How to Knit a Love Song by Rachael Herron Read Free Book Online Page B

in.”
    “Thanks.”
    “Yup.”
    Cade didn’t know what he’d do without Tom. Of course, he’d never tell him that, not outright. If he did, if he had ever expressed how grateful he was to Tom, Tom would have laughed his ass off. They didn’t talk like that. Didn’t work that way.
    But they didn’t have to.
    “So the girl’s in.”
    “She is.”
    “What did Eliza actually leave her?”
    “The cottage.”
    “You got the land it’s on?”
    “She got that too.”
    Tom whistled. “Hot damn. You got screwed.”
    “Yep. It’s punishment, I think. For that fight we had.”
    “About how you date too much?”
    “It wasn’t the dating she minded.”
    “What did she call it again? Catting around?” Tom grinned.
    “I don’t cat around. That was crap.”
    “If you say so. So that girl over at the house, what’s her name?”
    “Abigail Durant.”
    “Sounds fancy.”
    “City girl.”
    “I saw the truck. Silly little thing.”
    Cade nodded. “That’s what I said! She didn’t like it much.”
    Tom sat in the brown fabric armchair that had seen perhaps a little too much use and kicked up his feet on the desk.
    “She’s pretty, though,” said Tom. “If I can trust what I saw at a distance this morning.”
    “Not my type.”
    “Since when is pretty not your type?”
    “Since pretty moved into my house,” said Cade.
    “I can see the problem.”
    “Yeah.”
    “She didn’t move into my house,” Tom said with a lecherous grin.
    “You stay out of it. Do not flirt with her. You’re too old. I’ll have to shoot you to put you out of your misery.”
    “I’m only four years older than you. Jealous? You know she’d want me.”
    “You’d have to shower more than twice a year, probably.”
    “With the water shortage and global warming? Not a chance. She’d have to take me as I am.”
    “Forget it. No, she’s going to stay in the house with me until the cottage is fixed up and livable.”
    “You better get to work on the cottage then, boy.”
    “Not my job, it’s hers,” said Cade.
    “You have any idea what’s in all those boxes yet?”
    “Old newspapers.”
    “I smell a bonfire in our future.”
    The thought of it cheered Cade a little. “A big bonfire,” he agreed. “With food.”
    “And whiskey.” Tom leaned back in the chair and nodded. Then he said, “What I don’t get is why it’s happening like this. Eliza worshipped you. This doesn’t sound like her. Are we sure that gal isn’t playing you? Are we sure she really knew Eliza?”
    “I wondered that, originally, but I remember Aunt Eliza talking about an Abigail that was helping take care of her, who knitted with her. I guess I assumed that Abigail was about ninety and toothless. I never figured she’d have a young friend like that, even though if anyone would, it would be Eliza.”
    “She was something.”
    Cade nodded. “She always had that knitting in her hands, always with the spinning wheel somewhere nearby.”
    “Or that thing, what did she call it? The dropping thing?”
    “Her drop spindle.” Cade raised his pant leg to display blue-green socks sticking up over his boot top. “These are the warmest, softest socks I ever had. I saw her spinning the yarn for it on that spindle while she read a knitting magazine and cooked chili all at the same time.” Cade picked up a pencil and put it down again. “We never got into that whole yarn thing. That’s why she left, I think. To get closer to the knitters.”
    “But we raised her sheep.”
    “I know, and she got first pick of the fleece before we sold the rest.”
    Tom said, “She was crazy about the fleece.”
    “Even though it sold for just about nothing.” Cade paused. “But she took me in when I wanted to make a real go of it. She let me figure out my ass from my elbow.” He cleared his throat. “She believed in me.”
    “So did I,” said Tom. “Don’t I get a medal for it, too?”
    “You get a kick in the ass.”
    “You gonna buy the property back