Last Chance Knit & Stitch (8 page)

“Savannah, I know I don’t have grease on my face this time. What is it?”

Savannah blinked. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.” Savannah turned toward Nita. “We should stop reading dystopian fiction. It’s depressing everyone, especially since things are improving here in Last Chance. I know we talked about reading
Hunger Games
next, but I really don’t want to spend time with kids who are forced to kill each other for the amusement of the state.”

“Me neither,” said Cathy. “And you know what? It’s kind of disturbing that every other book you pick up these
days at the bookstore has a vampire or a werewolf or kids run amok. Doesn’t anyone read the sweet books anymore? You know, like
Little Women
?”

“
Little Women
?” Hettie finally spoke. “My goodness, I haven’t read that since I was twelve. I did love that book.”

“I’ve never read it at all,” Arlene said. “But I did see the movie. I loved Christian Bale, but I could never understand why Winona Ryder threw him over for Gabriel Byrne.”

While Arlene was speaking, Savannah stared across the table at Molly. Her gaze was intensely probing. Just before Molly was about to check to see if she’d spilled cheese on her T-shirt, Savannah turned toward Nita. “You know, I think we should read
Little Women
.”

“Could we talk about this book first, before we select the next one?” Nita said.

“No,” Hettie said, looking around the table. “Is there anyone here who finished this book?”

Jenny Carpenter was the only one who raised her hand. But that hardly counted because Jenny had no life beyond teaching algebra at the high school. And, truth to tell, Jenny had been kind of depressed since Reverend Ellis had run off with Hettie. So of course she’d had time to read a book with a thousand pages.

Hettie stared at Nita. “I rest my case. Who wants to read something sweet like
Little Women
next time?”

All the hands went up. Of course, more than half the ladies of the book club were members of Christ Episcopal. So if their minister’s wife, who also happened to be the second largest employer in town, suggested a book, it was a lead pipe cinch that everyone would agree to read it.

“Hold up a minute, Molly,” Savannah called. Molly was heading toward her canary yellow Charger, parked in the lot behind the library.

She turned as Savannah hurried up to her. “What?”

“Uh …” Savannah stood there for a moment looking awkward.

“What the heck is it? Do I have BO or something?”

Savannah shook her head. “No, it’s just that I have something I need to tell you.”

“About what?”

Savannah danced from foot to foot and continued to look awkward. When she spoke, her words came out like a racing freight train. “It’s a message from Aunt Miriam.”

Wariness scrambled over Molly’s backbone. “From Miriam?” she asked. Crap, she didn’t need another surprise today.

Savannah’s aunt was practically legendary. She was one part fortune-teller, one part busybody, and she’d made it her life’s work to find soulmates for every blessed single person in Last Chance. She’d been implicated in several recent weddings. Miriam also had a hand in matching Savannah up with Dash Randall. Molly glanced at the big, fat diamond on Savannah’s hand. The wedding of the decade was planned for the first week of June.

Molly wanted nothing to do with one of Miriam Randall’s predictions. She didn’t believe in that crap, which put her in the minority. If Miriam made a forecast, the church ladies of Last Chance—and that was a majority of the female population—would be working overtime to get her hitched up to someone.

Yuck.

“Don’t look so astonished and petrified.” Savannah was actually wringing her hands, which seemed like a bad omen.

“What is it? Are you about to tell me that I should be looking for a man just like my father? I’m not sure that’s what I want. I mean, look at where it left Momma.”

Savannah frowned. “Uh, well, I’m not sure. He might be like your father. I mean, well, most men like football, don’t they?”

“Yeah, I guess. What exactly did Miriam tell you?”

“She told me you should be looking for someone who has known you for a long time. Since you were little.”

The forecast was a little underwhelming. And also annoying.

“Great. So every past member of the Davis High School football team is a possible match.”

“Uh, well …” Savannah’s voice faded out.

“Or are you trying to tell me that I belong with Les? Because if that’s what you’re saying, you can just forget it. Les is my friend. We are not romantically involved. In fact, he’s on a date right now with Tammy Nelson.”

“Tammy? With the teeth and boobs?”

“Yeah. I’m thinking the boobs are the main attraction. Les is a pretty simple and straightforward kind of guy.”

“Uh, well, I don’t know,” Savannah said in a rush, like she was suddenly trying to get away from Molly.

“Do me a favor. Tell your aunt not to repeat this crap, okay? I’ve already got problems out the wazoo. I do not need a bunch of busybodies trying to turn me into a bride. I am not bride material.”

R
icki Wilson tapped her right heel forward and then her toe. She crossed her right foot behind her left and rocked to the Wild Horses’ cover of “Boot Scootin’ Boogie.” As always, she danced right near the stage where she could keep an eye on Clay Rhodes, the fiddler in the band and the man she let get away.

The Wednesday crowd at Dot’s Spot wasn’t near as big as it would be on Friday, but it was big enough that she could dance without being alone. Which was completely ironic because she was as alone as a body could get.

She had lost Clay years ago when she’d decided to dump him in favor of the richer and older Randy Burrowes, the talent scout for the record label Clay had signed with back when he was eighteen.

Her decision had cost Clay a lot, because he’d walked away from that record deal. And she’d gone on to marry Randy.

She’d lived a pretty high life for a while. And then she reaped the seeds of destruction that she’d sown. Randy
started cheating on her with a younger woman. And then the bottom fell out when she (and the law) discovered that Randy had embezzled a whole bunch of the record label’s money.

She’d come crawling back to Last Chance, utterly broke and looking for a second chance with the only man who’d treated her with respect. But by then, Clay was in love with someone else.

Ricki knew it was stupid and ugly to hate Jane Rhodes, but she couldn’t help herself. Jane was just so sweet. And Ricki was not that kind of woman. She never had been.

Well, at least she wasn’t waiting on tables anymore. When she took that job at the Kountry Kitchen a couple of years ago, she thought it might be a nice place to meet men. Like that old Suzy Bogguss song about “Eat at Joe’s.” But it hadn’t worked out.

Plenty of men ate at the Kitchen, but very few of them were unattached. And the best of the bachelors, like Bubba Lockheart, Stone Rhodes, and Dash Randall, had up and gotten the marriage bug. Sadly, none of them had chosen her.

She wasn’t ever going to find Prince Charming at the Kountry Kitchen. She wasn’t going to find him at the Knit & Stitch either, but at least working there would be easier on her bunions.

In fact, tonight she wasn’t at all footsore, and that made line dancing so much more fun. Line dancing was just about the most fun a woman could have by her lonesome.

Just then, as if to point out the sorry state of Ricki’s life, the Wild Horses changed tempo. Clay started singing a soft, sad ballad and playing a truly weepy violin.

Damn him.

All the line dancers headed for their tables. One or two couples stayed on the floor. She turned away and headed toward the bar, where the usual cast of characters were hanging out. She took the open seat next to Roy Burdett, who was telling a long and involved fishing story to Arlo Boyd. It was kind of amazing how Roy and Arlo could talk fishing twenty-four seven.

Dot put a glass of tonic and lime in front of Ricki and leaned in. “So, I heard T-Bone is in a snit because you left.”

“I got a better offer.”

“Yeah, honey, but what happens when Pat Canaday comes back?”

Ricki didn’t want to think about that. “Who says she is coming back?”

Dot frowned. “Pat loves Coach.”

“Well, if she loves him so much, why’d she walk out on him?”

Dot rolled her eyes toward Roy and Arlo. “Maybe because he took one too many fishing trips,” she whispered.

“That’s just dumb. If I had a husband, I wouldn’t get mad at him for going fishing. A man needs his hobbies.”

“I reckon,” Dot said and moved down to refill a few drinks.

The band took a break, and Ricki was thinking about doing something heinous, like flirting with a married man, when Les Hayes came through the front door looking like the last pea at pea-time.

He stepped up to the bar right beside her and ordered a longneck Bud.

Les was nice looking when he cleaned himself up.
He was wearing a pair of new blue jeans and a striped golf shirt. His nails were cut down to the quick, and they looked remarkably clean for a man who worked on cars for a living.

Of course, Les was easily seven years too young for a woman Ricki’s age, but a cat could always look at a king, as her momma used to say. And looking at Les was not a strain.

“Hey,” she said. “How’s it going?”

“Lousy.”

“I’m sorry.”

He gave her a long gaze. And damned if Ricki didn’t feel like it was the first time Leslie Hayes had ever really seen her. A slow smile touched his lips. His mouth was just a tiny bit crooked. And he had a set of very sexy laugh lines.

Not to mention the sky blue eyes.

“Well, thanks, Ricki.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Ryan Polk and the First National Bank sent Wolfe Ford into receivership, which means me and thirty-nine other people just lost our jobs.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“And then Tammy Nelson stood me up.”

“Tammy Nelson? What were you doing with her? I thought you and Molly Canaday had a thing going.”

He shrugged. The movement said more than his words. “Nope. No thing with Molly. And Tammy said she wanted a man with a steady job. She said she was getting too old to waste her time on an unemployed person.” He tipped up his beer and demolished it in several long swallows.

“Tammy couldn’t be more than twenty-eight,” Ricki
said, staring down at her tonic water so that she wouldn’t get mesmerized by the movement of his Adam’s apple as he swigged his beer.

“Yeah, and that means her biological clock is ticking like a time bomb. Her parting shot was something about wanting to have babies with a man who could afford them.”

“Oh, that’s low.”

He nodded. “It’s okay. I wasn’t all that interested in Tammy—at least not in having babies with her anyway.”

“Yeah, I can imagine exactly what you were interested in.”

This brought forth the smallest of chuckles from him. He had a funny, nerdy kind of laugh.

Molly needed to watch out if Les was paying attention to Tammy’s bustline. Not that it was easy to ignore Tammy’s bust when she poured her girls into tight sweaters. But still. Les and Molly belonged together. Everyone knew it.

The band returned from their break and struck up a soulful rendition of the “Tennessee Waltz.”

“Dance with me,” Les said.

Ricki’s heart squeezed in her chest, and for the first time in eons, something inside her—something that had been frozen over for a long time—cracked. Emotions flowed. She wanted to dance with him. With all her heart. She found him attractive. But he was too young for her. And besides, she was working for Molly now. Leslie Hayes was off limits.

She already had a lot of misdeeds on her spiritual scorecard. And messing around with Les Hayes was going to set her karma back big time.

“Uh, no, thanks, Les. I gotta be running.” She put a few dollars down on the bar for her drink and hopped down from the stool. “You take care, now, you hear,” she said.

Then she turned and walked away from the first man who had asked her to dance in a good five years. It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done in her lonely, lonely life.

Zeph Gibbs stood in the shadow cast by the door frame of the old Coca-Cola building. He kept a vigil there, his gaze trained on Dot’s Spot. The neon beer signs in the honky-tonk’s small windows cast a glow over the sidewalk across the street. He cataloged the people going in and out.

Mostly regulars like Roy Burdett, but there were some surprises tonight, like Les Hayes. Les wasn’t much of a drinker, but Zeph reckoned it was only natural for a man to want a couple of belts when he’d lost his job.

A shiver ran up Zeph’s spine. The ghost, which had haunted him for years, was restless tonight. So was the dog—a tiny thing that looked like a cross between a Yorkie and a Maltese. The critter shouldn’t have survived the swamp. But she had, probably because the ghost had found her first and scared off the predators.

Zeph had to wonder about the person who left a tiny dog like this out where she was prey for gators and snakes. No wonder the poor thing was shivering. She wasn’t even full growed, and she already knew how brutal the world could be.

He stroked the pup and spoke nonsense to her for a long time. Eventually she relaxed and fell asleep.

But not the ghost. He never slept. And things had been worse the last few days, since Simon Wolfe’s return. The ghost had become edgy and nervous. As if it expected something to happen now that Simon was back.

It wouldn’t be good if the ghost decided to haunt Simon. And Zeph could certainly see why the ghost might want to do that. No, that needed to be avoided at all costs. It was Zeph’s job to keep the ghost contained until Simon left town. And right now, that meant finding a home for this pup. The ghost always calmed down when one of its strays was taken care of. So Zeph had pushed things up a little bit. He’d made a snap decision.

Zeph stirred from the shadows, crossed the street, and headed into the alley between Dot’s place and the dry cleaners. The alley opened into a parking lot. Across the way stood a small two-story house with an external fire stair leading to a second-floor apartment.