How to Knit a Heart Back Home Read Online Free PDF Page A

moment, there was a loud crash from the back room. Owen looked at the three people at the table. None of them were young enough to move as quickly as he’d be able to, even if he was a gimp.
    In the back room, he found the woman on the floor. It looked like she’d slipped and had taken down a tall stack of magazines with her when she fell. She looked up at him with wide eyes.
    “Are you okay?”
    Mildred came up behind him. “What happened?”
    Owen said, “She slipped.” Then he turned back to the woman and said, “Don’t move.”
    From the floor, the woman winced. “I’m fine. Just had the wind knocked out of me.” She stood, brushing off her overalls, looking at him expectantly.
    “Are you sure you’re okay?”
    “Positive,” Lucy said. “Is there something I can help you with?”
    He cleared his throat. “Oh, yeah. Books? I have some.”
    Lucy nodded but didn’t say anything. He followed her back out into the main room of the store and pointed to the box he’d brought in. “Probably just junk.”
    “I’ll be the judge of that. What’s on top of it? It’s covered with . . .”
    “Cat hair. I’m sorry,” said Owen. “I tried to clean off most of it, but a lot of it seems to have embedded itself into the cardboard. Cats have been sleeping in my mother’s storage unit.”
    Lucy raised her eyebrows. “It looks like a felted rug.”
    “But as far as I can tell, no cats have peed on the boxes.”
    “Small mercies.”
    “Two more of them in the car. Just as fuzzy.”
    She barely glanced at him, just pulled her sweater tighter. There were holes at the hem of the sleeves, Owen noticed. “Go get them, then,” she said.
    When Owen finished carrying in the third box, she was leaning against the counter, laughing at what sounded like a stupid joke about two peanuts and a bar, told by the old man, Elbert.
    She had a great laugh. But when Owen leaned against the counter and smiled, Lucy’s laugh trailed off, and she moved the last box to the left.
    “I’m sorry, I don’t think that—”
    Owen interrupted her. “How is the woman from last night?”
    “Abigail?”
    “Yes.”
    Lucy’s face softened. “I called when I woke up this morning. She’s got a few bruised ribs and a couple of lacerations, but she’s fine and the baby’s fine.”
    “You did a great job.”
    She looked down at the box and then back up at him. “Yeah.”
    “You’re just a natural, I guess. You were the perfect person to have right there. You couldn’t have come out of the bar at a better time. You helped save her life.” Owen smiled, and hoped for a similar response. Her brown eyes were more familiar than they should be from just seeing them last night. Owen knew her, and he could almost place her. God, had he dated her? He couldn’t remember having a girlfriend named Lucy, but the name rang a bell in his head. If he could just remember . . .
    Lucy was still looking at him, her head tilted to the side, a surprised look on her face.
    “What?” he asked.
    She jumped. “I’m sorry. Nothing. Okay, your boxes. I’ve only poked through them a little bit, but they look like they’re just full of old romances. Let me look at this one.” She leaned forward, her hair falling in front of her face. She smelled sweet, the hint of incense that remained in the old converted church mingling with whatever she was wearing.
    Lucy looked up at him. Those lips . . . Damn. Had it been that long that he was this easily distracted? Owen forced himself to listen to what she was saying.
    “I’m sorry.” She held up a ripped Barbara Cartland. “I don’t buy old romances. I have too many already.”
    “Hell. Don’t you buy books? Isn’t this a used bookstore? Those are used books.”
    “Too old. And too used. Look, these are losing their pages. Even I have my book principles.”
    “What do you suggest I do with them, then? A library?”
    She snorted. “I’m sorry, but no library wants these.”
    “A Dumpster, then? You got