The Lover's Knot Read Online Free PDF Page A

she thought I’d let the dog go off on his own. And it was clear now, thanks to my momentary interest in Officer Jesse, that Barney was outside. I was left with no choice. So I made the best of it. I opened the door.
    Inside the shop my grandmother was laughing with the women sitting in a circle around her. For a half second I wondered if they were laughing at my broken engagement, but I knew that was only my bruised ego talking.
    “Look who’s here,” my grandmother said as she waved me to come in. “How was your nap? It was a long one.”
    “Just what I needed.”
    I moved in a little but still stayed close to the door. Barney, on the other hand, bounded into the middle of the circle to greet each of his ladies in turn. I don’t think any of them noticed me until they were done greeting him. When they did they each smiled enthusiastically.
    “The granddaughter,” the oldest one said. I remembered her from my childhood visits. Maggie Sweeney, one of Eleanor’s dearest friends and a stern presence to a ten-year-old, and to me now. She looked the way old women used to look before they were running corporations and skydiving at eighty years old. She had gray hair pulled back in a bun and wore one of those Laura Ashley-style dresses, with a black floral print and a white lace collar. She had a warm face, though, and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen.
    “She is,” my grandmother said, and looked around the room with a warning. “And nobody give her a hard time.”
    The women nodded and smiled at me again.
    “Sit down,” said another, and someone took some fabric off a chair in the corner and moved the chair to the circle. The whole group inched closer to leave enough space for me to join them.
    I sat and tried to meet their smiles with my own. It was all very uncomfortable.
    “These are the girls,” Eleanor said with a sweep of her hand. “Except Nancy. She couldn’t come tonight.”
    “She’s missed a lot of meetings lately,” said one woman.
    “Well, I suppose she spends enough time at the shop as it is.”
    “Enough about who isn’t here. Let’s talk about who is,” Maggie said.
    “Hi, Mrs. Sweeney,” I said, “it’s nice to see you again.” Then I turned to the others. “I’m Nell.”
    “Everyone knows that, dear,” said a blonde with deep blue eyes and heavy makeup, who looked to be in her fifties. “Eleanor filled us in on all the details.”
    I shot an angry look toward my grandmother, who smiled at me innocently. The rest of the women seemed to be studying me, waiting for me to launch into a story or burst into tears or otherwise entertain them. Instead I sat with an idiotic smile on my face and an embarrassed look in my eyes, trying to feel less strange in a room full of strangers.
    “Leave her alone, Mom,” came a voice from the back. Finally, someone on my side. I turned to see a woman about my age coming up from the basement. “I’m Natalie. Don’t worry. They’re just excited to have a new recruit,” Natalie assured me. She was the picture of her mother, blond and blue-eyed, but Natalie wore no makeup at all, and she didn’t need to. “They won’t rest until every man, woman, and child knows how to quilt.”
    “Are you interested in quilting?” Maggie turned to me, suddenly excited.
    “She’s got talent but no discipline,” my grandmother offered. “I’ve tried to teach her.”
    “I was twelve,” I said in my own defense, then regretted it because I knew what was coming.
    “Well, if she has talent, then there’s hope,” said another woman who had been quiet up until then.
    “I don’t have a lot of time,” I said. A weak excuse, but something.
    The heavily made-up blonde answered with a dismissive wave. “You’re in,” she laughed. “And once you’re in, there’s no getting out. Unless you die.”
    They all laughed. I laughed a little too, but it was a nervous laugh.

CHAPTER 5
    For the next dizzying hour I was introduced and reintroduced and then