Beneath the Patchwork Moon (Hope Springs, #2) Read Online Free PDF

her shoulders, her hands and the muscles of her arms. For now all she felt was the work, the colors in this piece taking her back to the day she’d met Sierra, the black and pine green plaid of their school uniforms, the flecks of gold in Sierra’s brown eyes. The deep emerald of the lawn fronting the St. Thomas Preparatory School. The acorns dropped by the oaks scattered across the grounds like tiny sorrel umbrellas.
    Tonight she had Luigi Boccherini’s cello concertos playing, the music a soothing background noise while she worked. She’d heard both Oscar and Sierra play from Boccherini dozens of times, and the familiarity of the melodies made the birth of her friendship with the other girl an easy story to weave. The music, however, was not loud enough to drown out the sound of the door opening, or her father’s soft footsteps on the hardwood floor.
    She smiled to herself as she pulled the beater toward her to tighten the yarn, then set the shuttle aside and spun around on her stool. “If you’re trying to be sneaky and quiet, it’s not working.”
    Harry Meadows stopped walking midstep, like a kid caught in the act of being mischievous. He was tall and limber andhad yet to go gray. Even the scruff on his face remained dark. Just not as dark as Angelo’s. Though why her every thought had to turn to Angelo…
    “I didn’t want to disturb you,” her father said, shoving his long-fingered hands into the pockets of his khakis.
    She loved her father to death, but this one thing he’d never understood: It took almost nothing to disturb her, and then it took forever for her to get back on track. Working the loom was an easy, repetitive motion. It was seeing the story in the pattern and colors that demanded her focus.
    But since he rarely came to find her unless he had something on his mind, she gave him a welcoming smile as she stretched her arms overhead and her torso side to side. “I love you. You never disturb me.”
    “I believe the first,” he said, returning her smile and coming closer, pulling up a stool matching hers to sit. “But we both know the second is a big fat lie.”
    She held up her thumb and index finger. “Maybe a little bit of one.”
    “You’ve been out here quite a while,” he said, his brown eyes sharp as he took her in. A father’s concern and miss-nothing gaze. “Do you need anything? You skipped supper. Tea? Something stronger?”
    His good manners had him offering the obvious, though he knew she never ate or drank more than water when working. The habit had gotten her into trouble more than once, when she suddenly found herself dizzy and on the verge of collapse. “I’ll come in for a bite in a bit. I’d like to make some progress on this piece if I can.”
    His mouth quirked ruefully. “If you can find your groove again, you mean.”
    She leaned forward to wrap her arms around him, breathing in Ivory soap and sun-dried chambray. “I’ll find it. But I won’t ever again have this moment with you, so tell me what’s on your mind. It’s not like you to come out just to check on me.”
    “I’m that transparent, huh?” His smile was soft, his humor good.
    Her sister was going to be
so
lucky. Just as she had been. Just as she was. “Or predictable, anyway.”
    “Guess I can live with that.”
    “So…” She watched as he pulled his mouth to one side the way he did when he had something he didn’t really want to say. “Spit it out.”
    “Your mom tells me you saw Angelo Caffey today.”
    Ah, that, she mused, and nodded. She’d seen him, she’d argued with him, she’d made a deal with him. But there was no reason her father needed to know about that. Not tonight, anyway. He most definitely did not need to know any of the whys. She wasn’t quite yet settled with the whys.
    He took in her nod, asked, “Does he know about the academy?”
    “That there will be one? Yes. That it will be named after Sierra and Oscar?” She shook her head. “I’ll tell him. But