Never underestimate the strength of your stitches: your knitting warms the body, soul, and spirit, and your love lives there, between your knits and purls.
– E.C.
Six months later.
The winter night was clear and cold, stars twinkling brightly above the pier, a crescent moon dangling above the far end of the bay as if it had been hung there in honor of the wedding.
And indeed, it might have been.
Naomi pulled the shawl across her shoulders, making sure it draped exactly where it should. It looked perfect with her dress, and she knew Eliza would have been proud of it. Yes, it had flaws and dropped stitches, and yarn-overs where there should have been decreases, but after blocking it had come out perfectly, a drift of creamy lace, perfect for a night this important.
There was little traditional about this wedding, and she was glad of it—heart-glad and filled with happiness. The white ranunculus she held in her hands trembled, and she made sure she concentrated on where she placed her feet. Tripping now wouldn’t do at all.
Ahead of her, Jake walked next to Anna as they moved through the open door. Inside, Naomi could see candlelight bouncing against the high rafters of The Book Spire, and the red ribbons they’d spent the afternoon twining up the aisle looked perfect. The books had been pushed back on their racks, and the pews had been replaced into their original places in the old church.
Good. She wanted this to be as lovely as love itself.
Naomi followed Jake and Anna at a steady pace, wishing her heart would beat the same way. She focused on the back of Anna’s red dress and the curve of her sister’s arm where she carried baby Josephine, who was also draped in matching red lace. To the left of Jake, Milo hung at the end of his father’s arm, annoyed that he hadn’t been allowed to carry the baby, but still pleased with his role as ring bearer. The rings were tucked in his tiny tux pocket, and Naomi had checked three times to make sure they were safe.
Ahead, in the church, Rig waited for her.
Her love. Her heart.
Even though she’d sensibly worn flats, she almost stumbled again on a small rock as she thought of the man she loved, the man who’d made tonight happen. He’d been the one to find the church, to hire the band, to order the food for the reception. He’d been giddy about it all, more excited than even she had been.
It made her love him even more.
Now, it was almost time…
At the edge of the narthex, Naomi took a deep breath. What if he wasn’t there? What if, at the very last minute, he changed his mind?
But then, there, just to the side of the door that led into the nave itself, Bruno waited.
His face was so pale he almost glowed. Above his red bow tie, Naomi watched him attempt to swallow three times before he actually did it right. His hands were shaking, but at the sight of her, he smiled a rare Bruno-smile.
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“And you look more handsome than you ever have.”
Bruno gulped. “Really? Do you think so?”
“Truly,” said Naomi. “Now, may I have the honor of walking you down the aisle, sir?”
Bruno put out his arm, but before Naomi took it, she rose on tiptoe and kissed his clean-shaven cheek.
“I couldn’t be happier for you, Bruno.” Then she laced her arm with his, and as the sound of Iron and Wine’s “Such Great Heights” drifted out to them, the guests stood, turning to face them, and Naomi caught sight of Rig, standing at the end of the aisle between Peter and Jake.
Rig grinned and dropped a wink that was just for her, one that no one else saw. Naomi’s heart grew again, and she felt the tops of her cheeks flush, like they always did. She gripped Bruno’s arm tighter.
And as they made it to the end of the white runner, Peter came forward, his hand outstretched.
“Who gives this man to Peter Washburn to be wed?” Toots wore a purple robe she’d bought on the internet along with her minister’s license, and her voice rang through the church.
“I do,” said Naomi, proudly.
“Well done,” said Toots, beaming at her.
The men walked toward Toots, and Naomi fell back next to Anna. Across from her, Rig sent her the look that made her, literally, weak in the knees. She still wasn’t sure how he did it, but Naomi locked her legs and prayed it wouldn’t make her faint.
As Toots talked about love, and as Bruno and Peter exchanged vows, Josephine made the tiny whimpering noises that meant she was about to wake up. Anna nodded at her, and Naomi took the bundle that she loved so much, joggling her quietly. From the time Jo had landed in this world, it was Naomi who had the special touch, the one that always quieted her.
There was no feeling like the heft of her niece in her arms. Unless it was the feeling of looking at the Keller brothers, standing up for Bruno and Peter—Jake and Rig, serious, listening to Toots gravely, as if the ceremony depended on their memory of it.
In the crowd of guests, Maybelle gave a hefty sob. Of course. Their mother was always going to play an audience for all it was worth. Elbert Romo leaned forward and pressed a neatly folded yellow hanky into her hand. But the tears were real: Maybelle had been the first to say it was ridiculous that two men were getting married, and then the first to say (after she and Bruno had discovered a mutual love of Johnny Cash) that she might have been a little wrong, and “didn’t everyone know that true love knows no gender?” She’d joined PFLAG just to get the tee-shirt. She and Bruno had formed an uncommon alliance in past months in attempting to browbeat Naomi and Anna into marriage. Now that Bruno was getting hitched, he thought everyone should find the same happiness, and Maybelle came behind him, always echoing his sentiments loudly whenever she was in town, which nowadays was often.
Naomi knew that look Rig had—he was imagining their own ceremony, but she wasn’t in any hurry. She had him, and his love, and didn’t need to walk down an aisle to prove it. She already had forever.
Jake kept trying to talk Anna into marriage, too, but like her sister, she was also happy to live in sin for the moment. “Why buy the cow when I already get the milk for free?” she asked Jake with a laugh whenever he brought it up.
Naomi caught Rig’s eye and watched his gaze go soft—the same look he always gave her when she held Josephine. Someday, they’d probably have one of these little creatures themselves. Maybe someday she’d wear Eliza’s shawl and come down an aisle like this toward Rig, while watching those eyes she loved darken with emotion.
There was no hurry, though. For now, their family was big enough. Made of love, bound by love, circled and kept safe by love. Eliza had been right. Cypress Hollow was where Naomi was meant to be. With her free hand, Naomi draped the edge of the shawl over Josephine’s hand-knit socks.
It was winter after all, and nothing warmed like wool.
The End
✨
Dearest Reader,
THANK YOU for reading Naomi and Rig’s Story!
Now, as a wee gift to thank you, here’s an exclusive sneak peek of the next book in which Eliza is (again) a meddlesome and delightful matchmaker: Cora’s Heart.
✨
Cora’s Heart – CHAPTER ONE
Danger lurks in every ball of cashmere.
– Eliza Carpenter
Cora sat on an overturned apple basket in front of her storage shed, her legs splayed out, the heels of her old blue cowboy boots resting in the dirt. The fire engine had driven away minutes before, Jake Keller waving his arm cheerfully out the window as they went. Of course he was cheerful. They’d gotten to fight a fire and isn’t that what firefighters lived for?
The worst part was that it was a ridiculous fire. It was a teeny-tiny blaze, entirely the result of her own stupidity. Cora couldn’t begin to imagine how people in town would talk. Or, more appropriately, how they would laugh. When Cade MacArthur’s old shack burned down a few years ago, the valley had rocked with explosions as propane bottles blew through the outer walls, which in turn ignited a grass fire that blazed up the hill. It had been the lead story in the Cypress Hollow Independent, with color pictures on the front page. And when Phyllis Gill’s chimney caught on fire and spread into her attic and then down into her yarn room, the whole town had taken up a collection to replenish her stash. Skeins from almost every family had flooded in until Phyllis begged them to stop, saying that she’d reached the limit of the amount of yarn she’d be able to knit before she died.
Compared to those, the little fire at Cora’s shed hadn’t rated more than one engine using the water it carried on board. She herself had missed it all. She had been across the yard in the house, making a sandwich. She’d heard a siren but it had shut off so abruptly that Cora had assumed Buddy Hansen was practicing on the engine again – all the volunteer firefighters loved whooping the siren as often as they could get away with it.
After she’d finished pressing her sandwich together, using tomatoes from the garden and her homemade mozzarella, and cutting it diagonally with her sharpest knife, Cora had put it onto a chipped china plate and had wandered out of the house into the sunshine. She would eat it in the storage shed, as she often did. Fall was finally settling into the valley – leaves bursting into scarlet, the scent of wood fires in the air. It was her favorite time of year. Although the smoke smelled stronger now than it had when she’d gone inside…
It had taken a moment for her eyes to register the fire engine parked, lights flashing, in front of the shed. Water. They were streaming water. Into her shed.
She dropped the sandwich, the plate shattering on a flagstone, and ran.
It was over when she got there.
In the time it took to make lunch, everything she’d worked toward for the last three years was gone.
It was a tiny fire, comparably. The entire shed wasn’t more than a hundred square feet total. But it had been chock-full – lower shelves held whatever she was growing that was in season (recently figs and small persimmons), the higher ones stacked three jars deep with her canned goods – cucumbers and chilies and apricot jams. Heck, she’d even made the shelves that had held her washed and carded merino fiber. She had learned to use the electric saw without cutting off any fingers, learned just how many thwacks it took with the hammer to get the nails in and flush to the board. The shed was more than storage – it was her workshop. Her larder. She did most of her spinning and dyeing inside it. It held everything she sold at her stand at the Cypress Hollow weekly farmers market. All her soap and candles. All the seeds, the dried herbs…
The walls hadn’t burned. They were only blackened. But everything else she’d had inside the shed was either burned or ruined by smoke or water.
“We were on our way to the training tower up the valley,” said Jake Keller. “Saw the smoke. It was just dumb luck we were here. Coulda been worse.”
“But how… ?” Cora wasn’t able to finish the sentence.
“Best guess, one of those candles,” one of the firefighters said.
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. Earlier, while she’d been sorting heirloom squash seeds, she’d lit one of last year’s rosemary-lemon candles, wanting the scent to mix with the wood smoke coming from up the valley.
It was all her fault.
“Accidents happen,” Jake said. He had a piece of paper for her to sign, and then asked if he could call anyone for her or take her anywhere. The men wanted to help. She could see it in their eyes. But she shook her head, unable to say anything else. Then they were gone, leaving Cora sitting on the apple basket, staring across the road, over the low dune, out to the ocean.
The waves continued beating the shore as if nothing had happened. A thin white plume of smoke showed from up in the valley, rising to meet the lazy clouds that drifted east. She should have heard the siren. Maybe she could have done something…
Oh. Her heart dropped. Her favorite spinning wheel, the one Logan had bought her the year before he died, had been in the shed. Slowly, she turned. If she stood at the edge, in the wide puddle of mud the firefighters had left behind, she could peer over the charred table. There it was, the Ashford Joy tipped flat in the dirt. One treadle was destroyed, burnt through, and the other was separated from the body as if a firefighter in heavy boots had kicked it out of his way.
Gone. How quickly things were taken. She’d almost forgotten that.
A black Mercedes rolled smoothly over the ruts in the dirt road. Of course. This was exactly what she needed now; a visit from Louisa, her mother-in-law’s twin. Cora looked up to see if any clouds were gathering overhead, because the next thing in line was, of course, to be hit by lightning.
“Valentine called me.” Louisa climbed out of the car, the door thunking solidly behind her. “She said she got a text about a fire and I was on my way back home. She wanted me to check on you.” She looked over Cora’s shoulder to gaze at the wreckage behind her. “I see she wasn’t exaggerating. Well, at least you’re insured.”
Insurance. Yet another thing Cora hadn’t gotten around to. The house, of course, was insured. But the shed… A sudden mix of nausea and grief rolled through her and she was glad she’d stayed seated. But she’d be damned if she let Louisa read the emotion on her face. “Of course. Insurance. Yes.”
Why couldn’t her mother-in-law, Valentine, have been the one to come check on her? Valentine would have pressed her hands and then kissed her cheek while smoothing her hair. She would have come equipped with a dog or two, good for hugging, and she would have let Cora cry into one of her huge handkerchiefs embroidered with watering cans that Valentine always had tucked into a pocket, fresh, ready to be used. Valentine believed in really giving a good blow into a handkerchief. “That’s why God made washing machines, sweet cheeks.” Valentine was the best thing she’d gotten from being married to Logan.
And in the stack of presents Cora had received from her marriage, Louisa was the one gift she wished she could give back. She was all prickles and sharp points, the polar opposite of her short, blonde, plump, happy twin. Black-haired and vain about it, Louisa bragged she’d never had a grey hair in her life, but once, Cora had surprised her with her hair up in the dye cap, and she’d never been forgiven for it. Today, Louisa wore a silver embroidered T-shirt (that probably cost more than all of Cora’s clothes put together) and skinny black jeans. Louisa had only ever been good at one thing; spending money, first her father’s, then her husband’s.
Louisa sniffed. “So it’s not really a big deal, then. You’ll file, and then you’ll have the money, and you’ll be free of all this… stuff you do out here.”
Stuff? There was nothing better in the whole world than sitting on her handcrafted wooden stool that she’d bought from one of the old ranchers in the valley who’d taken up woodwork when he’d sold off his cattle. Pete still sat in his barn, same as he always had, but now instead of yelling at cows, he hollered at the jigsaw when it didn’t act right. On that perfectly crafted solid seat that curved in the same places she did, Cora would spin the yarn she knitted for herself and the yarn she sold. There’d never been a sense of hurry out here. Never had she been stressed out, trying to get everything done. She was as proud of her workspace as she was of her booth at the farmers market.
Oh, God. The farmers market was tomorrow. Well, she’d have ten skeins of cashmere yarn that were up in the house, maybe a couple more if she spun what was left with her other wheel and soaked the skeins tonight. She could light a fire and dry them overnight… She had everything that was in the trunk of her car, and because last week she’d been too tired to unpack it, thankfully, that was almost a full booth’s worth of candles and canned vegetables. And there were stores in the old bomb shelter, of course, but… no. That was for her. Not for sale. That was for worst-case scenario territory.
Cora looked at her hands. They were still shaking.
On second thought, maybe tonight wouldn’t be the best night for spinning. And no, it might not be a night for a fire, either. She might never light one on purpose again. It would be a great night to pull the covers up to her nose and cry, maybe. It had been so long since she’d gone through a night like that – she’d hoped that those nights were behind her.
How could she have been so careless? She even had a page devoted to fire safety in her What If book – she’d written “Never leave a candle unattended” right underneath “Never leave the stove while cooking.” Candles were the sixth leading cause of house fires, she knew from her late-night semi-obsessive internet research. And now, she was a statistic.
Cora sucked in a deep breath in an attempt to appear calm. “Well, at least no one was hurt,” she said.
“No.” Louisa looked her up and down. “No one was.”
Cora could almost read the thought bubble above Louisa’s head. Maybe now you’ll get a real job.
And Louisa didn’t disappoint. “Maybe now you’ll get a real job. Instead of all these… little side projects.” She raised her thin chin and smiled, probably thinking that was enough to offset the sting.
Cora raised her own chin, very aware that hers was softly rounded. She waved a hand at the shed. As Eliza Carpenter had always said, Knitting is tougher than we think. You’d be surprised at how often that fine sweater you made can be dragged through the dirt. “This? Oh, I can fix all this up. Not much damage done. I’m a pretty good woodworker now.”
“Oh, my dear. This is destroyed. Have you looked at it?”
“I can fix anything.” Cora planted her feet more firmly in the mud, feeling it squish beneath her boots.
“Never mind, then. You’re fine,” said Louisa, fingering her key ring. It was covered in small stones of cubic zirconia, and flashes of light flew from it, dancing on the puddles at their feet. “Valentine also wanted me to say you should come to the house tonight for dinner.”
“I’ll be fine, really, Louisa.” As soon as she was in bed, covers over her head. “It’s nice of you to ask, though.”
“Oh, not because of this. Don’t be silly. We’re celebrating the prodigal son’s return.”
Of course it wasn’t for Cora. How could she have thought for a moment that it was about her? “Pardon?”
“Mac is back.” Pride lit Louisa’s voice and made her sound almost human. “He’s home.” She opened her car door and spoke over the roof. “And can you bake some bread? You’ll have time, right? Since you don’t have to do anything out here in your… workspace?”
Louisa’s son. Logan’s cousin. Mac.
Lightning. Cora had expected it from the sky, but it had come from her mother-in-law instead.
CHAPTER TWO
It’s old-fashioned what we do. Fiber to yarn? Yarn to clothing? Yes, old-fashioned and, to my mind, always, always in style.
– E.C.
Mac rested his palm flat against the door of the biggest bedroom in the old house. Behind that door, his grandfather had died, years ago. He’d died with his boots on, literally, his cracked leather Ariats kicked up, a thin paperback Western lying on the bed next to him, as if it had fallen out of his hand when he fell asleep. Only he hadn’t woken up again.
It didn’t feel right that the house was Mac’s. What was he supposed to do with it? He’d never lived in it, had never wanted to. Mac didn’t believe in ghosts, but if anyone had a spirit big enough to come back and haunt someone, it would be his grandfather. That man had had a pair of lungs unrivaled by an angry bull trying to avoid castration.
Mac had been in this house hundreds of times. Maybe thousands. But even though he’d owned it for years, it had never really been his. The dark wood-paneled walls and lighter colored slat floors still smelled of the Pine-Sol his grandfather cleaned everything with, and faintly, as if it were almost just a memory, Mac caught the scent of cigar smoke, bittersweet and ghostly.
The smaller bedroom’s door stood halfway open as his aunt worked. The way she worked – enthusiastically, cheerily – made the guilt even worse.
“The thing about you, Aunt Valentine, is that you’re too nice,” said Mac. He watched her take down another curtain. She flapped it as the late afternoon sun sent a shaft of light bouncing across the wooden floor. “You don’t have to do all this.”
“I did a good clean a few months ago, but these are dirty. You can’t have dusty curtains on your first night back in the house.”
It was so Valentine. She had practically made a religion of taking care of other people, and now it was pathological. She couldn’t have stopped if she wanted to. If the curtains hadn’t been dusty, his aunt would have found something else to do for him: mopping under the bed, maybe, or replacing the contact paper in the pantry. Mac knew she came in at least once a year to clear away the dust and spiders in the old place – she sent him an email every time she did it. Your grandfather’s house is spit-shiny, ready for you to move back anytime you want. Don’t even bother calling! Just show up!
But except to bury his father and grandfather, he never showed up.
Valentine dropped the curtains on the bed and said, “What this room needs is fresh air.” She struggled with the window, hitting it with the edge of her hand.
“No, let me. Don’t hurt yourself.” Mac ignored Valentine’s protestations and moved her gently to the side. Then he fought with the sill for a moment, shaking it until it squawked like a startled chicken.
“Oh, thank you!”
Mac smiled at her as he pushed the window upward. Then he leaned out. Below him, a low hill sloped down to a copse of sycamore trees. To the north he could see his mother’s land where she and Valentine lived, and to the south he could just see the edge of Cora’s property.
Cora.
Out there, next to the fence line, the old path ran through the dry grass. Did they still use it, walking back and forth? He’d trampled that path innumerable times as a kid, he and Logan tumbling between the properties like puppies, always on the verge of getting in trouble, knocking down hornets’ nests – and running like hell – or doing equally stupid and pointless things like hunting garter snakes and gophers, or throwing rocks into the creek, startling the crawdads. No wonder he’d become a vet. It was probably his moral obligation after he’d disturbed all that wildlife for so many years.
“Your mother is thrilled, you know. It’ll be wonderful to have you back home, Mac.”
He could tell she was working her hardest to keep her excitement in check. She pressed her hands together, grinned, and then did a tiny dance-like move, her feet shuffling quickly, happily.
“Oh, you’re home. Finally home. I can’t believe it.”
Mac grimaced. Don’t get too excited. It did feel okay, opening up the house, taking the covers off the old furniture, rediscovering the view of the surf from the smaller bedroom. It felt like the house wanted it, somehow. But he couldn’t rest in that feeling. The whole point was not to. “I’m not staying. It’s just business. I told her that…”
“This is where we all end up eventually,” said Aunt Valentine, making it sound easy. Predestined. As if he hadn’t screwed everything up all those years ago. “Your mother knows this is the land we come back to, even if we leave for a while. Daddy saw to that.”
In the seventies, Mac’s grandfather Henry Millet had won a whack of money in a long-shot bet on a horse with a forelock blaze like his first Irish pony, and in what could be argued his only sensible move, he bought the four parcels of coastal land. He’d built houses for his family as they needed them – a bungalow for his daughter Valentine, and a bigger house for his more demanding daughter Louisa, Mac’s mother. There was an old farm house on the land that got passed around, according to who needed it most. Mac had inherited the old foreman’s house where his grandfather had insisted on living until he died.
They’d buried him up on the ridge, near where Mac’s father lay.
God. Dad. It brought it all back, being here, gazing up that hill. His father, stuck in bed with hypertension, uncontrolled blood pressure, and congestive heart failure from smoking for thirty years, had been told to stay home with his oxygen and wait for the new medications to start working. He should have been eating healthily. Sleeping a lot. Watching The Price Is Right.
Instead, Mac’s mother had driven him the seventy miles to the casino so they could both stay up all night, drinking and smoking and eating Christ knew what, and by dawn, his father had suffered a massive heart attack that killed him before the ambulance pulled up to the hospital.
Both his parents were gamblers like his grandfather had been. And like so many times before, they’d taken a chance that day that everything would be okay.
It hadn’t been. Now they were both on the ridge. Mac assumed Logan was up there now, too. He wouldn’t know. But he’d find out.
With a thump, Mac pried up another window, satisfied with the pure force it took to break the seal that had formed with years of closure.
“You could live anywhere, you know.” It wasn’t what he wanted to say, but at least it was a start. “Land doesn’t make a family.”
“What?” Valentine said. “Oh, no, this is where we belong. On our land. Just like Daddy planned.”
“He never planned a damn thing that didn’t involve a dime bet,” said Mac, but as Valentine shook a rag with a tsk in his direction, a smile tugged the corners of his mouth.
Mac had never taken possession of the house, had never spent a night in it, not even when he’d received it legally in the will. He would have given it away, but no one else had needed it. Not his mother, not Aunt Valentine, who didn’t even live in her own house but with her sister… Not Cora.
And Mac had been happy being away, living his life. He’d gone to school and made his own way, ending up in the best job he could imagine. He loved what he did, and he counted his boss one of his best friends.
But in the end, all those roads had just led stubbornly back here, hadn’t they? He should have seen it coming. Yeah, fine, he was back. But who knew for how long? Mac felt a pang of guilt that twanged like a sore tooth. All of this was to help the family. They’d know that soon enough, and hopefully they’d understand.
Keep reading Cora’s Heart!