The True Love Quilting Club (18 page)

“Don’t bother,” he said. “I’d already boxed it up for Goodwill and Maddie dug it out. It looks good on you. Keep it.”

“It was Valerie’s.”

“Yes.”

They didn’t say anything, just looked at each other. Sam was finally boxing up his dead wife’s things and giving them away? It was a good sign. He was moving on at last. She felt happy for him.

“Well then.” Emma held up a palm. “Good night.”

“Good night,” he said in return, mildly, blandly, with no inflection, no emotion behind the words.

“Are we on for next Sunday for more driving lessons?”

He looked like he wanted to say no, but then imperceptibly nodded. “Same time?”

“Sure.”

“Okay then.”

“And the line readings?”

He hesitated.

“I understand if you don’t have time…” she rushed to say before he could turn her down. “I’ve imposed on you too much as it is. You’re a busy guy—”

“I’ll be working in the garden on Tuesday evening if that’s convenient for you. Just holler at me over the back fence.”

“Yes, great, sure, thanks.” She raised a hand, then turned and hurried into the B&B, her pulse thumping crazily and she had no idea why.

Luckily, Jenny was occupied with checking in guests when Emma went inside and she didn’t have to stop and chat. She just raised her hand in greeting and headed for the stairs.

Once she was in her room, she closed the door and sank against it, willing her erratic heart to calm down. Why was she signing up for more driving lessons with Sam and begging him to read lines with her? She knew she was sliding in deep, and the more she was around him, the more it was going to hurt when she left.

Emma stepped into the bathroom. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, saw the imprint of tiny chocolate lips on her cheek where Charlie had kissed her. Her heart, already reeling, lurched, stumbled.

“It’s too late,” she whispered to her reflection and reached up to touch her cheek. “You’ve stepped off the sandbar into a deep, deep undertow.”

Unnerved, she turned on the water, splashed her face, washed off Charlie’s sticky, rocky road kiss. She wasn’t the only one in trouble. The little boy was getting as attached to her as she was to him.

“It’s just because you remind him of his mother,” she told herself. “The hair color, the short stature, and you were wearing his mother’s dress. That’s all it is. Transference.”

But no matter how she tried to rationalize it, guilt continued to nibble at her. She wished there was something she could do for the boy. Some way to connect him to his mother. She unzipped the dress and slipped out of it, the bright purple cotton material pooling to the floor at her feet.

The True Love Quilting Club sometimes used scraps of clothing in the quilts they made to pay tribute to loved ones. Emma picked up Valerie’s dress. Sam didn’t want it back and she certainly wasn’t going to wear it again. What if she used it to make a quilt?

A special quilt for Charlie, in honor of his beautiful mother who’d given up her life for her country.

Almost a week had gone by and nothing changed, at least not on the outside. Every night after Charlie was in bed, Sam would go outside, sink into the lawn chair, the script to the Founder’s Day play in his lap, a glass of iced tea resting on the picnic table, and wait for Emma to come outside so they could read lines together. But on the inside, something was happening to Sam. Something that stirred him up, inflamed his soul.

Since that day on the banks of the Brazos River where he’d lost his self-control, Sam had been troubled, both by his lack of restraint and by his stark need
for Emma. He feared that if he didn’t stop hanging around with her, he was going to do something that could never be undone.

And yet he’d been unable to stop himself from coming out here every night, losing sleep to stay up until the wee hours running lines with her. It was only through the words of the characters they were reenacting that Sam could tell Emma how he really felt about her.

Dammit, but acting was a sorry substitute for the real thing, and yet he didn’t dare let her know what was going on inside his heart.

It wouldn’t change anything if you told her.

He knew that as surely as he knew his own name, so he held his tongue, kept his feelings to himself, and read those romantic lines of love.

But on this Friday night, as he heard the back door to the Merry Cherub open and close and the soft padding of Emma’s footsteps on the soft grass, dissatisfaction swelled against his chest. He didn’t want to read lines. He didn’t want to sit here passively while the woman he wanted, needed, waited just beyond that fence.

He threw down the script, got up, began to pace. Tonight they were supposed to read the last skit in the play. The one Nina had written in honor of Valerie.

A brushing noise came from the other side of the fence, and he could see Emma standing there as vividly as if there were no barrier between them, fluffing the pages of her script. “I’m leaving for Iraq tomorrow, Sam, and I want you to make me a promise.”

At the sound of Emma speaking words so eerily similar to the ones Val had actually spoken, something unraveled inside him.

“Anything, my love,” he spoke the lines, although he had not said that to Val. What he’d really said was, “I’m listening.”

“I want you to promise me that if anything happens to me over there you’ll move on. Marry again. Give Charlie a new family.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

“Please, Sam, just promise me.”

He couldn’t read the next line. The words hung in his throat. His feelings were a fiery jumble, his needs, his desires eating him up inside.

“Sam?”

He didn’t say anything. A sledgehammer of doubt, fear, regret, and shame squatted on his chest.

“Are you all right?”

“Fine,” he finally managed.

“All right. Now where were we—”

“Wait,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I do want to stop. This skit is bringing back painful memories.” He pressed a palm to his head and was surprised to find sweat beaded there in spite of the cool evening breeze. He expected her to acquiesce, to excuse him and let him off the hook.

She did not. “No.”

“No?” Taken aback, he stopped pacing. He could hear her ragged breathing from the other side of the fence.

“You need to see this through. Not for me, but for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Valerie. Her death. You getting over it.”

“I’ve gotten over it.”

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s read the lines.”

“I don’t want to read the lines.” Irritation ripped through him.

“It’s not healthy, the way you’re hiding out.”

“I am
not
hiding out.” Irritation turned to ire.

“Everybody in this town kid-gloves you,” she said.

“What in the hell does that mean?” he snapped.

“I get why they do it. You’re a great guy and no one wants to hurt you, but Sam, you seriously need your cage rattled. People—your family, this town—they let you get away with hiding out.”

“I’m not hiding out,” he reiterated, knotting his hands into fists.

“Okay, maybe hiding out isn’t the right term, but you play it too safe. Life is a smorgasbord and you choose to eat bologna sandwiches every day.”

“I like bologna sandwiches.”

“You could like other things too. You don’t know because you’re too afraid or too set in your ways to give it a try.”

“I’m warning you, woman, you’re pissing me off.”

“Good,” she said. “You need your feathers ruffled. “You’ve had it too easy.”

He hardened his jaw. “My wife died.”

“And you’re the only one who’s ever lost someone? Wise up. We’re all walking wounded. Me? From what I’ve heard about her, I think Valerie would kick your ass for hiding out.”

“Excuse me, you didn’t know her and you don’t know me.”

“Yes I do, Sam Cheek. I do know you.”

“You knew me once. For a year. When we were kids. Don’t assume you know me.”

They were having their first fight with a wall between them. What a flippin’ metaphor for how withdrawn he’d become. He wasn’t even fighting with her face-to-face. She was right. He
was
hiding from life.

She wanted to see him rattled and ruffled, then, by God, he’d show her. Sam stalked to the gate separating his backyard from his sister’s B&B and yanked it open.

Emma stood there, so tiny and yet so fierce, staring up at him, her spine drawn up, her chest thrust out, her chin defiant. He stepped toward her, the back gate slamming shut behind him. She didn’t flinch, didn’t back up.

Sam didn’t hesitate, didn’t consider the consequences. He simply reacted to the hormones crashing around inside him and the vulnerable look in her sea green eyes. Emma was full of brass bravado, but she was scared of what she’d provoked in him, he could see it on her face.

He grabbed her around the waist, pulled her up on her tiptoes, and planted a punishing kiss on her lips. He kissed her roughly, demandingly, and he might have gone on kissing her that way for the rest of the night if guilt hadn’t started knocking on the back of his brain. He was taking his anger and frustration out on her.

Stop it.

He sat her down on the ground. “There,” he said, “does that feel like a man who’s hiding out?”

A trembling hand rose to her lips and her eyes grew wider. “No,” she admitted.

They stood looking at each other in the darkness, the damp night air seeping through their skin.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked.

“What is wrong with me?” His pulse quickened. “You want to know what is wrong with me?”

She jutted out her chin. “Yeah.”

“You,” he said. “You’re what’s wrong with me. You’ve turned me inside out and I don’t know how to deal with it.”

“Maybe we should stop reading lines together. Stop the driving lessons.”

“I think that’s a very good idea.”

Her face told him she didn’t really want to stop and, dammit, neither did he. But this…this…well, he couldn’t deal with it.

“Why did you really marry Valerie?” she asked softly. “Was it just because you felt sorry for her and Charlie?”

The question caught him by surprise. “You really want to know?”

She nodded.

Sam suddenly felt like a balloon that had been leaked of its air, flat, empty. “I married her because she wasn’t you, all right? Because I knew she wouldn’t leave. She had no aspirations beyond being a great mother, a good nurse.” He snorted. “But as it turns out she was more like you than I imagined. She did leave me and she never came back.”

“I came back,” Emma whispered.

“Yes,” he said, “you came back to taunt me, haunt me, but then you’ll be gone again. Flying away to the stars.”

“Sam…” She looked utterly miserable.

“Can you deny it?”

“No.”

“I thought not,” he said, then pivoted on his heels and walked away.

The next two weeks passed uneventfully. The air grew cooler and the leaves on the trees changed colors, bathing the countryside in a panorama of yellow, red, orange, and brown. The extra time she’d spent rehearsing with Beau paid off. His performance had improved markedly. She’d gotten over her fear of acting alongside Patches. Things were going well on the stage, even though Emma was no longer reading lines with Sam. While it was a relief not to murmur lines of love to each other through the fence, she had to admit she missed it. Knowing he was there, steady as a rock, something she could truly count on. She’d replaced that nightly routine with another—using Jenny’s sewing machine to make a purple patchwork quilt for Charlie from pieces of his mother’s cut-up dress.

On the quilting club front, everything was running on schedule. They were planning the fifth one tonight, the one honoring Korean War veterans. Emma’s fin
gertips, which had once been sore and sensitive, were now toughly calloused. She was amazed at the beauty and artistry of the quilts that emerged from their work. They fairly vibrated with the themes of duty, honor, and sacrifice. It made her proud to be supporting the troops in some small way, and for once she truly understood what patriotism was about, and the big-hearted women of the True Love Quilting Club were her teachers.

Beyond the horror that was New York City on September 11, 2001, Emma hadn’t given much thought to the troops overseas. She hadn’t known anyone directly involved in the war effort. At times, she felt ashamed of herself. That she put so much of her mental energy into acting out fantasies when there were people dying in battle far from home.

In her life, the war took on added dimension and she understood for the first time that the families of the soldiers and airmen and sailors were just as brave. They were the silent heroes rarely honored. They went on with their daily routines scared witless for the men and women they loved, holding it all together in the face of adversity. And when they spoke of loved ones killed so far from home, she felt the sharp, biting edge of their grief.

In light of such bravery, she felt inconsequential, her acting talent paling in comparison. She did the only thing she knew to do. That was to listen and observe; to internalize their sacrifice and courage so that when she got up onstage she could tell their stories through her facial expression, tone of voice, body language.

She used everything and it changed her.

On a Friday, October 22, more than a month after she’d come to Twilight, Emma arrived at the church
a little early to find that Nina was the only one there. She was sitting at the quilting frame, her head bowed and her shoulders moving as if she was quietly sobbing.

Impulse urged Emma to slip back out the door and pretend she’d seen nothing, but something pushed her across the floor toward the other actress. “Nina,” she murmured, “are you all right?”

Nina’s head came up. She straightened her spine, swiped at her face with the back of her hand, and forced a smile. “Fine, fine. I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

The older woman’s eyes met hers, and for a flash of a second she saw a hurt so deep it made Emma’s heart ache. “Can I get you anything?” she offered. “A cold drink?”

“No thank you.”

“You sure there’s nothing you want to talk about?” Emma sat down across from her in one of the chairs ringing the quilting frame.

Nina looked like she was about to confess something, and Emma couldn’t help wondering if it had anything to do with the reason the older actress had rescued her from Scott Miller and brought her back to Twilight.

She didn’t know why she felt this, but the idea burrowed inside her.

But before Nina could say anything, Raylene came breezing in, her hair, which was usually teased big, lying flat against her head. She had a lit cigarette dangling from her mouth and a fifth of vodka tucked under her arm. “Don’t either one of you tell me I can’t smoke in here.” She glowered. “I’ve had a damn shitty day.”

Emma raised her palms in a gesture of surrender.

“Give me a hit off that.” Nina held out her hand. “My day hasn’t exactly been peaches and cream.”

Raylene’s eyes rounded in surprise, but she passed her lipstick-stained cigarette to Nina, who took a long drag off it. “I haven’t smoked in forty years,” she mumbled through a haze of smoke.

“Well here, give it back,” Raylene said. “You don’t need to take that up again.”

Nina coughed, handed it back. “Thank you, I feel better.”

Raylene took the cigarette over to the kitchenette and doused it with water from the faucet before flicking the butt in the trash can. Just then the door opened. Patsy, Marva, Dotty Mae, and Terri walked in, hands loaded with quilting supplies.

Patsy sniffed the air. “Who’s been smoking in here?”

Nina looked guilty.

Raylene raised a hand. “Who do you think?”

“Should have known,” Patsy groused.

“Don’t mess with me, Cross. I’ve had a bad day.” Raylene narrowed her eyes as if gunning for a fight.

“Don’t you two start,” Marva said, playing peace-maker.

“Well, join the club. Mine was a pisser as well. Jimmy fell out of bed at the home and broke his hip. They took him over to Twilight General.”

“Ted’s doing surgery on him as we speak,” Terri added.

“Ouch! I’m sorry to hear that.” Raylene grabbed a stack of Styrofoam cups and brought them back to the quilting frame, along with the bottle of vodka still tucked under her arm.

Patsy shrugged, but her face looked haggard. “What are you gonna do?” she asked rhetorically.

Jenny and Belinda showed up then, completing the circle. Jenny carried a plate of her homemade chocolate chip cookies.

“Sorry I’m late,” Belinda said, looking flustered. “I got called into the principal’s office at the middle school. Kameron got into a fight and it’s looking like he started it. Harvey and I were having a set-to with him. Am I raising a bully?”

“He’s just going through a phase,” Dotty Mae assured Belinda. “It’s hard being a twelve-year-old boy.”

“And I just got back from the doctor’s office,” Jenny said glumly. “Once again, I’m
not
pregnant.”

“Oh honey,” Marva patted her shoulder. “It’ll happen. You’re still plenty young.”

“I’m thirty-four. Not so young anymore. The doctor says if it doesn’t happen within the next six months we should consider in vitro, but we don’t have the money for that.”

“Sounds like everyone’s having a bad day,” Raylene said, and plopped into her chair. “And I’ve got the cure.” She held up the vodka bottle and the Styrofoam cups. “Who’s up for a drinking game?”

Emma figured everyone would shoot down Raylene’s idea, but to her surprise, Patsy sat beside Raylene and propped an arm on her shoulder. “What kind of drinking game?”

“It’s called I Never. Ever heard of it?”

“I have,” Emma said.

“Well of course you have, Miss New York City,” Raylene popped off.

“I’ve heard of it too,” Jenny said. “I saw it on
Lost
.
Sawyer and Kate played it around the campfire. Actually it was a really good episode. I’m in.”

“Ooh, that
was
a good episode.” Terri nodded. “It really ratcheted up the sexual tension between Kate and Sawyer. I’m in.”

“So explain the game to the rest of us,” Marva said. “My day wasn’t all lollipops and rainbows either. Just found out the government is eyeing the land my daddy left me out past Crescent. They want to take it away under eminent domain for that new expressway loop they’re building around Fort Worth.”

“Rat bastards,” Raylene spat. “Anyway,” she said, pouring vodka into the nine cups she’d lined up on the edge of the quilting frame. “Here’s how the game works. You start off with ‘I never…,’ then you tell us something you’ve never done. If any of you
have
done it, you take a drink. If you haven’t done it, you don’t drink. For example, I never kicked a man in the balls so hard that he had to have a testicle removed. Emma would have to take a drink, but none of the rest of us would unless they
had
kicked a man in the balls so hard that he’d had a testicle removed.”

“So it’s like a liquid lie detector,” Dotty Mae said.

“Something like that.” Raylene passed out the cups. “Y’all ready?”

“Past ready,” Patsy said. “Who starts?”

“I’ll start,” Terri said, “and then we can go clockwise around the circle. I’ve never played a drinking game.”

Emma, Jenny, Dotty Mae, and Raylene all took a drink.

“Dammit,” Patsy said. “Ask something you know I’ve done, Belinda, so I can take a drink.”

“I’ve never been in love with a Vietnam War veteran,” Belinda said.

Patsy took a big swallow of vodka. “Thanks for that.”

“Your turn,” Belinda said to Emma.

Emma looked across the table at Nina. She didn’t know why she said what she said, it just popped from her mouth. “I’ve never had an affair with a Broadway producer.”

Nina met Emma’s stare and brought the cup to her lips.

“Hmm,” Marva said. “My turn? I don’t know what to ask.”

“Make it something provocative,” Raylene goaded.

“Okay, here goes. I’ve never been skinny-dipping,” Marva said.

“And you live in a lake town?” Dotty Mae clucked her tongue. “For shame.”

“I’m modest,” Marva said. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Everyone but Marva drank. Emma had drunk twice now, and a smooth, pleasant feeling floated over her.

Now it was Jenny’s turn. She looked balefully at the group. “I’ve never been pregnant.”

Everyone except Emma took a drink. Even Nina. As far as Emma knew, Nina didn’t have any children. Had she lost a baby?

“I’ve never had a one-night stand,” Dotty Mae said.

Raylene took a drink, looked around the table at everyone else who wasn’t drinking. “Come on! You have to tell the truth.”

No one else drank.

“Okay, so apparently I’m the only slut in the room.”

“Hey, this game was your idea,” Terri said. “Don’t get your nose out of joint.”

“In my defense,” Raylene huffed. “I
was
a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Things got a little blurry back in the seventies.”

“It’s okay.” Patsy patted Raylene on the shoulder. “We love you anyway, slut puppy.”

“Your turn,” Dotty Mae said to Nina.

“I never cheated on my husband in order to further my career.” Nina raised her cup, met Emma’s gaze again. Emma saw that same haunted vulnerability in the older woman’s eyes that she’d seen when she’d walked into the church. Had Nina been married? She didn’t know about that.

“Dammit, y’all are picking on me,” Raylene groused and took another drink. “Just for the record, Lance was already cheating on me.”

“Lance was her first husband,” Belinda explained to Emma. “He was a football player and an asshole.”

Dotty Mae took a drink as well.

Everyone stared at her goggle-eyed.

“What?” Dotty Mae said defensively. How do you think I made it as the first woman manager of Montgomery Ward?”

Belinda shook her head, made a noise of disapproval.

“Don’t judge.” Dotty Mae waved a finger. “I had two boys to support, no money in the bank, and Stuart was dying of pancreatic cancer. Sometimes a woman just has to do what a woman has to do.”

“No one’s judging you,” Nina said, then she tilted back her head and downed the entire contents of her cup.

“Well,” Raylene said, “whaddya know about that?”

Emma finished Charlie’s quilt on Sunday. She and Sam hadn’t spoken since their odd fight. She’d been so busy with rehearsals that she hadn’t seen him except to occasionally catch a glimpse of him on the square. Every time she did, her heart revved, even though she kept telling herself that Sam’s influence in her life had drawn to a natural close.

But that didn’t stop her from wrapping the small purple quilt in a box and tying it up with a blue bow. This was about Charlie, not the complicated issues between her and Sam. At three that afternoon, she climbed Sam’s porch steps and knocked on his door.

Sam opened the door, looking drop-dead-delicious in tan cargo pants and a green and white Dallas Stars T-shirt. His face remained expressionless, but she saw the flicker of welcome in his eyes.

“May I come in?” she asked.

Sam moved aside, and Charlie came running into the foyer, grinning.

Emma stepped over the threshold and followed Sam into the living room. He waved at the couch and she sat down. He took the recliner positioned across from her, perched on the edge of his seat, and leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “What’s up?”

“I have a gift for Charlie.”

“That was nice of you.” His voice was even, devoid of emotion.

Charlie crawled up onto the couch beside Emma, and she smelled the sweaty scent of little boy. She set the box in his lap, then immediately had qualms about the gift. He was a kid. He was probably expecting a toy, not a quilt. Anxiety bit into her. What had she been thinking? It was a dumb idea.

“It’s not any big thing,” she added as he untied the bow.

He was a meticulous kid. Not tearing into the box, but rather going slowly, taking his time. Just like his father on that score. Emma glanced over to see Sam studying her.

Charlie lifted the lid and stared down at the quilt.

He hates it. How stupid to think a kid would like a quilt.

Charlie took the quilt from the box, his green eyes solemn. He held it up to his face and took a deep breath.

Emma nibbled her bottom lip. “Do you like it?”

The boy lowered the quilt and stared off as if looking at a memory. Or a ghost. He raised the quilt to his nose again and took another sniff.

“I made it myself,” she said.

“From Valerie’s dress,” Sam murmured.

For the first time, it occurred to her that he might not appreciate her cutting up Valerie’s dress to make the quilt. “Was that okay?”

“I gave it to you to do as you wish.” His eyes were as enigmatic as his son’s. “Give Emma a hug for working so hard to make you a quilt,” Sam prompted Charlie.

Emma glanced back at Charlie, her heart a tight knot in her throat.