By the time Matt got out of the shower, Emily was in the kitchen, setting out Thanksgiving leftovers. Her mother had sent her home fully laden, which was a good thing because Emily was hungry enough to gnaw off her right arm.
Except that would mean she couldn’t use those fingers anymore, and last night she’d had a lot of fun exploring exactly what they could do. Three times, in fact. Matt had a funny way of groaning, deep in his throat, like some sort of primordial message was quivering out of his spine.
She was reaching for the first container in the refrigerator when she felt hands close around her hips. “Hmm,” she said. “If you’re here to shop on Black Friday, the store doesn’t open till ten.”
“I was hoping I could work a special deal,” he growled. His eyes flared when she turned around and struck a pose, pretending to consider his offer.
“What did you have in mind?”
“You. Me. Up against the wall.”
She laughed. But he wasn’t joking. And it was over an hour before she got back to setting out post-Thanksgiving breakfast.
~~~
“What the hell is this?” he asked, poking at the neon yellow lumps in a stained Tupperware bowl.
“Lamb madras curry,” she said, adding a dollop to her plate. “Don’t you have curry for Thanksgiving?”
“And this?” He peered at the aloo bharta.
“Try it,” she said. “It’s potatoes. Just like the mashed ones you had last night.”
“How do you know I had mashed potatoes last night?”
“Everyone has mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. Except we Bartons.”
He took a cautious spoonful. “What’s up with that?”
She shrugged. “When Dad walked out with Krystal-with-a-K, Mom decided it was time to make some changes. She started with dinner menus. Goodbye classic English meals. Hello world cuisine. And if we didn’t like it, we could have peanut butter sandwiches instead.”
“Do you have any peanut butter?”
“Wimp!”
“My mother taught me never to eat anything that was a color not found in nature.”
“Turmeric is absolutely found in nature. Don’t be a baby! I dare you to try one bite.”
“Well, when you put it that way…” And he speared a chunk of potato off the edge of her plate.
She watched him roll it around on his tongue, gingerly at first, like he thought it might detonate inside his mouth. But he relaxed when he realized it tasted pretty good. She’d known he would go back for more because her mother was a wonderful cook. And she’d known he would try it in the first place because he was the most infuriatingly competitive person she’d ever met in her life.
“Hey,” she said, keeping her voice light as she passed him the aloo bharta. “What are we doing here?”
“Eating breakfast?”
She just stared at him.
He sat back in his chair and balanced his fork on the edge of his plate. “I don’t know, Em. Playing it by ear?”
She should have let it go. Should have laughed and said something flirtatious. But she couldn’t stifle the thought that had been gnawing at the back of her mind from the first moment she saw him standing by his truck, the one she’d successfully shoved down for the entire night, for the bonus morning of fun. “There have to be a million other places you can open an American Discount. Why don’t you just move your store somewhere else?”
“Why don’t you get a job in another yarn store?”
I don’t even want to work in a yarn store anymore! But she didn’t say that. Because they weren’t talking about her patchy work history. Instead, she said, “But you know us. You know the people you’re destroying.”
She thought he’d be angry. But instead, he sounded confused. “I’m not destroying anything. My goal is to help Harmony Springs. I want to make life easier for the people who live here. People like my mother. Like yours.”
“But you know businesses will close!”
“Businesses always close. Think back to when we were kids. How many of the stores on Main Street then are still there?”
She ran a quick inventory. McCall’s General Store. The Antique Mall. Farmer’s Trust.
There were others, of course. There’d been a diner on the corner, long before Anne took over and changed the name to the Orchard Diner. There’d been a different florist. Other boutiques where Charisma and Cutesy-Pie now stood.
She shook her head. “But I know the people working there now. They’re my friends. Sometimes my family.”
He spread his fingers on the table in a way that made her remember he’d made his fortune throwing balls at men for millions of dollars a year. Sure enough, he said, “When a baseball team’s really lousy, when they’re winning one out of every five, everybody suffers. Hitters stop hitting. Curveballs hang right over the plate. Easy pop-ups get lost in the lights. And all those losses, day after day, game after game—that’s clubhouse poison.”
He stared at her, his face perfectly relaxed, his eyes absolutely clear as he went on. “That’s the time for changes. A big trade to bring in fresh blood. Signing a free agent, spending millions of dollars for seven years of a lights-out guy, even if you know you’ll have to eat his salary the last two, three years of his contract. Because the team needs to compete. The team needs to get stronger. Sure, you’ll have to put some crowd favorites out to pasture. Yeah, there’ll be good guys who don’t make the roster. But that’s what has to happen if the team is going to win.”
She plucked at the sleeves of her sweater. “It just feels so unfair. Like you’re using your knowledge of Harmony Springs to target the weakest ones in the herd.”
“It’s not unfair. Anymore than my watching tape of opposing teams was unfair. If I knew a guy couldn’t lay off a high fastball, I’d have been an idiot not to pitch him there. And if I know Simon McCall hasn’t refreshed his stock in over thirty years, it would be criminal not to sell competing goods.”
“It just feels so personal.”
“It’s not personal, Em. It’s business. It’s just one of those things—some people are good business owners and some aren’t.”
She shook her head. “It may be just one of those things to you. But to me, it’s a friend who needs help. Guidance. Support. It’s personal for me.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know how to say what you want me to say.”
Tell me that it is personal for you. Tell me that I’m personal. That it matters.
But she couldn’t say that. Not because it wasn’t true—it was. Those were the words she wanted him to say. But whatever they had between them, whatever bond they’d forged last night was too precious, too delicate, too new for her to burden with those thoughts.
So she pushed her chair back from the table. And she walked around to where he sat. And she hitched her robe up and straddled his lap.
She didn’t really care when she was half an hour late opening Harmony Skeins for the Black Friday rush. Because she lived right over her store. And he had to drive all the way to the American Discount before he could open his shop for the day.
~~~
Rachel looked up in exasperation from the baby sweater she was mangling. The soft green yarn looked like it had been torn apart by rabid Tasmanian devils. “I can’t do this and listen to you at the same time!”
Emily laughed. She’d reported the headlines to her best friend by text shortly after noon. It had taken Rachel a couple of hours to put the Monday copy of The Herald to bed, but she’d arrived at Harmony Skeins as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, the telling of details had taken the better part of two hours because customers kept interrupting, eager to spend their money on expensive yarn, finely-crafted needles, and dozens of knitting books that would find their way under Christmas trees.
Oh. That wasn’t unfortunate. That was a good thing. The best thing in the world for Harmony Skeins. For all the stores in the Central Business District.
“Here,” Emily said. “Let me fix that for you.” She set aside her own grey sweater, taking care to protect the stitches suspended on cabling needles. Taking up Rachel’s clump of tangled yarn, she gingerly worked the loose ends free of the needles. She winced as she found the true source of the problem, a pair of missed increases ten rows back. Anticipating her friend’s squawk when two hours of work were stripped away, Emily raised her head toward the shop’s large picture window. “Look! There’s George Clooney!”
Rachel didn’t bat an eye. “You tried that one before. Only it was Tom Hiddleston.”
“Can’t blame a friend for trying to spare you pain.” Emily pulled hard on the trailing yarn, hardening her heart against Rachel’s yelp.
“So how did you leave things?” Rachel asked as Emily worked the now-shortened baby sweater back onto a needle.
“I don’t know. We didn’t make any plans. He just said he’d call me.”
“You gave him your number.”
Emily raised a sardonic eyebrow. “It’s on every SOS flyer in town.” She started rebuilding the rows she’d destroyed, her fingers flashing nimble and quick.
“I don’t believe you’re so calm. After Troy and I first did the deed, I was checking my phone every twenty seconds.”
“You and Troy first ‘did the deed’ when you were seventeen years old.”
Of course they had. Because Rachel and Troy used to double-date with Emily and Jon. Because all four of them had grown up together since pre-school. Because Rachel and Emily had decided they were ready to go all the way with the guys they loved. At least Rachel had been right.
“What?” Rachel asked.
“What what?”
“You just got a funny look on your face.”
Buying time, Emily concentrated on reaching the end of the row. She turned the sweater with unnecessary care, smoothing the fabric before she launched into the next set of stitches.
She’d never told Rachel what had happened that day by the footbridge. Oh, Rachel knew part of the story, the entire high school did. Jon had taken that skank Kaylie to the Hyland Motel, lied to Hank and Marge to get a key to a room, and when they caught him in there with a girl, they’d called his parents to come pick him up. Kaylie had ended up pregnant—from that day or some other cheap thrill—and the couple had broken up. Jon had paid child support until the day he died.
But Emily had never told Rachel about Matt. That memory had been too private, too precious, even to share with a best friend.
“Nothing,” she finally said. “I was just thinking about how we used to hang out with Jon.”
Rachel nodded gravely. “Did you hear that his parents are having a plaque put up at the school? There’s going to be a dedication ceremony at the Christmas Fête.”
Emily hadn’t heard. And it was strange that Matt hadn’t mentioned it to her.
Or maybe it wasn’t so strange. Last night was the first time she’d talked with anyone about Jon, beyond a few gasped words of disbelief when the news first came back from Afghanistan.
“That’ll be great,” she said. And then she went back to knitting, retreating into the comforting rhythm of the needle pushing through, the yarn looping around, the cloud-soft lambswool pulling tight. “About the Fête,” she let herself say after she’d finished another row. “I have an idea to run by you. What if every store has a booth this year? We could sell last minute gifts, stocking stuffers, that sort of thing. And we’d each raffle off a prize.”
Rachel considered the idea. “That could work. There isn’t a lot of time to organize it, though.”
“The main thing would be setting up tables. And we’d have to get a bunch of fishbowls to hold raffle tickets.”
“I bet you can find those at American Discount.”
Emily made a face.
“Speak of the devil,” Rachel said.
Emily’s blood pressure skyrocketed as she looked up from the baby sweater. Sure enough, Matt was ducking through the door of the shop.
~~~
Matt hastily remembered to smile at Rachel. It was a bad idea to piss off a woman’s best friend. A worse one when she was editor-in-chief of the local newspaper. From the guilty look on Em’s face, he knew he’d been the subject of at least some of her conversation. He forced an easy grin and said to Rachel, “I suppose this is when I’m grateful for all the press training the Rockets put me through. Ready with your interview questions?”
She deadpanned, “I cleared ten inches above the fold for you.”
That sounded dirty. He almost said that sounded dirty, but he wasn’t sure either woman would laugh. Em would, if it was just the two of them. He’d already discovered she was pretty much game for anything. But with Rachel sitting there, a silent reminder that he was an outsider to Harmony Springs? Better not take the chance.
Instead, he said to Em, “I was hoping I could take you to dinner.”
Rachel answered before Em could. “And that sounds like my cue to leave.”
“Don’t go,” Em said. But she was already wrapping her yarn around her needles. What was she knitting? Something green and impossibly small. She shoved it into a bag and passed it back to her friend. “Just remember to do the increases every fourth row.”
Rachel nodded. “I’ll bring it back tomorrow, when I’ve made another impossible mistake.” They all said goodbye, and Rachel hurried out the door.
“So,” Matt said, hooking his foot around the stool Rachel had just vacated and pulling it closer to the counter. “About dinner.”
“I can’t leave till six.”
“You need hired help to close up shop for you. That’s how we do it down at American Discount.”
“I am the hired help,” she said. “And my employer’s a stickler for maintaining regular business hours.”
“Huh. I would expect that to include opening the store on time.”
That was a home run. She blushed and muttered, “I have trouble getting going in the morning.”
“You didn’t seem to have any trouble today.”
She tugged at the sleeves of her sweater. “Get out of here. I can’t concentrate on what I’m supposed to be doing.”
“Oh no,” he said. “I’m perfectly comfortable right here.”
“You can’t just sit there!” When he didn’t move, she put her hands on the counter. “Seriously. If customers come in and you’re hanging around, they’ll feel like they’re interrupting something.”
“Would they be interrupting something?”
“Uncomfortable customers don’t spend money.”
“But Rachel was here, and the two of you were just talking.”
“Rachel was here, and I was teaching her how to knit.”
“Then teach me how to knit.”
“What?” She stared at him like he’d suggested she show him how to swim to Mars.
“Teach me how to knit. I want to make a Christmas present for my mother. Gloves or something. Maybe a sweater.”
She laughed. “Why don’t we start with a scarf?”
“Whatever you think is best.”
She started to walk toward a wall of yarn, but she stopped halfway across the store. “Are you serious?”
“I’m serious about wanting to spend the afternoon with you. And dinner too. And a whole night of nookie, if you’ll let me, after that.”
“Nookie?” She was laughing.
“I was going to say f—” The door opened before he could get the word out.
Damn Black Friday shoppers. It took them half an hour to choose yarn. Another five minutes to present their Save Our Store passports. He had to watch as Em placed a sticker precisely into the center square for each of them.
But it was worth it. Because then he learned that knitting was a whole lot easier to learn when your teacher sat next to you, real close. And if you had trouble casting on, she could put her hands over yours and manipulate your fingers with hers. The same thing happened when you couldn’t figure out where to put the needle for a knitted stitch. Where to put it when you purled.
When he finally had two rows of heavy pink yarn done, something she called a six by six rib stitch, she reached beneath the counter and pulled up her own project. It was a sock, at least that’s what she said it would be. Once she turned the heel, whatever that meant. The needles she used were tiny compared to the logs in his hands. And she was doing something with her stitches to make a fancy cross-hatch pattern.
He white-knuckled it to complete another row. How could she talk while she did this? How could she keep track of how many stitches she’d made?
“So, you probably heard Rachel and me talking when you came in,” she said. “We were going over plans for the Christmas Fête. I’ve got a new idea for how the downtown stores can build their business. All we need to do is—”
“Don’t!” he said, and the word came out sharper than he intended.
“What?” She was honestly confused. She looked at her knitting, as if he were telling her not to take a stitch, not to make some mistake in the elaborate design he couldn’t begin to comprehend.
“Don’t tell me what you’re doing for the Fête.”
He watched her parse his meaning. She started to protest, to say he wasn’t serious, but she was smarter than that. Instead, she said, “So, me too?”
“What?” He was wary.
“I’m just another one of those things?”
He put down the scarf, because this was important. “You’re not a thing. You know that. But Save Our Stores is. And your made-up Central Business District. If you give me a chance to use information against you, you can’t be surprised if I use it.”
She was the first one to break their staring contest. He watched her throat bob, and he felt like shit, but he’d only told her the truth.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
“Believe me.”
“No. And just to prove it, here’s what Rachel and I were talking about. Every store in SOS is going to make goody bags for the Fête. Not little trinkets but high-end things. I’m giving out a whole skein of yarn and a coupon for future purchases. I’ll have enough for everyone. And every store will also offer something bigger, its own grand prize, for drawings we’ll hold at the end of the Fête.”
“That’ll cost you a fortune.”
She nodded. “It will. But you know the cliché. When the going gets tough… Clichés exist because they’re true.”
He wished she’d never told him. He wished he didn’t know what he was competing against. But even as he shook his head at the determined glint in her eye, he found himself calculating. Between stock changes and promotional materials he got from corporate, he could pull together a grand prize basket worth a hell of a lot more than any other store in town could afford.
As for gift bags, he’d figure something out. A sampling of all the goods he had for sale. A fifty-percent-off coupon. Whatever it took. Because he wasn’t going to let Emily and SOS get the better of him. Not with something this important. Not with the Harmony Springs Christmas Fête.
The event had started decades ago, as a way to get kids out of the house so parents could put the finishing touches on Santa’s handiwork. An all-you-can-eat pork roast sponsored by the police department meant no one had to cook dinner on Christmas Eve, and a bonfire guaranteed the kids would be exhausted and ready to sleep when they got home. It was tradition, the best that Harmony Springs had to offer.
“Oh no,” Em said, pointing toward his lap. “You’ve got to be careful when you put the needles down. The yarn will slip right off the ends if you don’t shove it back when you take a break.”
She leaned close to fix the disaster, but his mind was still on the problem she’d set him. Gift bags for hundreds. Maybe more.
He could do it. He’d have to do it. Because there was no way in hell he was going to let Save Our Stores get the better of him.
For now, though, he leaned back. He enjoyed the vision of Em leaning over his lap, working the silly pink yarn back onto its needles. He reached out to cover her hands with his own, and he felt a little jolt flash through her. And he realized this holiday season was going to be a whole lot brighter than he’d expected when he came back to Harmony Springs.