Threading the Needle by Marie Bostwick Read Free Book Online

what?”
    â€œTell them business was bad, make out like we can’t afford for you to take a little quilting class. We hardly know them!”
    â€œBut,” I puffed, “you said it first. ‘Things could be better.’ You said so yourself. You’re right, they could. What’s so terrible about saying so? I don’t know what you’re so upset about.”
    â€œBecause I don’t want you going around telling everybody our private business! Start saying things like that and next thing you know it’ll be all over town.”
    â€œThey wouldn’t do that. After all, they’re in the same boat. Every business in town is struggling.”
    â€œMaybe, but I still don’t like everybody knowing about our troubles, okay?”
    â€œOkay.” I shrugged. “Sorry.”
    Lee cut into his stack of cold pancakes. “It’s not like we’re destitute, you know. It’s not like I can’t take care of my family.”
    â€œLee Woodruff, what are you talking about? I never said anything of the kind! I never even implied it. All I meant was—”
    Eyes on his plate, he lifted his hand. “Let’s just not talk about it, okay?”
    Where had this come from? Lee and I have always shared everything from housework and child rearing to bill paying and bread-winning. Now he was acting like the responsibility for bringing home the family bacon rested on his shoulders alone. I didn’t get it. Then again, Lee was the one with the accounting degree. If he was so concerned about our financial situation, maybe I should be too.
    As if reading my thoughts, Lee looked up from his plate of pancakes and gave me an apologetic smile. “Don’t worry so much. We’ll figure it out.”
    â€œYou think?”
    â€œSure.” He raised his mug and clinked it against mine. “Happy anniversary, babe.”
    â€œHappy anniversary.”
    He smiled and gave me a look— the look. As always, my heart gave a lurch and my pulse raced. How does he do that?
    â€œSo,” he said casually, “think you might consider closing a little early today?”
    â€œWhy should I? Got something special in mind?”
    He grinned. “Yes, ma’am. Meet me in our bedroom at six and I’ll explain it to you in detail. Better yet, I’ll show you. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.”
    â€œA couple of hours? Oh my. Sounds like we might need some provisions. Want me to pick up a bottle of champagne on my way home?”
    He shook his head. “Already have one chilling in the refrigerator. Steaks too. I’m making dinner. That is, if you’ve got the energy to get out of bed and come to the table.”
    â€œAnd if I don’t?”
    â€œThen I guess I’ll just have to serve you in bed.”
    â€œThink that’s a good idea?” I asked. “Might lead to all kinds of things.”
    â€œIt’s a risk I’m willing to take,” he said, his eyes twinkling as he reached for my hand, turned it palm up, and brushed his lips over the soft flesh of my wrist.
    I blushed. Thirty-four years of marriage and he can still make me blush. It’s embarrassing. And wonderful.
    I leaned my head down and whispered in Lee’s ear, “I wish it were six already.”
    â€œMe too.”
    The café was nearly empty. I sipped the last of my coffee and watched Lee finish his breakfast, wondering, not for the first time, how I’d managed to land such a handsome husband and how he managed to get even better looking as the years passed.
    Behind the bakery counter, a waitress turned the radio to an AM news station.

    â€œAnd in national news, Eugene Janders, attorney for Sterling Baron, requested his client’s sentencing be postponed. Baron, who was convicted of masterminding a decades-long Ponzi scheme that bilked investors out of billions, could be sentenced to as many as one hundred years in