“Oh, I know you call it a yarn store over here,” she says, catching my smile, and I grin a little. I like her. “My friend Ami has a wool shop in Oxford. The Yarn Barn. She’s from over here and has taught me all the differences.
“Well t-thank you for being kind about my store,” I say as I ring up her purchases. I’m curious to know how she’s friends with Mrs. Fisher, but that’s small-town curiosity and I’m not falling for it.
“How was the reunion?” Mrs. Fisher asks, catching me off guard.
“W-well, you know,” I say evasively as I don’t know how to answer her. “It was a chance to c-catch up with people I haven’t seen in a long t-time.”
“I can imagine it was. I know Reece enjoyed himself.”
I look for any sign that Reece might have said anything about me but I detect none. But that he’s been mentioned ruins my thoughts of getting my life back to normal. Not that it is going very well, but I am determined to try.
“That’s good, then,” I say, trying to keep my tone neutral.
“He’ll be sorry he missed you,” she adds.
Missed me? Was he planning on coming here? I glance toward the door as if he’s going to appear any minute, not sure if I’m ready to face him right now.
“W-why?” I find myself asking.
“Oh, he had to go back to England.”
Oh! He’s gone?
Now that I know he’s not going to walk through the door, that he’s not even in the country, suddenly I want him to. I want to see him again. It’s irrational, that much I know, because I should stay away from him. And yet, now he’s gone, anxiety starts to make my stomach roil and nausea rises.
“I-I d-didn’t k-know he was going b-back so soon,” I spit out.
“He didn’t plan to. It was a problem at work that he has to sort out in person. He said his client was very important.”
“Oh.”
“But he said he’ll be back by the weekend,” she says brightly.
Two customers enter the store.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it.” She and Marina say their goodbyes and leave. The news that he’s coming back only slightly eases thegreasy sea sloshing in my belly. That he has clients important enough he can drop everything and fly off to meet them only serves to remind me of how we live in completely different worlds. He has an amazing and successful business and I just run a yarn store. It shouldn’t matter to me at all, but it does. Too much.
I quickly serve the customers, and when they’ve left I flip the closed sign and stick up a “back in five minutes” notice. I go through to the back room and drink some water to settle my stomach, and I catch sight of my reflection in the mirror. My scruffy hair is an unattractive red-brown, and my beard is in need of a trim. I look tatty and worn. Not someone with sharp suits and probably millionaire clients would even look twice at. Even if he did want to dance with me.
I shouldn’t even contemplate such thoughts about him after what he did, but Clara’s words come back to me. Damn, she’s right, I do still have a crush on Reece Fisher, and it’s even worse than before. He might want to make it up to me but he would never be interested in me.
I sigh at my reflection. I just need to get over him and focus on my future. Maybe it’d be better if he did stay in England and didn’t return. It would definitely be better for me.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Reece
It’s mid-afternoon on Friday when I make it back to my mom’s house. I’m tired and drained so all I want to do is rest. The meeting with Chase went well. Hartley had thoroughly read the report and was able to brief me on a call while I drove from the airport to my house, where I took a quick shower so I’d be fresh for the meeting. I didn’t lie to Chase, as that creates mistrust in the client relationship, and the property he bought is in a worse state of repair than he thought. But it’s not quite the crumbling pile of bricks he imagined after reading the report. Between the surveyor, Hartley’s expertise in buildings, and my calmness and experience, we were able to reassure him that it’ll still support his vision. But there does need to be some structural work done first. I think I even managed to get him to believe it was a benefit to the country and history for him to take on the property and preserve it, as so many old buildings have been lost because they haven’t had a benefactor. It’ll be a few weeks before the new plans are drawn up, so I was able to reschedule the contractorsand place preorders for some of the materials so the timeline doesn’t slip too much.
I also managed to catch up with Nolan and make sure everything else is running smoothly in the office. But as soon as the crisis was over, the only thought on my mind was getting back to Gomillion, and as I flew over the Atlantic all I could think about was what I plan to do next about Holden.
By Saturday I feel refreshed, and I know I want to see him and take it from there. I’m hoping he’ll let me invite him out to dinner, it’ll be easier than trying to talk to him in his store, which isn’t fair on him or his customers. No, somewhere neutral is best, and public so he needn’t feel threatened if being alone with me is a problem.
But first I want to talk to my mom and come clean to her. I track her down in what she calls her sewing room. Although my mom does a lot of knitting—mostly blankets, cushions, and even toys rather than clothes—she also sews, making beautiful quilts, some communally but a lot of them on her own, which she gifts or sells for charity. I haven’t set foot in her sewing room for twenty years, but it doesn’t look much different, maybe a little more storage and a newer sewing machine. It still has a large table for laying her patterns out on and a couple of comfortable chairs at one end. She’s sitting in one of them, pinning together small pieces of fabric in different patterns.
“Hi, honey.” She greets me as I enter and sit next to her in the other chair.
“Hi, Mom.”
