Loggers, the bar in town was cute. There was no better word for it. It had all the fixings of a biker bar on the edge of a small town, but somehow it still felt like a place farmers went to talk about the weather, or where quilt shop owners went to discuss big sales.
“So, Shara, what’s the word? Facebook or Radio?”
Shara waved a paper napkin in surrender. “I was too busy to ask!”
“You’re sorry you poo-pooed the idea of Halloween marketing, aren’t you?” Carly from Bible Creek Quilt and Gift teased.
“Very much so. I made lots and lots of filthy lucre today.” Shara seemed almost giddy, and not at all ready to dig Taylor’s eyes out over selling the same line of fabrics. Taylor liked that. She didn’t like Shara, but she liked that Shara wasn’t angry with her. Taylor held her glass up in salute. “To advertising like crazy!”
“To Black Friday!”
They all huzzahed and drank their drinks and enjoyed being off their feet. It was funny, this sense of community with folks who were also her competition. Taylor hadn’t put much effort into getting to know them through the last months, but she wanted to. Now, after their successful day, more than ever. Black Friday was not traditionally a great day for sales at stores like theirs. They tried to make up for it with Small Business Saturday sales and things like that, but man, had this worked. And Taylor needed something to have worked.
Taylor was just sipping her second celebratory g and t when she spotted a familiar face in the corner of the bar. Maybe it was because she was now just a bit tipsy—none of them had had lunch after all—but she wanted to see a smile on that sad face. “Clay, get over here.” She waved her arms at him. “We’re celebrating a successful sale.”
He shook his head.
“Then I’m coming to you. Excuse me, ladies.” Taylor was not drunk, not after the one drink, but she was punch drunk. She went to the far back of the bar where her ex-boyfriend seemed to be hiding. “What are you doing back here?” He had one empty pint in front of him, and the remains of a burger and fries.
“Just eating dinner and contemplating my life choices.”
“Part of that seems like a good idea.” Taylor helped herself to a cold fry. He had been here awhile.
“If I had just come down here with you, I could have been a part of this life, this community.”
“It’s a pretty great place.”
“I miss you, Taylor. Don’t you miss me even a little bit?” His blue eyes were round and shadowed and sad.
“You don’t miss me.” Taylor leaned forward into his personal space. “I called you out on that already, don’t you remember? You just miss having somebody.”
“I didn’t correct you. That doesn’t mean you were right.”
“You want me to call Lila and ask her? I’d bet all the money I made today that you tried to sleep with her, and she rejected you.”
“You’re half right.”
She curled her lip. “You did sleep with her then?”
“Yeah.” He dragged his hands through his hair. “But people make mistakes, don’t they? Everything I did after your mom passed was a mistake.”
“Yes, it was, but it wasn’t an accident and I think you confuse the two. If I forget to carry the one when doing math, it’s both a mistake and an accident.” Taylor was suddenly very, very sober, and most of the fun had drained away. “What you did was a mistake. But it was very much on purpose.”
“And you never make mistakes?” He scowled.
“Go home, Clay.”
“I’ve got one more week of vacation, and I’m spending it here, praying you forgive me.”
The bar wasn’t full enough to hide the scene Clay was creating.
Taylor got up, ready to leave him but found herself surrounded by her Guild of Quilt Shop owners. “Is this young man bothering you?” June from Comfort Cozies asked.
“No, not anymore.”
“Yes.” Clay stood. “I am bothering her, and I’m going to keep bothering her till she forgives me.
From the corner of her eye, Taylor noticed someone stand. And walk over with firm steps, and broad shoulders. He put his hand on the small of her back.
Hudson.
“Wanna dance?”
She melted. He hated dancing and there wasn’t any music playing. And he hadn’t jumped in and threatened Clay or punched Clay or had a fight with Clay. He had just…walked over and asked if she wanted something, leaving the escape up to her.
“I’d love to.” She took his hand, led him outside, and kissed him, quite a bit more than she usually did in public.
“As much as I love that…” He smiled down at her from his very nice height but drew his brows together and kissed her again. Then, “Never mind. I love that.”
“I don’t think I’ve been fair to you.” Taylor stroked his thumb with hers.
“You never said we were anything other than what we are.”
“I know, but I’ve been leaving you on the hook for so long.”
He cleared his throat, an embarrassed sound. “I’ve been dating other people too, you know.”
“Oh.” Taylor was the embarrassed one now. Somehow, she had taken his words to mean he had been waiting for her alone.
He gave her hand a squeeze. “Want to run away entirely or maybe go pay your tab first?”
“I think I’ll go enjoy the party a little more. The quilt guild had a very good Black Friday.”
They returned together, but he disappeared as she joined her quilt friends. Taylor had liked the idea of Hudson waiting patiently for her. She didn’t like the idea that he might find someone he liked better.
But now was far from the best time to try and figure out her own heart.
* * *
Roxy and Taylor put off filming the YouTube show till after the whole shopping weekend—Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday. They did their best and made a solid profit. Tuesday Taylor was exhausted, but ready to film bright and early.
She hung one of her favorite quilts as a backdrop and set up a worktable in the apartment for filming this time. Changing up the setting like that wasn’t supposed to be best practices for their type of YouTube video, but she didn’t want to be bothered by customers rattling the doors before they opened.
“We’re doing the homemade bias tape today, right?” Roxy was peering at the back of the phone as she adjusted it on the tripod.
“Yeah, but mom did one too. We should watch it and make sure I have something unique to say.”
The first video was how to cut and press the bias tape. The second was binding a small project and the third was rebinding an old project.
The thing Taylor was sure of at the end of their review was that she had nothing to add to the conversation.
“Maybe you don’t need to add anything new to it.” Roxy stood at the ironing board pressing a length of forty-five-inch quilting cotton.
“I can’t help but want to. Why fill up airspace with something that has already been done a hundred times before?” Taylor shifted the measured cutting board to an angle. She had been taught to write at a slight angle and it affected everything including how she cut with her rotary cutter.
“Maybe you saying the thing is enough,” Roxy mused. “I’ve heard that you have to receive a message seven times before you become convinced to accept it.”
“Working with that old sales acorn, I’ve got to make six videos about making your own bias tape to convince someone to do it,” Taylor chuckled.
“It is content…” Roxy frowned at the fabric. “I like this one. It’s gentle.” She referred to the subtle waves of dark tan on the cream background she had selected from back stock. It wouldn’t look like much on video except it had a distinct front and back as well as a horizontal pattern that might illustrate bias work nicely.
Taylor went back in the last video to the eleventh minute where her mom was musing on mixing old fabric and new when replacing binding on a worn quilt. “It’s like this…” she was say
ing, “if the fabric is weak, nothing will hold it together. But if what you have is strong, if it’s only the binding that has worn out, you can save the quilt. I’ve seen folks reinforce a quilt front and rebind it afterward. It can be done, but it is so hard. You have to really believe the blanket is worth saving. It has to be like family to do that. Sometimes inch by inch unstitching the quilting and tying it off again just to make the patchwork stronger…” Taylor pressed pause. Her mom didn’t make an analogy out of this moment. Didn’t try and tie it to some life lesson, but Taylor wanted to include it in the compilation of advice anyway, because it was true. You could save almost anything if you went inch by inch making repairs, strengthening weak spots, unstitching what had gone bad so you could remake it better.
Taylor took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “I’ll never be invited to give a Ted Talk based on my videos, but we might as well keep going. I may not be saying anything new, but I might be saying it to someone for the seventh time.”
“That’s my girl.”
They spent the next two hours filming, hoping they got enough quality footage to make the four fifteen-minute videos they had planned. At one point, Taylor found herself riffing on her mother’s thoughts, on working to save something you love even though the work is hard.
When they were done, Roxy was dabbing at her eyes. “That’s you, Taylor. You and this shop and the show and your family. Inch by inch you are binding it up, saving the beautiful quilt your mom patched together through her life.”
Roxy wrapped Taylor in her thin arms, a hug Taylor needed though she hadn’t been looking for it.
At the end of filming Taylor left Roxy and Hannah to run the store.
Taylor had taken the rest of the day off so she could focus on the death of Reynette Woods.
She found Sissy at her home. They needed to find out if Art and Reynette had been willing to do that careful foundation building work that their lives would need if they were really going to bind their two families together.
Sissy was in the middle of her kitchen, swathed in a faded hand-sewn apron made from Flour Sax’s fabrics, but faded with time and use. The granite counters overflowed with loaves of bread in various stages of baked.
“What on earth are you doing?” Taylor hadn’t really thought about Sissy’s day to day life before, but there she was in the middle of a Tuesday surrounded by loaves of bread and batches of dough proofing.
“Just…” She shook her head. “Panic baking. Okay? You caught me. I took a few days off from the salon, but it turns out I can’t just sit here on my hands.”
“I don’t bake.” Taylor inhaled deeply, the warm, wholesome, and unmatched aroma of fresh bread taking her back to visits to friends’ houses—friends whose mothers stayed at home to bake because their fathers weren’t dead.
She snorted. She could turn any moment into self-pity if she tried.
Sissy looked at her as though the snort was a personal insult. “What?”
“Nothing. Sorry. Just laughing at myself for being jealous of all of this bread.”
“Then take some home. Half my family is eating Keto and we’ll never get through all of this.”
“Are you stuck here all day now?” Taylor grabbed a seat at the kitchen island.
Sissy rubbed her chin and looked around her kitchen, assessing the state of baking. “I can slow the rise on those there by sticking them in the fridge, but I’ve got to wait another ten minutes for the loaves in the oven to come out. Those loaves,” she waved a hand embroidered kitchen towel at her table, “were an overnight rise recipe. So are the ones in the oven. Those,” she waved the towel at a tray of bread rolled into cute little dinner rolls, “aren’t. But they can sit in the fridge, like I said. What are you thinking? Did you have a detectivey a-ha moment?”
“Maybe. A lot of things have been flying around my brain the last few days. They all relate to blending families and how it’s hard.”
“You’re telling me. My hubby Phil’s daughter Tansy just barely puts up with me. Now that her mom moved to Atlanta, she sees the value of having a spare grandma around, but after all these years you could say I’m not motivated to run at her beck and call.”
“That’s sort of exactly what I mean. It’s hard work. Long work. Patient work. Art and Reynette eloped pretty suddenly. Do you think they were willing to do the kind of work it takes to make a blended family function?”
“Reynette would have. She’d longed to be married ever since her ex left her.”
“Her ex…have we considered him as someone who could be behind the murder?”
Sissy gave a short, derisive laugh. “No. Not him. He died five years after he left her. She had to pay for the funeral and bury him and everything.”
“Did she stay in touch with anyone from his family?”
“No, they were all from down in California.” She said it with the disdain only a born and bred Oregonian can say the word.
“It’s not just the married couple who has to do the work.” Taylor stared at the perfect golden round top of a loaf of white bread.
Sissy sliced a piece, still warm from the oven and passed it over.
Taylor slathered it with butter. “Everyone has to be willing to work hard. Kids, adult kids, siblings. Who was least willing in this new marriage?”
“I don’t know that anyone was willing, except Art and Reynette. Fawn is biddable, but that doesn’t mean she liked it. Monty has always been an outsider, if you ask me. Not invested in the family. Jason? That guy is a snob.”
“Guy and Gracie, as adult representatives of Una seem more committed than anyone else. I suppose they’d have to be, given she was the one that introduced them. Do you believe her when she says it was because of her daughter? That she wanted a good stepmother for Una?”
“I don’t know exactly what to make of Gracie, but I don’t trust her. She seems like the type to say one thing but mean another entirely.”
“What does she get from this marriage?”
“If she’s as close to Fawn as she claims she gets a whole lotta control over Art’s life, don’t you think? If she’s being honest and Una is Art’s kid, she has every reason to want to keep him on a short tether.”
“You were the one that got Reynette the job at the college.”
“I connected the two, yeah, but she got the job herself based on her talent.” Sissy’s defensive tone didn’t quail Taylor.
“True, I know. Didn’t mean to sound like I didn’t. It just seems pretty great for Gracie. Art would be a lot closer to Neskowin than he used to be. How did you find out about the job at the college?”
“Pastor Beiste over at Bible Creek Chapel told me about it. She likes Reynette’s work.”
“Hmmm…” Taylor savored the bread. “Did you ever hear Jason’s opinion about it?”
“I don’t talk to him if I can help it.”
A timer went off and Sissy removed two stoneware baking trays with crusty round loaves of bread on them.
“Today, you can’t help it. We’re headed to Jason’s to bring flowers and sympathy to Art and to talk to them both a little bit about the complications of blending families.”
“You don’t look like you have flowers.” Sissy looked at Taylor like she was no better than she ought to be. “You know a florist in this town?”
“A card then. We’ll run to Bible Creek Quilt and Gift. They’re open today.”
Chapter Nineteen
It was only as they stood knocking on the door of Jason’s place that Taylor realized he might actually be off working somewhere. When Gilly answered the door with a look of disappointment at seeing them, Taylor figured she was right. She held up a card and a small pot of silk mums from the gift shop. “Is Art up for company?”
Gilly opened the door wider. “Yes, come in.”
Jason’s modest 1960s ranch home was full of mid-century modern furniture complete with patina and original upholstery. The nubby wools in dark avocado and rust looked surprisingly chic i
n his space. A wall of square shelves like Ikea, but probably much more expensive, held a collection of glass that complimented the color palate of the late seventies. Gilly had likely contributed these pieces to their shared home. “He’s resting, let me get him.”
Sissy and Taylor waited in the museum-like living room.
Art came out head bandaged, shoulders stooped, and feet shuffling across the wooden floor. He had a black eye, and the hand that held the velvet robe shut was thin, knobby and shaking. He couldn’t have lost noticeable weight in his few days in the hospital, but his edges were sharper and the shadows deeper.
Gilly led him to a low-slung chair with a wooden frame and he sat slowly. “Can I get you a cup of coffee?” She was not talking to Sissy or Taylor.
“I don’t know what happened.” Art sat back. The chair wasn’t high enough for him to rest his head, and lacking that crutch, he seemed taller and stronger. He would collapse if someone offered him the opportunity, but he could stand strong if needed. “I packed my bag and walked to the beach. That’s all I know.”
“It sounds like it was awful.” Taylor sat across from him in a matching chair. Sissy stood at the shelf investigating the glass sculptures. “Are you still in a lot of pain?”
“Some. It comes and goes.”
“It’s nice that Gilly is here with you.”
“She’s a nice girl.”
Gilly seemed older than Art’s ex-wife in both manner and looks, but Taylor supposed she could seem like a “girl” to him. “Is there anything we can do for you?”
“The funeral home keeps calling about Reynette.” He coughed into his fist, then winced like it hurt his head to cough. “I need to make the arrangements, but Gilly won’t even let me get dressed.”
“Will they not help you over the phone?” Sissy turned to Art.
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