“He does, but I want him to save his money for all the things he and Mom hope to do.”
“You’re doing to everybody,” Bobbie noted gently, “the very same thing you hated Hunter doing to you.”
“So everyone keeps pointing out. Have you seen my parents? Dad told me they were coming early.”
“No, not yet.”
“Didn’t Stella drive over with you?”
“Yes, but she and Nate went off to do something. I don’t know. Something about the...the...you know, the thing that regulates the heat.”
“You mean the thermostat?”
“That’s it!” Bobbie waved at someone behind Sandy and made a hasty departure. “Got to go. See you later.”
Sandy attributed Bobbie’s odd behavior to studying online for her license in art therapy. She’d been working late into the night.
“I was going to tell you that I’m off to check out the Toad and Frog stuff,” she muttered, “but that’s okay. I’m kind of a lone wolf these days anyway.” She stuck her head out the back door to make sure the children were all right and that Belinda really did have her eye on them. She did. Dylan Raleigh appeared to be suffering from a major crush on her.
Sandy went to the east wall, where all the blankets had been hung on a laundry line run from the back to the front of the room. The display was colorful and impressive. Sandy wandered along, looking for the throw that Hunter had liked so much, thinking she would get it for him for his birthday and ask Stella to give it to him. She saw a similar blanket in different colors that she didn’t remember seeing before, but not the one Hunter had admired.
She spotted Glenda and was delighted that she’d brought with her the woman who’d made the blanket. Tonight the woman was without the knitting needles in her bun and wore a homemade snood over it instead. She looked elegant if a little lost in time.
Glenda saw Sandy and reached for her hand with a wide smile. “Sandy! You’re just the woman we want to see.”
They drew her into a little island in the sea of clothing where they’d placed two chairs. The area smelled of yarn and potpourri, and the fragrances of all the ladies who’d worked on these projects. Before Sandy could protest, Glenda sat her in one of the chairs and placed a plastic-wrapped package on her lap. Through the plastic, she saw the familiar, colorful squares of Hunter’s blanket.
“Oh, Glenda! This is just what I was looking for.” She smiled at the other woman, whose name escaped her.
“I’m Florrie,” she said.
“Florrie! My...friend fell in love with this blanket, remember? He mentioned it at the meeting.”
Florrie blushed again, as though Hunter stood there, praising her work. “I remember. I want you two to have it.” She pointed to the new blanket Sandy hadn’t seen before. “I put a different one up in its place.”
Sandy dug into her purse. “That’s so sweet of you, but I can’t take...”
“I want you to have it.”
“Thank you, Florrie. It’s beautiful. I thought I’d buy it for my friend for his birthday. Please let me...”
“Then, you’re back together?” Glenda looked hopeful.
“No. I’m going to ask Stella to deliver it to him. He’s out of town today.”
“But I saw...” Florrie nodded toward the back of the building.
“The point is,” Glenda said, pushing Florrie into the chair beside Sandy, “that this...disagreement between you won’t last forever. You’ll figure out that you should be together and...”
Sandy was about to ask her how she knew, then stopped herself. As Stella’s business partner and good friend, Glenda knew most things. “It’s not a simple disagreement, Glenda. My life is filled with big messes, and his is finally...”
Glenda raised an index finger that rendered Sandy silent. “Florrie thinks it’s appropriate that this particular blanket appealed to Hunter because she makes them for a special reason. You explain, Florrie.”
The plump little woman took one of Sandy’s hands in hers and held it on top of the blanket. With her gentle eyes and her sweet smile she reminded Sandy of the grandmothers of long ago who were gentle and sweet with spines of steel.
“This is a patchwork blanket,” Florrie said. She unfolded the plastic and pulled out about a six-inch length of the beautifully made squares. There were several shades of blue, a muted pink, soft yellow, a little green. “Now look at it closely.” She indicated a green block and covered the two blocks on either side of it with her hands to isolate it. The block took on a strangely different look. The color was an odd shade. “All by itself, it isn’t even pretty. It’s leftover yarn I hated to throw away.” She moved her hands. “But the pink block and the yellow one give it a glow it doesn’t have on its own.”
“You mean,” Sandy asked, “that I’d be prettier if I was standing next to Hunter?”
Florrie swatted her hand punitively. “No. You couldn’t be prettier if you tried. I mean that our lives are filled with all kinds of things. Good things and bad things. Fun people and not so fun people. Good memories and things we wish hadn’t happened. Things we’re proud of and things we’d like to have done differently. If we put the bad things all together, they’re ugly, but if we accept them into our lives with all the good things that usually outnumber the bad, they make up a pretty pattern we can live with. One that keeps us warm. And makes us real. Young couples have to be reminded of that. Life is art, and art is never perfect.”
Sandy remembered all the times Bobbie had said that very thing.
Florrie folded the blanket back into the plastic and looked at Sandy over the top of her glasses. “I’m not sure who it was, but somebody said, “Life is patch, patch, patch. This goes wrong, you fix it. That goes bad, you fix it. You don’t run away, and you don’t cut yourself off. You fix it. Patch it. Marry that man, put this on your bed and remember what I told you.”
Her brain trying to follow that simple reasoning with its complex implications, Sandy wanted to sit still for a moment and absorb all Florrie had told her. But a group of young women were remarking over knitted sweaters for children, and Glenda and Florrie went to answer their questions.
The evening was under way. The room was filled and the noise level was high. Sandy went looking for a place to be alone for a few minutes, Florrie’s words nagging in her brain. Patch, patch, patch. Pretty colors make the bad ones glow.
On her way toward the back of the room, she was conscripted by Bobbie to help hang all the new clothing brought in. “You look peaked,” Bobbie said, putting a hand to her forehead. “You’re not coming down with something?”
I might be, Sandy thought. Could someone come down with love? With sense?
Their conversation was interrupted by the mayor, who was standing in the middle of the room and telling the assembly how proud he was of his city, that the community worked so hard to meet the needs of its people. “And I was asked to announce that we’re short of slippers and boots, if anyone has those to donate.”
A pianist and a violinist from the high school provided background music while everyone nibbled from the treats table and talked with friends they were too busy to visit with unless a community function brought them together.
Still trying desperately for a moment alone to think, Sandy noticed Kate Loughman, her customer with the alcohol problem whose husband had died in Afghanistan, and remembered there was something she’d intended to do tonight. She crossed the room to Kate and gave her tall, dark-haired friend a quick hug. “Where’s your son?”
“Spending a week with my brother and his family.” Kate held up her paper cup of coffee and made a face. “They need you here desperately, Sandy. This stuff is terrible. I’m sorry about the cart. What are you going to do?”
Sandy hooked her arm in Kate’s and led her across the room toward the bins of hats and gloves. “
I’m not sure. I’m looking for work. I’ll think of something. But I have somebody I’d like you to meet.”
“Oh?”
“Another customer of mine.” And there he was, just where she’d noticed him when she’d left Glenda and Florrie. “Brody!” she called. He turned, a not-so-tall but well-built man in his thirties. That smile he always had ready early in the morning was still on his face. “Kate, this is Brody Benson. Brody, Kate Loughman. She teaches a Yoga class. Kate, Brody was in construction before the economy tanked. Now he’s taking classes at the college. Oh, hi, Clarissa!”
Sandy left her customers talking and grabbed Clarissa as an excuse to leave Kate and Brody alone. She’d intended to excuse herself to Clarissa, but the woman pulled her into a group of four couples who were talking about how good the room looked, how organized it all was. Sandy sloughed off their praise and mentioned all the volunteers who’d helped paint and set up.
Then she spotted Stella over Clarissa’s head. Her heart lurched. For an instant, everything froze. Hunter must be back.
She saw him, his blond head bent to hear what Jill Morrow had to say. Jill stood very near his shoulder, her eyes blatantly seductive as they gazed into his. He’d always said in the past that Jill made him crazy, but he looked interested in whatever she was saying.
Sandy felt the world tilt. She’d begun to realize that she’d have to live without him, but it hadn’t occurred to her that he might find someone else—and not in that distant future they’d talked about when she’d have one daughter in the Senate and the other in NASCAR but sooner. Maybe even tonight. Of course, Jill probably didn’t want all the things Sandy wanted from him—love, permanence. That would make it easy for him to find her interesting.
Time began again. She excused herself and went to the small closet Mando had painted for use as a dressing room. She’d stashed her purse and the blanket there while she’d helped Bobbie hang the new donations. She drew the blanket out of its bag and splayed her fingers over the beautiful squares stitched together and trimmed with several rows of blue yarn and then fringed with a darker shade.
Stuff happened, she thought, forcing her brain to explore new avenues. And maybe, even if you brought the bad stuff on yourself, it wouldn’t be too awful if you let it live beside the good things that happened. Perhaps stubborn self-sufficiency wasn’t always the right answer to everything. Her father came back, her parents forgave each other, Hunter accepted Nate’s loan, she loved and was loved by a lot of people.
She clutched the blanket to her, Florrie’s rose scent still lingering on it, and turned to the door to...to... She forgot what she’d intended. Her mind went blank. Hunter stood in the doorway in a long-sleeved, dark blue T-shirt. His hair had been forced into order, but whatever that was in his eyes had not.
* * *
SANDY WORE A purple cotton sweater over jeans and her hair was piled up in a messy knot. Her eyes went over him with a definite hunger that seemed to match his own. She was clutching something to her, and gulped back a sob as she looked up at him. He stepped into the room and pulled the door closed behind him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She took a step back, her eyes widening. “I’m...ah...”
“Yeah?”
She stammered for another moment, then thrust the object in her hands toward him. He accepted it and saw the blanket with the knitted squares, which he’d so admired. He looked into her eyes. “For me?”
“I...thought you might need that for...your bed.” She folded her arms, avoiding his eyes. “There are never enough blankets when it gets wet and cold.” She was flushed and in a complete dither.
“It’s July,” he said.
“Well, it won’t be July forever.” She gave him a look that reminded him of the more familiar Sandy.
“True. Thank you.”
“And Happy Birthday. I’m sorry I don’t have a watermelon.”
She pushed her hair behind her ears, put her hands on her hips. “Well, I didn’t buy the blanket. Florrie sort of gave it to me. The lady who made it. You should thank her.”
“She gave it to you and you’re giving it to me?”
“She gave it to me to give to you.”
“Well, that’s just in time,” he said. “I put earnest money on a house today. Four bedrooms and a spectacular view.”
* * *
HE WAS MOVING to Wheeler! A dark, sinking feeling pushed aside the frail hope Florrie’s words had brought Sandy just a moment ago. He’d foresworn her and him. And who could blame him.
Wheeler was only an hour away, but she wouldn’t see him every day. He’d go somewhere else for coffee— Of course, he’d have to. She no longer had the cart. She couldn’t think clearly.
A little gasp caught in her throat. “A view of what, Hunter?”
“Pardon me?”
“You said a spectacular view. Of what?”
“The river.”
“What river?”
His frown narrowed. Tension pulled so tightly inside her that it took her breath. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She tried again. “What river? The Nehalem?”
He studied her in concern. “Where would I be that I could see the Nehalem?”
She wanted to scream at him to just tell her where the new house was so that she’d know whether she had a chance of getting him back. But she was done with ugly-colored blocks in her patchwork blanket—at least, of being the cause of them. Even if she couldn’t have him, she wanted to remember their parting as that soft pink or the pretty blue.
She lowered her voice. “Did you buy a house in Wheeler?”
He studied her, as though trying to see what she wasn’t asking. “No, I’m looking at a house near the college. One of those old Craftsman style places up Seventeenth Street.” He placed the blanket on a nearby shelf and took a few steps closer to her. “Mom and I drove over to Wheeler because Glenda’s thinking about opening a shop there. Florrie’s moving to be near her daughter and would run it for Glenda. Mom wanted me to look at the space. I have no intention of moving to Wheeler.” He took one more step. She could feel the heat of his body, his breath stirred her hair. His blue eyes were steady. “I’m not leaving you, Sandy. Not even when you act like a crazy person. I’m staying right here until you realize that you want me. And you need me.”
If she drew a breath, their bodies would touch. She was afraid of that. Keeping a clear head was already so hard. He wasn’t leaving. He was buying a house here? She might have misheard him. Her ears were ringing. “You’re staying.”
“Yes.”
“Because of...Jill?”
“Who?”
“Jill. Morrow.”
He put a hand to his forehead, apparently offended by the thought. “What is wrong with you? I’m staying because you’re here. I love you, I’m going to marry you, and we’re going to raise your kids together and be happy. Do you hear me?”
* * *
THE SOUND OF his raised voice made Hunter groan. Sandy stared at him in disbelief. No wonder. That was not the sweetest proposal ever made, and that even counted the first one made with a watermelon. But in his defense, she drove him nuts. Now desperate, he dug into his slacks pocket, withdrew the jeweler’s box he’d wanted to save for a romantic moment later tonight, and snapped it open to reveal the smallish but brilliant round-cut diamond on a simple band.
“What I meant was,” he said, a little worried because her complexion was now white, “I love you. I need you. I would love to be a father to your girls. I know you’ve already answered this question once, but you did change your mind about it. So, I’m asking again. Will you marry me? I will...”
He’d been prepared to promise all the things he knew she wanted in her life, but that didn’t seem necessary. She was already in his arms, sobbing, making h
er own promises. He put the ring on her finger, then wrapped his arms around her before she changed her mind.
She was telling him something about the blanket, and he knew that only because she pointed to it. Most of her words were unintelligible because she was talking too fast and through her tears. She rambled about ugly colors and pink and blue. He had no idea what she was talking about, but she was holding him tightly and he wasn’t going to do anything to stop that. He had to pretty soon, though. He had to get her to the new corporation’s meeting.
* * *
SANDY HELD HUNTER, feeling his warmth and his solidity smooth away all her concerns about the rest of her life. He was here. She’d made a terrible mistake, reacted like a lunatic, and sent him away. And he was still here. She spread her palms against his back and let that reality flow between them.
She finally raised her head and gazed into his eyes. He looked happier than she’d ever seen him.
“I finally took the loan from Nate,” he explained, “and paid off all my bills. Your dad gave me enough for earnest money. In exchange I’m going to help him with investments, set up a set of books and do his taxes. I’m going to pay Nate back as quickly as I can.”
“Dad didn’t say anything to me about your arrangement.”
“You sent me away, remember? I asked him to keep it to himself. So, if you have time tomorrow, we can go look at the house together, see if you approve.”
He wanted her to look at the house. It was still all hard to believe.
He seemed to read her surprise. “It’ll be hard to be married if you’re living on Fifteenth Street, and I’m in the new house. The bedrooms are big, the girls can each have a room, and there’s a big backyard for Addie’s car, a basketball hoop, a swing set...”
She was so filled with joy there was little room for air. When she began to gasp, Hunter pushed the door open and drew her out of the small space. “Please don’t faint on me again,” he said. “Want some water? Some coffee? Something to eat?”
Drawing a deep breath, Sandy noticed that almost everyone had left. Kate and Brody were now leaving together. Only Glenda and Florrie remained, refolding their donations.
Love Me Forever Page 22