Last Chance Knit & Stitch Read online

  “She’s got a point, doesn’t she?” Momma said. She was sitting beside Molly knitting away on a baby sweater. She was embracing the whole grandmother thing with such equanimity, it was reassuring. She was so glad Momma had come home. Because even though Molly enjoyed playing with little Pete Rhodes, that was not the same as becoming someone’s mother.

  She was going to need lessons, and Momma would make a pretty good teacher.

  Coach got up and started pacing. He was not taking this news well. And why would he? He’d gone way out of his way for years to scare away every eligible man except Les. And now Les was married to Ricki, who was an older, more experienced woman. And the father of Coach’s grandchild had turned out not to be gay and was obviously not too old to become Molly’s husband. It had always been hard for Daddy to admit when he’d made a mistake.

  An awkward silence welled up in the kitchen as Momma knitted and Coach paced.

  “Listen,” Molly said into the silence. “Simon and I are not in love. And therefore we would not be happy together as husband and wife. I don’t want to be in an unhappy marriage. So there aren’t going to be any shotguns.

  “And besides, if you make me marry him, then what’s to become of the forecast that Miriam Randall gave me. She told me that one day my prince would arrive. I’d just have to wait for him. So I’m not going to do anything foolish. Is that clear?”

  Coach stood there blinking at her as if this had also not occurred to him before this moment. He was a brilliant football coach, but when it came to stuff like this he was kind of slow on the uptake.

  Momma looked up from her knitting. “Honey, are you sure you don’t care for Simon at all?”

  Momma had her X-ray-vision look on her face. But Molly wasn’t going to give in on this. She missed Simon every day. But it would be worse to marry him, knowing that he didn’t share her feelings. And she wasn’t about to delude herself into believing that Simon wanted any part of this situation.

  “I’m certain. I have no feelings for him,” she lied.

  “This has nothing to do with love,” Coach said. “The father of that baby has a responsibility to support you.”

  “I can support myself. And after I sell the Shelby, I’ll have a nice nest egg.”

  “Your father has a point, you know,” Momma said.

  Molly crossed her arms over her sore boobs and glared at her parents. “I can support myself,” she repeated. Maybe they would believe it one day.

  “Well, honey, not at the moment since you can’t work at Bill’s,” Momma said, her needles clacking away.

  “But Les is working on the Shelby’s engine, and the body work is almost done. When we sell it in September, we’re going to make a pile of money. And then the baby will be born, and I can get back to work starting my business. I’ll be fine.”

  “What about Simon? Don’t you think he deserves to know?” Momma didn’t even look up from her knitting.

  Crap. Momma had a point there. But then once she told him, he would get all noble on her and do something he didn’t want to do. Like marry her and break her heart. And she didn’t want to raise her kid in an unhappy marriage. Hadn’t Simon been scarred by having his parents argue all the time?

  All in all, it was best to keep him in the dark.

  She pushed up from the table. “Here’s the deal, the baby is certainly unexpected but I just can’t think about him as being a mistake.”

  “I don’t think the baby is a mistake,” Momma said. “I just wish you weren’t so set on doing this all by yourself.”

  “I’ll manage. I’m a little scared, I guess. But I’ve been meditating about this, and I keep thinking about the baby being like little Pete. And, I don’t know … I like Pete.”

  And that, right there, was one hell of a confession.

  “But your mother is right. You shouldn’t have to do this alone.” Coach looked distraught.

  “But I want to do it alone,” she said, steel in her voice. “And I am completely capable of doing this on my own. I’m much stronger than either of you thinks.”

  CHAPTER

  25

  Rory Harrison was a big man with a full bushy beard, a red face, and an Ernest Hemingway look to him. When he walked into a room, he filled it up.

  Simon’s Paradise studio wasn’t all that large—certainly not as big as the Coca-Cola building on Palmetto Avenue in Last Chance. Up until recently, his studio, with its redwood tongue-and-groove ceiling and its big windows overlooking the garden, had seemed perfect to Simon.

  But not for the last six weeks.

  And now, with Harrison standing in the middle of it, his gaze riveted to the painting leaning up against the wall, it seemed about the size of a shoe box.

  Simon knew better than to say a thing. He was vaguely aware of Angel standing to one side radiating uncertainty and disquiet like a sonar boom.

  Harrison continued to stare at the painting. After about five excruciating minutes, he finally asked, “Who’s the girl?”

  “A friend from home,” Simon said. Of course it wasn’t nearly enough of an explanation. But Harrison didn’t need to know the details of Simon’s broken heart.

  Simon pulled in a big breath. “Rory, I know Gillian told you I would paint you a—”

  Harrison held up his hand. “Where is this place?”

  “It’s a public boat landing on the Edisto River in South Carolina.” Simon crossed the room and picked up Lark Chaikin’s coffee table book, Rural Scenes. He flipped through several pages until he found Lark’s photographic interpretation of the same locale.

  He handed it to Harrison, who glanced down at the photograph for a moment and then back at the painting.

  “My God,” Harrison said, “it’s incredible.”

  “You like it?” Angel asked, and Simon wanted to drop-kick him like he’d kicked punts all those years ago.

  Harrison laughed. He had a big, booming laugh. He walked forward and started flipping through a group of smaller canvases leaning against the wall. It was typical of him. He owned every space he occupied. He respected no one’s privacy.

  He regarded each painting until he got to the middle of the stack. He stopped and pulled out another, much smaller painting. He regarded it while more tense and silent minutes passed.

  “She’s beautiful,” he finally said. “And this one is the masterpiece.” He gazed at the larger canvas. “I like that one, too. But this one …”

  Harrison held the small canvas out at arm’s length.

  The piece had been started in South Carolina. In fact, it was the piece he’d been working on the day Coach had told him that he needed to leave Last Chance and never come back again. He’d followed orders, the way he always had when Coach barked them at him. He’d done the same thing with Daddy. And with Mother, too.

  And then he’d come all these miles and painted Last Chance into every canvas he’d worked on. He was homesick. After eighteen damn years of running away from that place, he was never, ever going to get it out of his heart.

  And he was never going to get Molly out of it either.

  But he hadn’t realized the truth of it all. Not until he finished that piece. Not until he’d painted so many others. Not until he’d finally finished Harrison’s commission—on his own terms, not the ones Gillian had negotiated.

  Harrison looked up from the painting. His smile was as big as he was. “I know this is too small for the space in my great room. But I want it. In my bedroom, I think.”

  “That one isn’t for sale,” Simon said.

  Harrison tipped back his head and laughed like a man who knew how to laugh. “I’m not surprised. You say this woman is a friend from home?”

  Simon turned his gaze toward the little garden outside his window. “Yes.”

  “Simon, your cityscapes were fabulous, but these are amazing. I guess getting back to the South unlocked something.”

  “I guess it did,” Simon replied, looking back, meeting Rory’s gaze. “So you’re not d
isappointed that I haven’t painted you a desert?”

  “No, I’m not disappointed. In fact, I look at that scene and I want to take off my shoes and go fishing.” He chuckled. “Or better yet, maybe shuck my clothes altogether and go skinny-dipping. With that girl.”

  “Yeah.” Simon had trouble breathing. He’d done nothing but think about that day down at the river when they had gone swimming together. When they’d told each other a big passel of lies. He’d painted that moment so he could return to it. So maybe he could, at least in his mind, get a second chance to say something altogether different.

  Harrison handed Simon the smaller canvas. “If you change your mind about this one, let me know. You could probably name your price.” He turned and looked at the other canvases, the result of a six-week painting frenzy that had seized him.

  “I want to do a show,” Rory said. “We’ll make the big one the centerpiece. And then I’ll have it installed at my house. These are fabulous. People are going to want these.”

  He turned toward Angel. “I’ll have Rudy at the gallery get in touch with you, and we’ll work out the arrangements.” Harrison sailed out the door like a man who owned the world.

  “Gracias a Dios,” Angel said, sagging against the wall. “I have been losing sleep all week. They are good paintings, Simon, but I did not know whether Mr. Harrison would see the truth in them.”

  “Well, I think we’re about to celebrate a big payday.”

  “And just in time, because the rent is due at the retirement community.”

  Simon turned and put the smaller canvas up on his easel. He’d been doing that a lot lately. The composition hadn’t been painted from life. But from memory and fantasy mixed together.

  “Why are you doing this to yourself?” Angel asked.

  “Doing what?”

  “Torturing yourself. And your mama. Simon, you need to go home.”

  He didn’t even bother to tell Angel that this was his home. Because every time he looked at these canvases or Lark Chaikin’s book, he knew damn well it was a lie.

  Molly had changed him. Or maybe she’d just scraped away the crap that had settled into his head and his heart—all that stuff that had made him miss the important things.

  “Boss?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you go back, can I come with you?”

  Simon turned from the painting. “You want to go live in South Carolina?”

  Angel shrugged. “I liked it there.”

  “But it’s not the most tolerant place in the world.”

  “I know. But I am very fond of your mama. And I liked the Purly Girls. And now that I’ve gotten rid of Rodrigo it makes me sad to be living here. Too many bad memories. And Muffin would like to go home, too, I think.”

  “So you want to run away?”

  “I do.

  “And you think I should go home?”

  “I do.”

  Simon stared at the painting. “I want to go. But what happens if I return and she won’t have me? I’m too old for her. She’s so young. And she may say that she doesn’t want a family, but I think that’s bravado. I’m too old to be anyone’s father. Can you imagine me teaching a kid how to kick a football?”

  “No, but I can see you working in the garden with one.” He grinned.

  “I can’t give her what she deserves. Not to mention the fact that her daddy promised to run me out of town if I ever returned.”

  “Simon, when are you going to stand up to that anger?”

  “What anger?”

  “The anger you still feel toward your father. I think you and your mama have made a lot of progress. But I think it was your father who hurt you the most. He wanted you to be something you weren’t. He yelled at you when you failed. And all that anger did something to you inside.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I am your mama’s friend. She does not remember things from day to day, but she talks about you, as she remembers you, all the time. She has many regrets. She thinks she should have fought harder for you when your father started screaming or insisting that you should play sports.”

  “Well, she’s conveniently forgotten that she wanted me to be a doctor. And I followed her wishes for years. Until I realized that I couldn’t do it. And when I defied her, she was just as angry as my father. I told them what I wanted in my life, and they pushed me away.”

  “So is this why you are so afraid to tell Molly what you want?”

  Simon glanced at the portrait on his easel. Angel was talking sense. Nothing would be right if he couldn’t have Molly in his life. The truth was, he was scared to death that she’d say no. But running away was never a good option. Hadn’t he told Pat that?

  He needed to take charge of his heart and his feelings.

  “How do I do this, Angel?”

  “Why don’t you send her the painting? Or better yet, take it to her. I think she will realize that your heart has changed once she sees what you have done. And then you tell her that you’ve fallen in love with her and let nature do the rest.”

  Molly finished packing up the last afghan. Tomorrow morning, Momma, Ricki, and she would haul all these knitted items down to the Knit & Stitch’s booth at the annual Allenberg County Watermelon Festival. Most of the items had been knitted by members of the Purly Girls. There were prayer blankets, hats, scarves, and a few pairs of gloves. All the proceeds from the sale would be going to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Along with a big shipment of Chemo Caps that had been knitted by virtually every knitter in Last Chance.

  Those hats had come to symbolize the reason she loved living here, even if everyone was all up in her business, especially now that she was an unwed mother. People cared about each other in Last Chance.

  She taped up the box and sat down at the kitchen table. The nausea was still bad sometimes, but the nagging fatigue of pregnancy annoyed her more. Doc Cooper promised she’d start feeling better in a month or two—about the time she started to swell up. How that was possible remained a mystery.

  She rested her head in her hands and fought against the sudden lonesomeness that stole over her. She figured her confused hormones were to blame for these blue moments and for the times she sometimes cried herself to sleep.

  Quietly.

  Of course she didn’t have a tissue. She never did. So she ran the back of her hand over her suddenly damp cheeks. And that triggered the memory of Simon handing her his handkerchief. Oddly, the memory didn’t bring more tears to her eyes.

  She sat there for a long time, alone, thinking of Simon. Momma was up in Columbia with Beau and Allen today for a consultation with Beau’s doctors. Coach was at summer camp.

  So she was free to indulge herself while a long, slow roll of thunder sounded beyond the kitchen window. The sky had gone black and blue with dark clouds. It was late afternoon—prime time for summer thunderstorms.

  The rain was just starting when there came a sudden, sharp knock at the front door.

  She hurried from the kitchen and opened the door only to find no one there, just a flat parcel wrapped in brown paper and tied in twine. Her name was written on the paper in block letters. Her heart started to pound as she picked up the object. She knew immediately that it was a canvas, even without unwrapping it.

  The twine was so tightly tied that she had to carry the painting into the kitchen and cut away the wrappings.

  What she found took her breath away. It was a painting only Simon would have painted. He had captured that moment just after she’d dived into the freezing water of the Edisto. It showed her with her long hair slicked back, water droplets on her eyelashes, her eyes a strange reflection of the verdant background and the iced-tea-colored water. He captured a sultry smile and the freckles on her shoulders that she hated.

  Good God, he’d made her look beautiful. And womanly.

  It wasn’t really her. It was some extra-special, pumped-up, idealized version. But she couldn’t tear her gaze away from it.

  More stu
pid tears filled up her eyes until the image blurred. And then it occurred to her that someone had delivered this painting. It didn’t just spontaneously arrive at her front door.

  She flew to the closet and grabbed Coach’s big gold and white Georgia Tech golf umbrella. Then she headed out into the thunderstorm like a complete fool.

  She would have jumped in her Charger, but Momma had taken it up to Columbia, and Beau’s car was in for a tune-up. So she was carless, which she hated.

  She had no choice but to run up the street toward the intersection with Dogwood Avenue. If Simon had come from his mother’s house, then he would have walked from Cypress to Calhoun to Dogwood to James.

  She hit the corner at a dead run, the skies opening up. Her sneakers were drowned in the runoff, a stitch was starting to burn in her side, and a wild sense of elation, mixed with complete fear, had taken hold of her.

  She turned the corner and saw him.

  Like a true Californian, Simon had neglected to bring an umbrella. He trudged up the street with his hands jammed in the pockets of his dark pants, the collar of his gray sports jacket turned up against his neck. His waterlogged hair clung to the back of his head, and he was looking down at the pavement, his shoulders hunched against the downpour.

  “Simon,” she called, her thin voice battling with the roll of thunder. She sprinted toward him. “Simon.”

  He turned and stood stock-still as she raced toward him, her heart taking flight.

  She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but there was something cool and reserved about his stance.

  She slowed her pace as she reached him, fighting the urge to wrap him in her arms and blurt out her news.

  Instead she angled the umbrella so that it sheltered them both.

  “Simon,” she said, investing his name with all the feelings she’d been hoarding the last few weeks. “The painting … It’s beautiful. Thank you for not even showing my big butt.”

  Predictably, the corners of his mouth curled, just so, like a pair of apostrophes. But his cool reserve remained, while the rain beat against the shelter of their umbrella.