The Sweetgum Ladies Knit for Love (36 page)

Camille laughed. “Yeah. I may be the oldest freshman on record.”

“I don’t know.” Maria looked at the tabletop, studying her flatware intensely.

“You’d be doing me a favor.”

Maria shook her head. “Not really.” Now her eyes were blinking back tears, Camille saw. “Look, I couldn’t afford to pay any rent. We’re barely making ends meet as it is, living above the store.”

“I don’t want rent. I want someone who’ll look after things, take care of them.” She paused, trying to get the words past the lump in her throat. “Even though I’m leaving Sweetgum, that house is still my home.”

“Are you sure?” Maria looked at her with cautious optimism. “We’d pay the utilities, things like that.”

“We’ll work something out.” Camille wasn’t concerned about minor issues like gas or water bills. “It would only be for the time I’m in college. I’m not sure what I’ll do after that.”

“Of course.” Maria reached across the table and laid her hand on top of Camille’s. “You don’t have to do this though. My family, we’ll get by. You should find someone who can pay you—”

“You can’t buy family.” Camille smiled at the other woman, willing her to understand. “Now that my mom’s gone, the Knit Lit Society’s the only family I have left. Please say you’ll do it.”

Maria nodded. “Of course we will. You’re being far too generous.”

“No. Just practical.”

“When will you leave for Murfreesboro?”

“In early May.”

“We can manage over the store until then.” Maria paused. “When are you going to tell Dante?”

“Soon,” Camille said. “As soon as I get my courage up, anyway.”

“It’s a shame that you two found each other right when you finally get a chance to follow your dream.”

“A shame?” Camille laughed, wishing it didn’t sound so bitter. “No, I just think God has a sick sense of humor.”

“You’re sure you don’t want to stay?”

“I can’t.” Camille was as sure of that as she was of her own name. “I just can’t.”

“It will be okay.” Maria squeezed her hand. “I’m sure it will. Maybe you can have a long-distance relationship.”

Camille wished she felt a tenth as optimistic as Maria
seemed to be. “No. When I leave Sweetgum, I don’t want to still be tied to it. Otherwise, what would be the point?”

“You’re really sure?” Maria asked.

Camille nodded. She was very, very sure, and it was breaking her heart.

Maria stared through the plate-glass window of the five-and-dime at the gray day. The sky hung low and heavy, as if threatening a rare March snowfall. Well, that was one advantage to living above the store. She never had to worry about getting to and from work during bad weather. Soon, though, she and her family would be in a house once more. Maria smiled, the thought of Camille St. Clair’s generosity warming her despite the chill in the air. She’d never imagined when Eugenie Carson invited her to join the Knit Lit Society that it would turn out to be such a saving grace.

Her mother had been pleased at the prospective arrangement, if a bit critical of the location of their home-to-be. She would have preferred something in Esther Jackson’s neighborhood to the modest bungalows along Camille’s street. Daphne had been delighted, of course, and even Stephanie had shown
some maturity for once. She’d stopped by Maxine’s Dress Shop to thank Camille in person. Maria had been astonished at the news. Perhaps her younger sister wasn’t a complete disaster.

Maria looked down at the counter in front of her. Business had been slow that day mostly due to the weather, so she’d settled on a stool behind the register and alternated reading for the Knit Lit Society with working on the assigned knitting project for
Pride and Prejudice.
The subtle pattern of the moss stitch looked sufficiently old fashioned to have been worn by the Bennett sisters. After much thought, Maria had decided on a pair of stockings. Well, more like socks, really. But the double challenge of the stitch and the sock ought to keep her mind off her troubles for a while.

The bell over the door, the one she’d installed right before Christmas, jangled, and a
whoosh
of cold air filled the store. Maria set her book on the counter and looked up. She froze. Not from the cold but from the sight of the man standing ten feet away from her.

“Hello.” James Delevan was as tall, handsome, and arrogant-looking as ever.

“Hello.” She didn’t trust herself to say anything more.

He unwrapped a navy blue scarf from around his neck, then tucked it into the pocket of his dark wool overcoat. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Could their conversation be any more stilted? “How are you?”

“Fine.” He stepped forward, then stopped. “Actually, that’s a lie. I’m not fine.” His eyes, as indecipherable as ever, seemed to pin her to the stool where she sat.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she lied. After that last evening, when he’d taken her to Tallulah’s and then later expressed his regret at having kissed her, as well as the pity he felt for her, she’d imagined a thousand torturous endings for him, even though she knew her humiliation had been her own fault. Why had she ever imagined a man like James Delevan would be interested in her?

“Are you really sorry to hear that?” He took a step closer. “After what I said the last time… Well, I thought you’d be happy to see me miserable.”

She certainly would be, but she wasn’t about to admit it to him. After their last encounter, she’d learned her lesson. She would not show that kind of weakness again.

“I guess I haven’t given you much thought.” She flipped her book closed. He moved forward again and looked at the cover.

“Pride and Prejudice?”
He raised one eyebrow, which immediately put Maria on the defensive.

“What of it?” As if he had any right to criticize her reading material. “It’s for my book club.”

“And the knitting?” He eyed the half-finished pale blue sock that hung from a circle of double-pointed needles.

“It goes with the book.” She wished her cheeks wouldn’t redden, but even she could see how hokey that was, knitting
something to go with the selected title. With one hand she scooped up her yarn and needles, and with the other she snatched the book from the counter. She shoved all of it into the basket at her feet. “Did you need something today? Pens, maybe?” she asked, hoping to remind him of his boorish behavior the first time he’d come into the store.

“I came to talk to you.”

“I can’t imagine what about.”

“I owe you an explanation.” He took another step toward her, and Maria was thankful for the width of the counter between them. Whenever James Delevan came too close, she behaved like an idiot. Better to keep him at arm’s length.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

“I intended to stay away. To avoid Sweetgum at all costs.”

He would certainly never be known for his flattery, Maria thought with a wisp of a smile. Despite the pounding of her heart, she could see the humor in the situation.

“So why did you come back?”

“Like I said, I have something to tell you.”

“I can’t imagine what you could say to me that would be worth the drive from Memphis.”

He slipped off his overcoat and laid it over the counter. The movement stirred the air, and Maria caught the clean, crisp scent of his aftershave. It was as no-nonsense, and as attractive, as he was.

“You’re the hardest woman to read I’ve ever met.”

“That’s a laugh coming from you, the king of inscrutable.”

He sighed. “I lied to you.” His gaze caught hers. “I lied to you about something very important.”

“Look, James, I barely know you. Whatever you were untruthful about, I’m sure it doesn’t matter. And it certainly didn’t merit a trip from Memphis.”

“My sister’s dead.”

The words didn’t make sense at first, and she looked at him in confusion. “I’m sorry?”

“I lied to you at Christmas when I said my sister was skiing with friends. That she was at boarding school.” His voice broke, jagged as glass and raw as the March wind. He wasn’t inscrutable now. Grief etched his face in deep lines, around his eyes, across his forehead. Maria had no idea what to say.

She said the first thing that popped into her mind. “Why did you lie about that? Why would you need to?”

He looked away. “I didn’t want your pity.” He paused, then turned back to her. “I didn’t want anyone’s pity.”

“What makes you think I would have pitied you?” Of all the things he might have said to her, this admission was the last thing she would have expected.

“Because you have a good heart. Because you recently lost your father, your home. You know about grief.” His voice wavered on the last words before he caught himself, stood up straighter, and banished the emotion from his voice. “That night we ate at Tallulah’s, after I kissed you, you thought I was going to say I paid attention to you because I felt sorry for you.”

“I didn’t—”

“You did. And I let you think that. I walked away and left you believing that was my motive.” He moved to the side and stepped around the end of the counter. Two short steps, and he stood directly in front of her. Her heart pounded as ferociously now as it had the last time he’d been so close.

“I don’t understand.” She wasn’t sure whether the conversation or his nearness scrambled her brain more.

“That night, I wasn’t going to say I felt sorry for you.”

“You weren’t?”

“No. I was going to say that I kissed you because I felt sorry for myself.”

“Oh. Well, that makes me feel much better. Better to be the nearest warm body than an object of pity.” If he’d wanted to offend her on purpose, he hardly could’ve been more effective.

“No.” He clasped her upper arms with his hands and drew her toward him. “I wanted to say I felt sorry for myself… except when I was with you.”

Maria hadn’t seen that coming. “But—”

“Why do you think I stayed in Sweetgum so long? I used every trick in the book to keep running into you.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe—”

“You should. You should believe it.” His hands moved upward, skimming her shoulders, and then cupped her face. “My sister, Kimmy died in a car wreck last summer.” Sheer emotion twisted his features. “I didn’t think I’d ever feel anything but grief again. Never. Until the day I walked into this
store. I behaved like a jackass that day, and you let me know it. You looked at me as if I was a bug you should squash under your shoe.” He leaned down, ever closer. “You irritated me. You challenged me.” His lips were a breath away from hers. “You made me feel something again.”

“James—”

“No. Don’t say anything. Please.”

Her heart raced so fast she thought it might explode.

“Just kiss me,” he said.

Maria wanted to, more than anything, but she was too fragile to risk her heart on a man as difficult and withholding as James Delevan.

“I can’t.” With one quick move, she pulled free and stepped back, bumping into the display shelves behind her. “I’m sorry about your sister. I don’t know exactly what that’s like, to lose a sibling, but I’ve done enough grieving in these last months to know a little about loss.” She kept moving backward, intent on putting distance between them. “But I can’t—”

“Why not?” His expression turned thunderous, as black as his hair. “Fine. Punish me for being an idiot. Just tell me how long I have to suffer before you’re satisfied.”

Maria’s mouth fell open in shock. “That’s what you think of me? That I’m the kind of woman who would enjoy seeing you suffer?”

“I wouldn’t have thought that until now.”

“You are the most arrogant man I’ve ever met.” The pinpricks
of guilt that had stung her disappeared. “Not everything is about
you
, James Delevan. I know that may be a hard concept for you to grasp, but other people have actual lives, actual problems.”

“I know that,” he snapped back. “Give me a little credit.”

“What do you want from me?” she demanded. “Other than to soothe your grief?”

He ran a hand through his hair, causing it to stand on end. Finally, James Delevan looked less than perfect. She should have found more satisfaction in the sight than she did.

“I want—” He broke off, shaking his head in exasperation. “I don’t want anything
from
you,” he said. “I just want
you.
To be near you, with you. To talk to you as much as possible.” The last words came out in a whoosh of breath, leaving him almost gasping for air.