“You don’t say.”
“So I was glad when he invited me here. I mean, there’s nothing more important to a rancher than his land, is there?”
“That’s what I hear. They don’t like to lose any of that land either.”
“I wouldn’t guess so. Oh! That cottage thing he told me about. Yeah, he seems pretty mad about that.”
“You think?” Abigail’s tone couldn’t have been drier, but Betty didn’t pick up on the sarcasm.
“I think so, yeah, but I think he’ll get over it. Deep down, he likes you.”
“Pretty deep, though.”
“Well, I can only tell when he’s talking about you. He gets all tongue-tied, like he wants to say something else. I think that must mean he really likes you.”
“He likes me all right. He’d like me burnt on a stake, or drummed out of town. Maybe he’d like me at the bottom of a lake.”
“Don’t say that! I don’t think he wants a store on his land. But I think”—Betty leaned toward Abigail conspiratorially—“I think you could get him to come around.”
“How’s that?” Abigail took another sip of her champagne. She was going to be good and drunk by the end of this, but it might be worth it.
“You should sell cow things in your store.”
“Mmmm.”
“And horse things.”
“I’m not sure I see the connection.”
“He’d love it.”
“He breeds sheep, not cows.”
“Okay, sheep things, then, and I know he has a few horses. So think about it—if you had everything he needed, right there in front of him, so he could just walk over and buy the combs or the pills he needed, right there? How could he argue with that?”
“But I’m opening a yarn shop. With a classroom.”
“You could carry saddles.”
“Next to the yarn?”
“Wouldn’t that be the cutest? What do they call that stuff? There’s a name for it, all the big animal stuff.”
“Tack.”
“Tack! That’s it. So yarn and tack. Together. You could call it…um…Tacky Yarn! I love that. That’s such a cute name for a store.”
Abigail’s eyes simply widened, and when she met Janet’s gaze she couldn’t help laughing.
“It’s not a bad idea,” insisted Betty. “Don’t laugh.”
Abigail choked back more giggles.
Janet, tactful as always, nodded and agreed, “That is, indeed, a grand name for a store. It may not be exactly what our Abigail has in mind—she’s trying to keep straw and other vegetable matter
out
of her fiber, rather than putting it
in
, but you are just the sweetest thing, aren’t you?”
The other women agreed, and oohed some more over her fine spinning. At this rate, she’d have enough for a sock in an evening. She was obviously a natural.
Or a ringer.
“You
sure
you’ve never done that before?” Abigail asked.
Betty laughed and shook her head. “Never. I’m good, huh?”
Abigail fit her lips together in a thin line and nodded. It was stupid of her to feel this low flame of jealousy.
She had nothing to be jealous of. She and Cade weren’t an item—he’d merely slept with her, like he slept with half the women in town, apparently.
So Betty could spin. She didn’t have brains, obviously.
“You should learn to knit, Betty. You’d pick it up in a minute.”
“I’m sure I would—I have naturally talented hands. People always tell me so.”
“Let me guess,” said Abigail. “Massage therapist?”
Betty giggled. “No, I teach math. But when I bake, I form my piecrusts by hand, and people always tell me they look great, that I know what I’m doing.” She shrugged.
“Math teacher? Where?” Please, oh, please, say at the local grade school or even junior high.
“At the UC. I have a doctorate in applied mathematics with an emphasis in numerical analysis of partial differential equations. But I really love teaching the beginning calculus classes. It’s such a rush to see the kids so excited.”
“You’re a mathematician.”
This was horrible.
“I know, I know, I look like a stewardess. I hear it all the time.”
Abigail nodded and picked up her knitting. She couldn’t believe she’d sat here, her hands not moving, for this long. Knitting would save her. It always did. Knit through everything.
“What are you making?” asked the perfect Betty.
“A sweater. I’m just finishing it up.”
“It’s big.”
“It’s a man’s sweater.”
“Is it for Cade?”
“No!”
“I thought, as a thank-you or something.”
“Definitely not.”
Betty stopped spinning, tucking the spindle under her leg, as the other women did when they stopped. God, she was a quick learner.
“Is it okay for me to be here? It’s okay if it’s not, tell me and I’ll go find Cade.”
Abigail shook her head. “It’s my fault. I’m in a bad mood, and I’m taking it out on you, I’m sorry.” She really had to pull herself together. She wasn’t being fair to anyone right now.
Janet said, “I bullied her into the party, rolled myself in here and threw it all together. She’s been working so hard to get the shop up and running. Just ignore her crankiness. That’s what I do. Although, darling”—she turned to Abigail—“this is rather unlike you. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you in such a bad mood.”
“Great. I’m sorry. Just a lot still to do.”
“I can help,” offered Betty. “I work with a homeless people’s poetry project on Sundays, but I have most Saturdays free, and I’d love to give you a hand, since I wasn’t able to help today.”
She really was sweet. Abigail smiled, and this time it was genuine. “I’m almost done, thanks, but I’d love it if you came by or took a class sometime.”
“If Cade and I are still dating, I’d love to. I hear he doesn’t usually date for long.”
“If at all,” said Abigail.
“And no matter how you and Cade are doing,” added Janet, “you’re coming, and that’s all we’ll hear of it. We’ll get you spinning on a wheel next.”
Cade entered the room. “Well, look at you. Are you converted yet?”
“I’m one of them now, look.” Betty held up her spindle and showed off her single to him. He nodded, looking pained.
“Let’s go.”
“Don’t you want to stay for a glass of champagne? I could spin a little longer.”
“Well, I’d love to have a drink in my own house, but the space is all taken up right now.”
“Look at this, at the sweater that Abigail’s making. Isn’t that gorgeous? Hold it up, Abigail.”
Abigail did, reluctantly. If only the two of them would leave, this party would settle down to normal again. She was conscious of twenty other pairs of eyes watching this exchange.
The sweater she’d been working on was her own design—she wanted a good, sturdy, attractive men’s sweater to hang in the shop. She’d used her own handspun that she’d made last year from a Rambouillet fleece. She’d dyed the skeins a deep russet. Then she’d designed a traditional Guernsey, using the measurements of a friend down south and incorporating several old patterns in the top third. She liked the unconventional zigzag motif she’d lined down the arms, which kept it from being staid. The sweater was almost done—she was about to pick up and knit the neckline, but she hadn’t started it yet.
“Look,” said Betty. “You could try it on, Cade. She’s not done, but it doesn’t look like it would hurt anything, would it, Abigail?”
“No, I don’t need to do that.” Cade started backing out of the room.
“No, I don’t think it would fit him.” Abigail dropped it back into her lap.
“I think that’s a smashing idea,” said Janet. “Girls!” She clapped her hands. “Don’t you think the handsome rancher should try on the Gansey?”
To a loud chorus of encouragement—boy, the other women had certainly been enjoying the champagne and wine—Cade was cajoled back into the room.
After several more moments of protestation, he looked at Abigail and said, “We’re not getting out of this one, are we?”
“I don’t think so, cowboy.”
“Take it off! Take it off!” yelled the women.
“It’s a sweater. It goes over.”
“Oh, darling, not over that sweater you’re already wearing,” said Janet.
“But I don’t have anything on underneath.”
It was true, Abigail wouldn’t recommend wearing the Guernsey over the obviously store-bought dress sweater he was wearing. He was dressed for a date, she noticed. Okay, she’d noticed it as soon as he’d come back into the room, wearing that charcoal sweater and matte-black dress pants. He smelled good, too, a light scent of masculine soap mixed with leather.
It wasn’t fair that she thought like this about him. She didn’t want to.
So what she really didn’t need was for him to strip down right here.
The chant continued, “Take it off! Take it off!”
One woman named Louise who had been quiet earlier, scuttling around with her head down while they were cleaning, was standing on a low table, swinging her sock-in-progress around her head. Abigail saw another woman swigging right from the champagne bottle—she spluttered a bit when she saw Abigail notice her.
Someone did a drum roll on the table with their fists.
Everyone in the room was giggling or hollering, everyone except Cade and Abigail.
“This is ridiculous,” said Cade, but he reached for the hem of his sweater.
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said as she adjusted some longer yarn ends that she hadn’t sewn in yet.
“Let’s get it over with.”
He took off his sweater, and the crowd went wild.
And really, she knew why they were going crazy. Look at him, all abs, tightly defined muscles arranged in the traditional six-pack, curving up to a broad chest lightly covered in dark brown hair. His arms were also defined, large biceps, strong deltoids.
“He looks like a model,” stage-whispered Louise from up on the table.
“Give me the sweater, for the love of God,” Cade said.
“She’s right, darling,” said Janet. “You do look like a model. Take your time. Don’t hurry on our account.”
“Why am I doing this again?” he asked as he pulled the sweater over his head.
“Gah! Not like that!” Abigail jumped to help him pull it on. “I haven’t sewn the underarm seams, and I don’t want you ripping anything out.”
Betty answered his question. “You’re doing this for the good of all of us. We like what we’re seeing. Plus, Abigail should see it on a live male’s body.”
What, did she think that Abigail had no access to a man’s torso? Okay, she didn’t. But she didn’t need one, not to simply make a sweater. She could feel herself flushing red.
Cade, too, was bright red. He almost matched the russet of the sweater, which looked wonderful on him.
The sweater looked as if it were made for him.
She swore to herself it hadn’t been. Sure, she’d only started to work on it about a month ago, about the same time she’d moved here. She had dyed the wool long before meeting him.
If Cade’s body type had flashed through her mind as she’d been knitting and designing, was that really her fault? He was the closest male around, after all. It was natural.
Louise, now sitting on the table, a glass in either hand, said, “He should never,
ever
take that off.”
“Unless it’s when he’s parking his boots under my bed….” Abigail wasn’t sure which woman said that, but it set off a tornado of sexual comments and innuendoes. Cade turned even redder and he pulled at the neck of the sweater.
“Get this off of me,” he growled at Abigail.
“Don’t pull like that.” She lifted the hem and pulled it, her hands accidentally grazing his sides as it went up. She felt him shiver under her fingers.
Their eyes met. A sudden heat went through Abigail, and for one moment there were just the two of them in the room. His eyes spoke of fire and passion and reflected her own passion back to her, as if he caught it and amplified it, sending it back doubled. She had to tell herself to breathe.
She worked the neckline over his head. He was naked from the waist up again. During that moment when the sweater was in front of his face, their eye connection was broken.
She tried to catch hold of herself, of her racing heart.
For God’s sake, they were in a room full of women, could she at least prevent herself from behaving like a teenager? All giddy and red and blushing. Were her hands shaking?
As he reached for his original sweater, she thought she saw his hands shaking, too.
“Wouldn’t you love a sweater like that, huh? What would you do for a sweater like that?” said someone from the back of the parlor.
Another woman called out, “I know how to knit, baby. I’ll make you a sweater. I’ll help you put it on.
And
take it off.”
Cade shook his head, as if to clear it, and said again, with finality in his voice, “We’re going. Betty. Come on.”
Betty didn’t even look at him. She raised a finger and said, “Just a minute. I want to ask about this part.” She leaned over to the two women seated on the piano bench and held out her spindle.
Cade cleared his throat and glared. He looked menacing. Betty didn’t seem to care, or even to notice.
Abigail realized that she might have really gone a little too far this time. Having a party in his house, without asking, might have been a little much.
Which, really, was why she had done it. A light feeling entered her lungs, and she realized she was close to laughter. Panicked laughter, sure. Bubbling giggles rose desperately in her chest.
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders again, keeping her expression airy. She looked up at him again.
“Cade, your face is almost purple. Don’t forget to breathe, okay?” She looked at him closer, honestly getting worried. Was he breathing at all?
“Are you okay?” Her hand went out to touch his arm, but his hand snaked out and caught hers, instead.
“Kitchen, now,” he said, his teeth gritted together.
“I’m coming. Don’t pull me.”
“Now.”
He walked in front of her, faster than she could follow. She could feel the intent interest behind her, from the women packing the parlor, but didn’t turn to meet any of their gazes. Janet would smooth things over in there, would quell the gossiping tongues. She was good at that. If she wasn’t starting even better gossip, that is.