Heath's Hope (The Brothers of Beauford Bend Book 5)

by Alicia Hunter Pace

  “Don’t you think it’s getting a little cold for this?” Heath tossed the sweatpants and Jimpson caught them. Generally, when addressed directly, he’d respond.

  “Maybe.” He put the pants on and reached out for the shirt. “I guess you’re here to take me home.”

  “I guess I am. Where’s your stuff?” Sometimes Jimpson knew where he’d left his clothes and jar of chalk powder, and sometimes he didn’t.

  “Behind that tree.” Jimpson pulled the shirt on, and Heath retrieved Jimpson’s faded red and gold gym bag that was so old you could barely make out “Beauford High Broncos” printed on the side.

  “Are you hungry?” Heath asked as he started the car.

  “No, thank you,” Jimpson said. “The lunch ladies made chicken pot pie today, and I put chili in the Crock-Pot before I left for work this morning.”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it better than I do,” Heath said.

  Jimpson nodded. “In so many ways.”

  Most people said things like that and waited for a response, in which case they would have to wait forever because Heath never responded. But he knew Jimpson would say what was on his mind, or he wouldn’t.

  “I saw you leaving Piece by Piece last night, but you didn’t see me.”

  Oh, hell. This was one of the times he was going to say what was on his mind.

  “You were storming down the street,” Jimpson said cheerfully.

  How did one storm down the street? Heath didn’t ask.

  “Yep. You were mad. I take that as a good sign. I got to thinking. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen you demonstrate much of any emotion. I know Hope’s back in town. She didn’t go to Beauford High, but she grew up here. She was always real sweet.”

  Yeah. He’d thought so, too until he hadn’t.

  “Nickolai told me she moved into Noel’s old apartment.”

  Thank you, Nickolai, for demonstrating once again how effectively you can spread the news of the world.

  Jimpson didn’t say anything for a few blocks—for so long that Heath began to believe he wasn’t going to say anything else.

  But then Heath pulled up in front of the neat little frame house Jimpson had grown up in, and as he opened his door, Jimpson got the last word. “I figure if Hope has the ability to make you that mad, she has the ability to make you happy. That would be good to see.”

  Jimpson might be damaged, but he damned sure wasn’t stupid.

  But neither was Heath; there was no way he was risking his heart again.

  Chapter Seven

  After leaving the bank on Thursday, Hope went straight to the hospital to visit her father for a few minutes before eagerly going to String, where Miss Sticky and Miss Julia were waiting to give her another lesson.

  By now, she had a respectable knitting sampler—rows of knits, purls, and mixtures of the two in different combinations. She was most proud of the cable stitch Miss Julia had just taught her. Oddly, knitting wasn’t so different from making a spreadsheet. Everything was methodical and orderly. If you followed the rules and didn’t make mistakes, you ended up with something functional.

  “I want to make something hard,” she told Miss Julia. “A sweater. I can do that. I know how to do that cable stitch now.”

  Miss Julia shook her head. “No. You aren’t ready for a sweater—though you have made good progress. Maybe we’ll start you on a pair of these tomorrow.”

  Miss Julia held out a picture of what looked like gloves, but they didn’t have fingers.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that before,” Hope said. “Half gloves?”

  “Fingerless mitts. They’re called Must-Have Mitts [e-developer: insert link to free knitting pattern in back of book] because they’ll keep your hands warm but leave your fingers free to text. And look how cute they are with the cable stitch running down the side.”

  “That’s brilliant! And I can start right now. I already know how to do the cable stitch.”

  “You do,” Miss Julia said. “But you need to practice some more before starting a project. Why don’t you cast on and do that now?”

  “Fine!” Hope said defiantly. “But I don’t see why I can’t go ahead and start the mitts. After all, I Must-Have them.”

  “Yes, you must. I can see that but Julia’s right,” Miss Sticky said. “It’s not time yet, but you can choose some yarn for them.”

  Hope rose and went to survey a display of soft pastels. She picked up a skein of baby pink that was so soft it almost whispered.

  “No,” Miss Sticky said firmly and took it from her. “That isn’t your yarn.” She held out a different skein. “This is your yarn.”

  And it was. Hope knew immediately that the variegated yarn in rich, autumn tones was hers. This yarn didn’t whisper anything. It laughed, loved, and jumped into piles of leaves.

  “Merino wool and mulberry silk,” Miss Sticky said. “Delicate and fine, but strong, too.”

  “I’ll take it all,” Hope said.

  Miss Sticky shook her head. “You don’t need it all. You only need enough for the Must-Have Mitts. By the time you finish, another yarn will find you. Do you see now? How the yarn has a life of its own? How you partner with it to making something beautiful?”

  She did see.

  “Can I have one more skein than I need for the mitts? I need to make my practice piece with that.”

  “Yes.” Miss Sticky nodded. “I understand that.”

  • • •

  What the hell. Hope was knitting? Heath could see her through the window of String. And she had her shoes off.

  He ought to walk on by. Really.

  But like a robot, he knocked on the door. Hope didn’t look up, but Sticky unlocked the door.

  “Ah, Heath. I’m glad you’re here. Julia and I have a couple of bookkeeping questions. We’ll go back to the office and get that paperwork together. Why don’t you visit with Hope for a few minutes before you come back?”

  “What do you want?” Hope asked when he went to stand over her—but she didn’t look up.

  You. And maybe he would have her—in his bed, if not his heart.

  “I don’t want anything. I came to go over the books.”

  “I thought you did that Tuesday.” The night we made love.

  “No. I came here to do it then, but I didn’t stay. I came to find you instead.”

  She glanced up at him briefly before looking back at her knitting. “And that went well, didn’t it?”

  Heath made it a practice to never respond to what he perceived to be sarcasm, because his perception was far from foolproof.

  “Since when did you become a knitter? You always said it was a waste of time to make things.”

  She finally looked up at him. And she did that thing where she dropped her head and looked up until she forced him to meet her eyes. “A few days ago. You might want to tell Miss Sticky and Miss Julia if a customer offers to buy all of something, it’s bad business to tell them that they don’t need it.”

  “No. Artisans don’t take advantage of their customers’ enthusiasm. It breaks trust.”

  “Even if it’s bad for business?”

  “Even then.”

  “I don’t understand you people.”

  “You never did. I could be the star witness at a congressional hearing about that. Did you offer to buy all of something?”

  She stuck out her bottom lip and her eyes went mean. “Maybe. What if I did?”

  “Why are you knitting?”

  She sighed and finally laid her needles and yarn aside. “If you must know, I have talked the ladies into doing a series of lunchtime classes where the customers will leave with a finished Christmas ornament—hopefully one they like so much that they’ll buy the supplies to make a few more before the next class.”

  Not a bad idea. “Good luck getting them to charge for the classes. I’ve been preaching that for years.”

  She set her mouth in a hard line and jutted her jaw out. “They’ll charge. I’m
running this show, and I’m going see to it.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you’re knitting.”

  “Blackmail. They’re making me learn. Though I admit, I don’t hate it. I might even make something. Someday. Possibly. When I get time.”

  She was itching to make something. Dying to. He could see it in her eyes.

  “Why are you doing all this?” he asked. “Not the knitting. Helping Sticky and Julia.”

  She closed her eyes. “I owe it to them to help recoup the money I lent them. You were right. I was mad at you for giving away my jack-o’-lantern, and I wanted to spite you. I can’t even pretend I meant well. I didn’t think it through enough for that. I shouldn’t have done it.”

  This left Heath lost at sea. She’d said she was sorry before, but sorry never impressed him. Words were cheap and overrated. Taking action and carrying through was what counted. And for all Hope’s faults, it wasn’t in her to fail to carry through. Well, except for that one time when it meant the most.

  But he couldn’t say all that, couldn’t have found the words even if he’d wanted to.

  So he went for the knife to the jugular. “That wasn’t your jack-o’-lantern anymore. You left it.”

  She nodded. “You’re right. I did.”

  She was clearly waiting for his response. It would be a long wait, because he was not having this conversation, even if he had started it. Most people thought if you opened a can of worms you had to deal with the fallout, but really all you had to do was refuse to participate and change the subject.

  “I need to hear about these classes.”

  “Hear what?”

  “The cost analysis. The other particulars. I want to be sure it’s feasible.”

  “Why do you get to decide that?”

  “Because I have a successful artisan business and you don’t. Because I’ll be here worrying over String when you’re gone.” And that’s all the becauses he intended to give her.

  To his surprise, she nodded. “That’s fair.”

  “Then let’s get on with it.”

  She went back to her knitting. “No. I’m not doing it right now. I have knitting to do. Go answer Miss Sticky’s questions.”

  What? Heath rarely dealt with people who told him no. Not only had she told him no, she wasn’t looking at him or thinking about him.

  “When?” he asked.

  She looked up from her knitting, like she was startled to find him still there.

  “When what?”

  “You damned well know. When can I see this marketing plan of yours?”

  She knitted a few more stitches. And then a few more. Fine. He’d stand here all night if he had to.

  Finally, she spoke, though she didn’t look up. “Meet me here tomorrow night. Eight o’clock. I’ll run it by you then.”

  Later, when he came out of the back office, she was gone.

  He wanted to kick the wall.

  Chapter Eight

  I’m not nervous. I have no reason to be nervous.

  Hope sat at String knitting. Miss Julia had let her start the Must-Have Mitts, and she had knitted enough that the pattern had established itself. It would be so easy to get lost in the magic of watching simple yarn fall off her needles into what would be a garment that, if cared for properly, would last for generations.

  She’d read about people who hoarded yarn, had entire rooms filled with nothing but bins of yarn. Hope vowed she would not become that person, though it would be so easy. But she meant to have some of that qiviut yarn—enough to make a sweater. Maybe that mocha. Just looking at it gave her a cozy sense of well-being. But the emerald green made her think of a forest in a fairy tale. How could she choose? And how could she have thought qiviut was ordinary yarn like you could buy by the bale at Hobby Lobby? At any rate, she was going to have that soon—just as soon as she proved to the sisters that she was capable of knitting a sweater.

  At the end of the row, she picked up her phone to check the time. 7:45 already. Heath should arrive in fifteen minutes—if he came. Maybe he wouldn’t. But if he did, she had progress to report. Eleven people had signed up for the knitting classes. So what if they were her mother, Aunt Vanessa, Neyland, and Neyland’s friends? Hope was not above using what she had. Plus, she’d talked Robin Reynolds into catering the soup lunches in exchange for the classes. Oh, she was on a roll.

  “Are you ready?”

  And she looked up into stormy, brandy-colored eyes.

  “I didn’t hear you come in.” Had it been fifteen minutes? She looked at her phone. Yes. How had that happened?

  “That’s clear. I banged on the front door, and you wouldn’t even look up. I had to go around back and knock on the office window.”

  “Welcome to my world ten years ago. When you were working on a piece of glass, there wasn’t anything else in the world.”

  He looked away. You never got to keep his eyes for long. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “The Café Down On The Corner. I need to eat.”

  “I thought you wanted to hear about the marketing plans.”

  “I can listen and eat at the same time.”

  She almost argued, almost said no. But, in the end, she just got up, put her knitting away, and put her shoes on.

  The Café Down On The Corner served country breakfasts and lunches, but became a bar at night. Robin and Billy Joe Reynolds were known for having top-notch entertainment, so the place would be packed. Hope was surprised that Heath wanted to go there. He’d never been one for crowds, though maybe that had changed. A lot had.

  She tried to tell herself that she’d mindlessly followed him because he had a right to know about her plans for String, and because she needed to talk to Robin again about the lunches for Savory Soup and Christmas Stitches.

  But that was a lie. It was that damned place on his neck—the soft part above his collarbone. She’d become obsessed with wanting to touch it. Not that she was going to get to. At least it would be dark inside The Café Down On The Corner, and she wouldn’t have to look at it.

  “Nice night.” When Heath said that one block into the three-block walk, Hope knew it was because he was truly enjoying the barely nippy fall weather. Heath didn’t make small talk.

  “Yes.”

  They continued on in silence—not exactly companionable silence, but not awkward either.

  A few yards short of The Café Down on the Corner, Hope stopped short. “What’s going on here?” The restaurant sign was lit up, the bar sign dark, and the lights were on inside.

  Heath looked impatient. “They keep the restaurant open after the high school football games so the team can go and people can bring their kids.”

  “But it’s November,” Hope said. “High school football ends in October.”

  Heath shook his head. “Not if you make the playoffs.”

  “Why did I not know about this?” Hope asked.

  It was a rhetorical question, but Heath had never understood rhetorical questions. Like any other question, he answered if he wanted and kept quiet if he didn’t.

  “You don’t know about it, because you don’t care what’s important to the people in this town. You don’t pay attention, because Beauford isn’t your home. You’re just marking time until you can get away from here.” Oh, joy. He was in an answering mood.

  “That’s a little cold.” Though it might be true. “My daddy is hurt. There’s the bank. And String.”

  He nodded. “Your daddy would be deer hunting in a wheelchair next week if he could get away from your mama. I doubt if the bank is taking much of your energy, though I suspect there’s real work to be done there if you’d make it your business to find it. As for String, that’s trouble of your own making.”

  “Do you delight in insulting me?”

  “I didn’t set out to insult you. You asked a question and I answered it.”

  Hope did not believe in hitting people, had never hit anyone in her life. But she understood why people
wanted to. It was a good thing she didn’t have her knitting needles; she might stab him.

  She gestured to the red and gold sign in the restaurant window that urged the Beauford Broncos to, “Go, Fight, Win!” “Since when do you care about football?”

  “I don’t,” Heath said. “I’m the one male in the South who does not. But I donated a signed window to an auction to raise money for new weight room equipment because this is my home.”

  She wanted to scream. “Which is why it’s not mine anymore.”

  “You caused that,” he said evenly.

  And you got married before I could even entertain the thought of dating someone else.

  But she wasn’t going to say that. She would never say that.

  “So you came out to The Café Down On The Corner to support the Beauford Broncos?”

  “No.” He opened the door and ushered her inside. “They don’t need my support. They have your uncle Conrad, Gabe Beauford, and cheerleaders for that. I came here for barbecue and corn light bread. I’m hungry.”

  Aside from a few people who had probably driven over from Nashville because they didn’t know open mic night had been canceled, the place was deserted.

  “I guess the game’s not over yet,” Hope said to Billy Joe as he seated them.

  “We’ll be buzzing pretty soon,” Billy Joe said. “Hope, you didn’t go to see your uncle coach tonight? I wish I could have.”

  Billy Joe was one of the most beloved men in Beauford, but right now Hope wanted to smack him, too. Why did people ask questions with obvious answers when what they really wanted was an explanation?

  “Maybe Hope could come run this place next week so you can go to the game,” Heath suggested. “If we win.”

  If we win? Since when had he become the quarterback?

  “Oh, we’ll win all right.” Billy Joe took out his order pad. “Heath, large pork plate? With slaw, beans, corn light, and an extra side of boiled okra? Sweet tea?”

  “And chess pie. Hope wants the same.”

  “No, I—” But Billy Joe was gone. Apparently her punishment for not going to the football game was not being allowed to choose her own food. “Heath, get him back here. I can’t eat all that. And I don’t like boiled okra.”