When the three of them were finally all in his truck together, Jordan asked, "How old were you when you learned to knit?"
More glad than she could ever say to have Calvin's sister as a buffer between them, Sarah said, "I couldn't have been more than four or five." There hadn't been any formal training, just years of sitting at her mother's and grandmother's knees, of being like any normal girl and wanting to do what they did.
Until the day she realized she wasn't like them, that she didn't fit in, that she wasn't girlie enough or good enough with her hands. She was good with numbers and logic. She wasn't soft and small and rounded. She was tall and lean and dark like her father.
"Sarah made me a scarf once."
She had to laugh as she said, "It was quite a Christmas present, wasn't it? Full of holes and pretty much the most putrid green yarn ever made."
He laughed too, with so much warmth that it stole through her, head to toe. "Actually, it was one of the best presents I ever got."
Deep, raw emotion was zinging through Sarah--just as it had the night before, and then this morning in Calvin's arms--when Jordan said, "So you weren't always really good at it?"
Sarah suddenly wondered if Jordan was asking her these questions because she didn't feel like she was good enough at something, or wasn't confident that she could learn how to get something right.
Boy, she was certainly coming to the right person for that.
"Honestly, I'm still not really good at it." Sarah shifted as far as she could beneath her seat belt to meet Jordan's eyes. "But if I wanted to, with enough practice and dedication and focus, I know I could get really good."
"So, the only reason you're not good at knitting is because you don't want to be good at it?"
It was the craziest thing, but she found herself saying, "You want to know the truth?" Calvin's eyes were still on the dark road, but Sarah could feel his focus on her now too, as both he and his sister waited for her answer. "I'm not good at knitting because I quit too young. I got frustrated, and instead of working through it, I told myself it was stupid. I told myself I didn't like it." But she had. She'd loved sitting with her mother and grandmother making simple hats while they made the more difficult mittens and booties for newborn babies. "And you know what I wish?"
"Yeah," Jordan said easily. "You wish you hadn't totally lied to yourself."
Sarah barely kept her mouth from falling open. "Pretty much."
Speaking of lies, Sarah couldn't stand keeping what she had done earlier that afternoon from Calvin another second. Thankfully, that was when Jordan put her earbuds in.
Still, even with his sister listening to music, Sarah wanted to be careful. How many times had she sat there listening in on her parents' conversations, hearing things she shouldn't have heard? Her mother offering to go to DC with Sarah for an extended trip but not really meaning it. Her father telling her to stay in Summer Lake.
"I filed the papers today." She waited for Calvin's reaction, for a telltale sign of his anger.
"I know."
It killed her that she couldn't read him. "If I could have waited even one more day--"
"You wouldn't have made the deadline if you had."
Knowing he couldn't possibly have seen the final plans yet, she had to say, "I convinced my client to throw in a new football field too." Hoping to cut off the objections she was sure had to be coming, she quickly added, "I didn't do it to try and buy your support. I just thought it would really help the town."
He sighed then. "I appreciate you giving me a heads-up about the project, but the way I see it, there's the condos and politics and football fields. And then there's you and me. Just us, Sarah."
She'd been so clear with him about the fact that you and me wasn't going anywhere, wasn't going past one night of giving in to the need to hold each other for just a few precious hours. But for some reason, he seemed determined not to listen.
And for some reason, even though she knew better, his determination lit a light inside of her. One she was helpless to extinguish completely...even if there were a million reasons that she should.
*
Olive could see there was something different between her granddaughter and Calvin the second they walked in with his sister. Their bond was strong again, the air between them fairly crackling with electricity.
Jordan ran over first and hugged her--so young, so fresh, so happy because of all her brother had done to give her a good life.
Sarah put a basket of get-well cards onto a nearby table. "Grandma! It's so good to see you sitting up. You look great."
Over Sarah's shoulder, Olive kept her eagle eye on the project her daughter was knitting. "Denise," she rasped, "too tight."
"Mother?"
Olive looked at Denise. "Give. Sarah. Finish."
Denise held up the barely begun project in her hands in clear confusion. "The Fair Isle? You want me to give it to Sarah?"
Olive nodded and Denise gave the full needles to a very bemused Sarah, who had watched their exchange in confusion.
"You," Olive said. "Make this."
Olive suddenly realized why she'd had to start another Fair Isle sweater--in the exact pattern she'd made for Carlos so long ago--on the day that her granddaughter had arrived in Summer Lake. She had thought it was because of the memories, because age and her dreams were taking her closer to him all the time. But now she knew the real reason.
The sweater was Olive's second chance at true love.
A chance that meant so much more because it wasn't for her this time. It was for Sarah.
*
Calvin was aware of Sarah's nerves during the drive home from the hospital. She didn't fidget. Instead, she was strangely still. Too still.
And then, they hit the only stop sign in town. Left to her house, right to his, and he still hadn't figured out a way to convince her to stay with them again. Not when he could practically see her building walls--complete with reinforcements--every minute they were together.
He was still racking his brain when Jordan asked, "Do you like spaghetti?"
Sarah practically jumped out of her seat. "Spaghetti?"
"Yeah, 'cause Calvin makes the best spaghetti in the world."
Sarah's mouth opened, closed, as she blinked between him and his sister. His beautiful, wonderful, brilliant sister.
"You're coming home with us again, right? Since your grandma and mom are in the hospital still?" Without waiting for Sarah to answer, Jordan added, "I was kind of hoping you could help me finish my scarf. There's a word for it, right? When you tie it all up at the end?"
Finally, Sarah found her voice. "Binding off. It's called binding off."
Calvin knew that was what she'd been planning to do with the two of them tonight. Bind them off. Tie everything up. So that she could walk away again.
Didn't she realize yet that he was going to fight like hell for her this time?
"So can you help me bind off my scarf? Because it would be super embarrassing if I gave it to Owen and it unraveled."
Sarah's eyebrows rose at the boy's name. She shot Calvin a quick look. "Don't worry. I promise Owen won't have a chance of unraveling your scarf."
Calvin wanted to just make the right turn, but he couldn't make the decision for Sarah. He couldn't let his sister make it for her either. "My house, Sarah? Or yours?"
She paused for long enough that he was afraid of what her answer would be. She was obviously warring with herself. "Your house." She smiled back at Jordan. "We've got a scarf to bind off." She didn't quite meet his eyes as she added, "And spaghetti to eat."
When they were all inside a couple of minutes later, Sarah stood awkwardly in the kitchen. "Can I help with dinner?"
"Nope. Go ahead and knit. I'll let you know when it's done."
He could see them from the stove, Sarah's dark head and Jordan's blond one, bent over their needles. He knew how easily his sister could get frustrated, was listening for telltale sounds just in case he needed to intervene, bu
t all that floated back to him were two soft voices and the click of needles.
He didn't mean to stare, but he couldn't help himself. Now that Jordan was working solo again, Sarah had turned her face to the side to look out the window at the moonlit lake.
He drank in her beautiful profile, his body tightening--his heart swelling--in anticipation of another night with her. He wanted to kneel beside her and take her face in his hands, tell her again he loved her, then kiss her until she was breathless and begging him to take her back to his bed.
But all that would have to wait for spaghetti and looking over homework.
And for him to figure out a way to convince her that being together wasn't a mistake.
He watched her reach into her bag and pull out a soft blue-and-white bundle. Olive's knitting passed on by Denise in the hospital. She unfolded a piece of paper and frowned at it, scanning the page as she read it over. She reached into her bag again and pulled out a mini laptop.
He heard her ask his sister, "Can you give me your wireless security code?"
"Sure." Jordan barely looked up from her scarf as she rattled off the letters and number. "What do you need to look up?"
"This pattern Grandma gave me is ridiculously difficult to follow."
Jordan looked over at it. "It's like another language."
"No kidding. Thank God for the Internet. Did you know that you can watch videos to learn how to do this kind of sweater?"
"Cool. Can I see?"
They shifted closer together as Sarah brought up a video. The two people he loved most in the world were sitting together, working side by side on his couch, in the home he'd built with his own two hands. Happiness flooded him, pushing around his insides.
And then from out of nowhere, he had a vision of Sarah in a sleek white dress, holding a bouquet, walking down the aisle to say, "I do." And she was the most beautiful bride in the world.
Calvin ran a hand over the lower half of his face, sucking in a breath, working to push the vision aside. But he couldn't do it.
Not when he wanted to make that vision real more than he'd ever wanted anything. Because everything he'd seen in Sarah when they were kids--her sweetness, her beauty, her intelligence, her strength, her courage--was still there now, a hundred times over.
It wasn't until he heard the sauce sputtering in the pot that he finally moved back to the stove. Turning down the heat, stirring his sauce with a wooden spoon, he said, "Come and get it."
"I'm starved," Sarah said as she took her seat at the dining table. She ran her fingers over the polished wood top. "Did you make this too?"
"He makes tons of stuff," Jordan said. "All of my friends' mothers are constantly asking him to come over to help them with things."
Sarah's eyebrows rose. "Really?"
He thought he saw a flash of jealousy in her pretty blue eyes. Good. Maybe realizing she didn't want anyone else to have him would help her realize that she did.
They all ate in silence for a while, and then as he did every night, Calvin asked Jordan if there was anything she needed help with on her homework.
She shook her head, proudly telling him, "I got a hundred percent on my spelling test today."
"Awesome."
They high-fived, and Calvin realized Sarah had stopped eating and was staring at them, her eyes full of longing.
"May I be excused?" Jordan asked.
Calvin looked at his sister's plate. She'd eaten more than half, which was pretty good. "Sure. Go get ready for bed. I'll be in soon."
Jordan scooted her chair away from the table, put her plate in the sink, and was practically out of the room when she turned back. "Thanks for showing me that stuff on the computer and also how to finish the scarf, Sarah."
Sarah smiled. "You're welcome. It looks awesome. Owen's going to love it."
When he heard the bathroom door close and the water turn on in the sink, Calvin said, "She likes you."
"It's mutual."
Calvin couldn't stop the visions of more dinners like this, lunches and breakfasts too. He knew he was moving too fast, that he'd barely gotten the woman he loved back into his bed. Who knew what it would take to get her to agree to white lace and school plays? But he'd waited so long already. Ten years was just too damn long. He didn't want to wait another hour.
"You really are a fantastic cook," she said. "Where did you learn?"
He forced his brain back to the here and now. "All around the lake." Hoping to see that spark of jealousy again, he said, "Women kept inviting me over for cooking lessons."
"Any excuse to have you over," she muttered, right on cue.
He had managed to keep his hands off her so far tonight. But now that it was just the two of them alone in his dining room, he was done controlling himself.
Scooting his chair closer to hers, he reached over and slid a lock of her hair around his index finger. "Jealous?"
"No."
"Liar." He was grinning as he stood up. "I need to go kiss Jordan good night."
"And then I'd appreciate it if you drove me home."
Calvin knew better than to respond, knew she was itching for an argument, to have a concrete reason to leave--when they both knew she really wanted to stay. So he simply stacked their plates and took them into the kitchen on his way to Jordan's room.
But before he headed down the hall, he looked back into the dining room. Sarah was still sitting in her seat, the lock of hair he'd wound around his finger wound around hers now.
A surge of pure male satisfaction rode him. He liked that his touch, even the barest, lightest one, could make her lose her place, could stop her in her tracks for at least a few seconds.
Tonight he planned to make her forget everything.
Everything but how perfectly they fit together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Full of nervous energy, Sarah cleaned off the table, loaded the dishwasher, and washed the remaining dishes. When the countertops were so clean that she could practically see her reflection in them, she walked over to the couch and sat down next to her knitting.
How could her grandmother have possibly thought she had the skills to finish this sweater? And yet, Sarah couldn't stand the thought of letting her down. Helping out at the store for a few days was one thing. Tackling this sweater, she could already see, was another thing entirely. Sarah knew how to run a business, but dealing with multiple strands of yarn while trying to knit them into an intricate pattern was going to take some serious concentration.
Normally, Sarah thought as she picked up the needles and pattern and tried to make sense of them again, she was a master of concentration. But when Calvin was around, her thoughts ended up fluttering around like little lost butterflies.
He had gently accused her of not telling the truth earlier about being jealous of the women who swarmed around him. He was right. She wasn't a liar. It was just that these feelings were confusing.
As soon as he finished putting Jordan to bed, Sarah needed to head back to her own bed too. If she were smart, she would get out of his house right now, swim across the cold lake if she had to, put some distance between them before she did something stupid again. Before she made another--bigger--mistake by giving in to feelings that couldn't possibly make rational sense.
But she couldn't leave without at least saying thank you for dinner and good night, could she?
The train of her thoughts was too dangerous for her to keep following them. This impossible sweater in her lap, for all its difficulty, was much safer.
Denise had marked where she'd left off on the pattern in the hospital, and Sarah forced herself to begin there, to take one stitch and then another. She couldn't let herself look any farther ahead than one stitch. Couldn't let herself worry about whether or not she'd be able to get to the end without it being a mass of holes and tangles. Couldn't worry about making sure the sweater turned out perfectly. Because if she did any of those things, she might as well save herself time and frustration by stuffing the yarn,
needles, and pattern into the garbage can right now.
"Seeing you with those needles makes me realize how much you look like your grandmother." Calvin's warm voice caressed her spine, made her skin tingle all over.
How long had he been standing there by the door, staring at her with those dark eyes? She'd been so focused on trying to pull in the correct strands of yarn that she hadn't realized he had come in.
His large hands were hooked into the pockets of his jeans, and a small shiver ran through her as she was filled with the foolish anticipation of having them on her again...and that dark, sinful gaze shining with love for her as she came apart in his arms.
"Your eyes must be playing tricks on you," she finally replied. "I don't look anything like them."
"Do you really not see it?"
"My mother and grandmother are so small and feminine. They've always been able to make the most beautiful things with their hands. Not just with yarn, but with paint and fabric." She loved them both, so very much, but she'd still always felt a world apart from them. Not only did they have curves she'd never inherited, but they'd always chosen to live happily on a small scale, whereas she never stopped shooting for big. Just like her father had taught her. "I've never fit in with them."
"You have your grandmother's eyes." Calvin knelt in front of her, his knuckles brushing against her cheekbone. "Only yours are brighter." He brushed the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. "You have the same mouth as your mother, only your lips are plumper." He slid his thumb down to her chin. "But this chin is all your own. So stubborn." He brought his mouth closer to hers. "So sweet."
A lump had formed in her throat at everything he saw, all the things no one else ever had. "You know just what to say," she whispered against his mouth. "And just how to say it."
"No, I don't." She lifted her eyes to his in surprise. "If I did, I'd know what to say to get you to stay for more than one night at a time. For more than a week or two before heading back to the city."
The air grew still between them, the tension riding high at his words, at their barely banked desire for each other, at the control she was constantly trying to exercise over it. She had to pull away, walk away from this. From him. She needed to do it right now. She should have done it last night.