve never seen him just lay back and go to sleep like that. He’s kind of a wakeful little critter.”

Molly wanted to smile, but she was still sort of afraid to move.

“Do you mind holding him for a while?” Jane asked. “I mean the meeting is about to start, and if I take him back, he’ll wake up.”

“I’m a firm believer in letting sleeping babies lie,” Nita said. “So why don’t we get started, since little Pete is being such an angel for Molly?”

Molly carefully took a seat and adjusted the baby’s weight. It was kind of hard to focus on Nita with the child in her arms. She just wanted to look down at his sleeping face. He was a most miraculous baby. Probably because he was the only baby Molly had ever held in her life.

Nita kicked things off. “I thought I’d get tonight’s meeting started by asking y’all how you felt at the end of
Little Women
when Jo sets aside her literary career to marry Professor Bhaer and help her husband run a school?”

“If you want the truth,” Cathy said, “I think she was an idiot to turn up her nose at Laurie. Why would any woman in her right mind do that?”

“Do you think she would have maintained her literary career if she married Laurie?” Savannah asked.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Cathy said. “I just felt let down at the end when she marries that big, German oaf. She could have had everything, including a rich husband.”

“Who she didn’t love,” Hettie said. “I think the worst thing in the world is to be married to someone you don’t love. I really admired Jo for telling Laurie no. That took real courage for a woman in the eighteen hundreds. And I applaud Jo’s parents for not forcing her into a marriage
with Laurie. Many parents would have, you know, given how rich he was.”

This speech from Hettie Marshall Ellis made everyone a little uncomfortable because Hettie’s first husband had been a rich man her parents had picked out for her.

“That’s true,” Rocky said. “But would you have given up being the CEO of Country Pride Chicken in order to marry Bill?”

“He didn’t ask me to.”

“But what if he had?” Rocky persisted.

Hettie clasped her hands in front of her. “If the only way to have Bill was to give up the chicken plant, I think I would have done it. But that’s beside the point. A man who truly loves would never ask that.”

“Ha!” said Lola May. “Maybe not your Bill, but I gotta tell you, all three of my exes were resentful of my work outside the home. They weren’t resentful of the money I made, but they thought I should work and cook and clean for them. Which is why they are all exes, and I’m never going to get married again.”

“I think you just made my point, Lola May,” Hettie said in a soft, lady-like voice.

Lola May sniffed.

“You’ve been mighty quiet,” Nita said, turning her sharp brown eyes on Molly. “I would have expected you to have something to say about this book. In particular.”

Molly had been paying more attention to Pete than the conversation, so she was caught a little off guard. Still,
Little Women
was the kind of book that kind of stuck in your head. The last few days her mind kept turning back to it.

Molly envied the love portrayed among the March
sisters. She had always secretly wanted sisters. Maybe if she’d had a girlie sister like Amy or Meg, she could have been more like Jo. And no one would have expected so much of her.

“Well,” she finally said, “I sure don’t blame Jo for telling Laurie to take a hike.”

This elicited a number of chuckles around the room.

“What’s so funny?” she asked.

“Oh, nothing,” said Rocky. “It’s just that everyone’s been wondering whether you were influenced by the book when you turned down Les’s proposal.”

Molly gazed from face to face. Her so-called friends were all smirking, except for Savannah, who seemed very serious right at the moment. “No, I wasn’t influenced by the book. I read the book
after
Les proposed.”

“He’s very disappointed,” Cathy said.

Molly turned her gaze on Savannah. “I don’t want to lay blame, but this is partially your fault. If your aunt hadn’t meddled and told everyone I was going to marry someone I’d known forever, Les wouldn’t have gotten the wild hair up his butt to actually propose. Honestly, his proposal came from way out of left field.”

“Really?” Jenny asked, while Savannah didn’t look surprised at all.

“Really. I haven’t even kissed Les. And believe me, the idea of kissing him is mildly repulsive. So I don’t know what he was smoking when he sprang his whole marriage thing on me. And now he’s all ticked off because I won’t marry him. And he’s been a total jerk about the Shelby. He won’t help me with the engine. To be honest, he owes me a lot. I mean, he took my job at Bill’s. If you must know, I’m deeply disappointed in Les. He’s been sort of
mean to me the last few weeks.” In marked contrast with Simon, who had been nothing but kind.

“Now, Mol, don’t get down on men. They have their good points, too,” Jane said, smiling down at little Pete, who was still sleeping away in Molly’s arms.

“I have nothing against men. Hanging with the guys and watching football is great. I enjoy the company of guys. But not when they start acting like little girls whose feelings have been hurt. Honestly, Les is behaving like a total drama queen.

“And as for the protagonist in this book, I thought Jo was at her best when she vowed never to marry at all. The story would have been perfect if Jo stayed a spinster—maybe running the school on her own, without a man. But I guess that would probably have gotten the book banned in the eighteen hundreds.”

“Don’t you want to get married?” Jenny asked.

Molly hung on to little Pete and held her ground. “No. I’m completely happy on my own. I love my independence. Why should I give that up for a man?”

The women around the table gave her a bunch of pitying looks, even Lola May who was constantly swearing off men and then falling in love again.

Savannah broke the silence. “Molly, honey, you don’t
need
a man, any more than Jo March did. But there will come a day when a man is going to knock you on your butt, just like Professor Bhaer knocked Jo for a loop. And you’ll care about him. And when you fall, you’ll fall hard, because that’s the way you are. You’ll live and die for this love, Molly. You might even be willing to give up your Shelby for him.”

“You know, Les told me the same thing. But he was wrong and you’re wrong. That’s not ever gonna happen.”
Especially with her father running around town telling any guy who might be even remotely sexy to keep his distance.

“I’m sorry, hon, but I’m afraid that it is.” Savannah gave her a big smile. And for just one instant, Molly could see the resemblance between Savannah and her great-aunt Miriam Randall.

Molly stuck around after the book club meeting, enduring way too much teasing from her friends about the things Savannah had said. But she needed to talk to Nita about something. She’d been stewing about what had happened yesterday down at the river, and while Coach was partly to blame, it wasn’t all Coach’s fault.

Something had changed in Simon the minute Zeph Gibbs interrupted them. It might be as simple as Simon coming to his senses, or it could be something way more complicated. Simon had been kind of broody afterward. And what he’d told her on the walk back to the car had kind of taken root in Molly’s head.

And of course, she was fascinated by Simon Wolfe. She wanted to know everything about him. And since he wasn’t willing to talk about himself, she had to go snooping. Which, of course, lent credence to what her father had told Simon. She did have a crush on him. A big, sexy, grown-up girl crush.

“Are you waiting on me?” Nita finally asked as the two of them tidied up the refreshment table.

“Uh, yeah, I have a question.”

“About the book?”

“No. About something totally off topic. You and Zeph Gibbs went to Dubois High School together, didn’t you?”

Nita’s face lit up with surprise. “We did. I’ve known Zeph since we were both little children. You have a question about him?”

“Yeah. He worked for the Raintrees, didn’t he?”

“He did. He was the caretaker at the Jonquil House. He was also a hunting and fishing guide when the governor brought his political friends down every year to shoot quail. He wasn’t so strange then. Why do you ask?”

“I was down at the public boat ramp yesterday with Simon Wolfe. I was fishing. He was sketching.” She left out the skinny-dipping part. “Anyway Zeph came around, and he and Simon took a walk and talked for a little bit. And afterward, well …”

“Ah.” Nita’s eyebrows rose. “I forgot.”

“What?” Molly felt like a bloodhound on the trail of something really important.

“Simon and Luke Raintree were great friends. Not that Luke lived here all the time. But Governor Raintree was always bringing his grandsons with him on his hunting trips, and the boys spent most of the summer here. Simon and Luke were the same age. There was a whole mess of white boys that age, including Stone Rhodes, who hung out together.” She chuckled. “A lot of those boys went on to become members of the 1990 championship team.”

“But about Zeph? Did he—”

“I know what folks say about Zeph. How he came back from Vietnam all messed up, and I reckon some of that is true. He might have been a doctor or a lawyer if he’d had the money to go to college and get out of the draft. But he had to go, and he went. And it changed him. Made him more solitary, I guess. But he used to come to church
regularly. He was still a part of the community. But after Luke died, well …”