Till I Kissed You (6 page)

She turned back to the trio across the room. Ms. Martha wore a homemade jumper, T-shirt, and sandals. Her legs looked solid and strong, but she wasn't a spring chicken, for goodness' sake. Midfifties if Regan's math was correct. The path her thoughts tread was ridiculous. Outrageous.

No matter how strong Ms. Martha's legs were, she couldn't handle the crayfish baskets, and it had definitely been a man at her mother's house. The two men went out a side door to the alley behind the buildings, and Ms. Martha pivoted around. Had her gaze dropped to the canvas-covered gas can before meeting Regan's?

She was hyperaware of what was behind her and shuffled toward the door to the store. “I don't suppose it's any cooler in the store?”

“I'm sure it is. I've blocked most of the vents to the storeroom. Can't afford to cool it. You're looking a bit peaked. Come on through and let me get you some tea.” Ms. Martha patted her arm and opened up the door to the store. A poof of cool air enveloped them.

Her motherly manner, even though she had never married or bore children, set Regan's doubts to fluttering once more. Ms. Martha retreated down a small hallway, opened a small walk-in closet bursting with shelves of fabric, and retrieved a plastic pitcher from a small refrigerator tucked underneath.

The store was homey and welcoming. Cloth and machines crowded the floor, but chairs and a round table took up one corner for the ladies' quilting circle. A half-dozen magazines with names like
Quilting Today
and
A Stitch in Time
were spread on the table, the pages thumbed through and some ripped out entirely. Who knew there were so many magazines devoted to quilting?

Finished quilts hung along the walls. Regan fingered the closest one, sniffing the fabric. The cloth was old and held hints of cedar and pine, the thread along some of the panels unraveling. It brought to mind the log cabins and settlers in her history books from school. It was beautiful. Brown, red, and orange triangular pieces of different sizes gave the impression of the chaos of fall leaves, yet they had been hand-stitched together with an amazing precision.

“My great-grandmother sewed this one.”

Regan startled around. Ms. Martha stood slightly behind her, holding two glasses of tea and staring up at the quilt.

“It's beautiful.”

“It's a bear claw pattern. It tells escaping slaves to stay in the woods where the bear lives. This quilt isn't that old, of course, but quilts hold history. They tell a story if you're willing to listen.”

Regan took the glass of tea Ms. Martha offered and sipped. It was sweet and cold. “Are any of these yours?”

A huff that sounded distinctly ironic escaped Ms. Martha. “Actually, I don't quilt.”

“I assumed…” Regan gestured around them.

“Yes. Most people do. My mother was the quilter. The storyteller. This place is hers.” She ran her hand over the next quilt, the fabric whispering with the movement. Blue and pink circles interlocked on a cream background. “The wedding ring pattern. She made it for me, but I never had cause to use it.”

Regan couldn't put a name to the emotion in Ms. Martha's voice, but it was something her heart recognized. Regret? Longing? Sadness?

A companionable silence settled until Glen and Mr. Neely entered the building through the front door. Glen mopped sweat from his eyes with a red bandana.

“What's the verdict, gentlemen?” Regan's hand tensed around the glass, her fingers slipping over condensation.

“It's structural,” Glen said with an inappropriate glee and a smug smile.

She looked to Mr. Neely who nodded. Another set of responsibilities weighed on her.

“I don't have the capital to invest in repairs.” Ms. Martha set her glass down on a bolt of fabric, a wet ring forming on the light blue cloth.

“The building's not in danger of collapsing, but if you want to sell, it would affect your price for certain. Every seasonal expansion and contraction will grow the problem,” Mr. Neely said.

Ms. Martha turned to Regan. “Don't you see? I can't pay these taxes and fix that wall and stay in business. You want me gone, don't you?”

The understanding Regan sensed between them had vanished. Everyone's eyes were on her, and she felt like the Wicked Witch of the West. “Of course I don't want you gone. You have a lovely store, and you're a fixture in Cottonbloom. We can work something out.”

It took another few minutes of soothing reassurances from Mr. Neely that the crack wasn't an imminent danger before they stepped outside. Glen waved good-bye and headed to his truck muttering something about a hambone. She and Mr. Neely walked in the opposite direction side by side.

“Shouldn't the assessment people have noted that crack, Mr. Neely?”

“They're more focused on square footage than structural integrity. Anyway, most of them wouldn't have the background to recognize an issue. If they even scooted the bins away to look, they may have assumed the crack was confined to the brick façade.”

She rubbed a temple. “Every business owner is going to want another inspection based on this. What's your workload like this week? Can you help me out? I need someone I can trust, but more importantly, someone everyone can trust.”

He harrumphed at her not-so-subtle attempt to butter him up, but an uncommon half-smile turned his lips as he shuffled to a stop and pulled a smartphone out of a holster on his belt. He scrolled through it. “I have a few pockets of time. I'll jot you in.”

“Appreciate you,” Regan called as he walked across the street to his SUV. He gave a wave over his head as his answer.

She meandered back to her interior design studio. The studio was closed on Mondays, as were many of the shops. No customers would be breaking down her door, but she had plenty of work to do. She typically spent Mondays organizing for the week. Efficiency and organization were keys to her success. Fabric and paint swatches, pictures of furniture, gridded layout suggestions were gathered and presented after an initial consultation with a client.

Her studio seemed closed-in and stark after the jumble and roominess of the Quilting Bee. In her small office, she plugged room measurements into her design program, then moved a block that represented a couch around the grids.

The can of gasoline niggled at her. She pushed the mouse aside and pulled out the letter she'd received in June, not long after the assessments had taken place but before the pavilion had been torched. Letters cut from magazines and glued onto a plain white sheet of paper had been waiting in her mailbox at home.

S
TOP THE FESTIVALS.
O
R ELSE.

The second letter was much like the first, and she spread them out side by side. Its message seemed more ominous in light of recent events.

S
TOP THE TAXES.
O
R
YOU
WILL PAY
.

The first letter had struck her as adolescent and amateurish, as if a teenager had overheard his parents complaining and decided to do something about it. Monroe had told her to go to the police, but citizens aimed their ire at her on a regular basis. It came with the job.

She received texts and voice mails that could be construed as threatening. Things were said when passions got hot. She appreciated the fact people were as passionate about saving Cottonbloom as she was, even if their opinions on methods differed. Anyway, that first letter wasn't an arrestable offense.

The second letter, however, was more worrisome and pointed to a downtown business owner. Only one came to mind. Monroe already thought she was headed straight off the deep end because of the festival competition. If she presented her niggling theory about Ms. Martha, they might haul her to the nearest psychiatric ward.

There was only one person who was as crazy as she was. Sawyer Fournette could be counted on to either shore up or punch holes in her theory. She dawdled another hour, weighing the pros and cons.

He was the last man she should be going to for help of any sort, especially after their most recent run-ins. The sense of camaraderie and understanding building between them would lead to trouble.

He was dangerous. Not that she feared him. Just the opposite. His strength and care and general air of competency made him easy to lean on. But she couldn't afford to trust him. She'd blindly taken that road once and had stumbled back broken and destroyed.

Filled with a sense of inevitability, she locked up and slipped into her red VW Bug. She'd gotten the battery replaced so at least there wouldn't be an embarrassing repeat of the other night. She would duck in, get his opinion, and duck out.

When she saw that his truck was gone and his house deserted, she headed toward the garage he had set up with Cade to make Fournette Designs a family business. Although she hadn't been there, she'd heard enough about the venture from Monroe to know where to go.

She turned onto a recently blacktopped drive off the parish highway. It snaked through tall pines. Clearing the shadows, she emerged into bright sunshine and tapped the breaks. The size of the building jolted her. She expected a poky metal two-car garage. The two-story structure of cement block and corrugated metal was long enough to hold half a dozen cars easily. All the bay doors were closed, but both Sawyer's and Cade's trucks and a motorcycle sat out front.

She pulled in beside Sawyer's shiny black monster. She might've wondered if the size was in compensation for other shortcomings, but she was intimately aware of the fact Sawyer had nothing to compensate for.

She tried not to think of what he wasn't compensating for. The more she told herself not to think about it, the more she could think about nothing else. Like how the faint outline against his pajama bottoms had made her skin feel close to incineration. Or the startling sensation of him inside of her the first time they'd had sex.

Oh God, she had to stop her brain. Or her body. Or whatever was making her hot for Sawyer Fournette. Before she turned the car off, she jacked the AC to max and flapped her shirt to try to cool down. This was strictly about festival business.

She smoothed her hair back in its twist and checked her face in the rearview mirror. Flushed but only a little splotchy. Finally emerging from her car, she wobbled across a mixture of grass and gravel at the edge of the blacktop to a door that seemed small compared to the bay door.

She heard men's voices and a thumping sound of machinery. A knock would go unheard, so she cracked the door open and stuck her head inside. Wearing gray coveralls and rubbing the palm of one of his hands, Cade Fournette was staring at an engine that hung by chains from a steel beam. A blond man in grimy jeans and a blue T-shirt winched the engine higher. Sawyer was nowhere in sight, but the mechanical thumping sound continued.

She stepped fully onto the concrete floor of their garage. Cool air wafted around her. They'd had the huge space air-conditioned, and fans were mounted to provide crossflow. Everything was surprisingly clean, but then again, they'd only been in the space a matter of weeks.

The speed with which it had been constructed had been the talk of the town. Even her side. But then again, Cade Fournette had rolled back in town with money. Lots of it, if rumors could be trusted. Which generally they couldn't, but Monroe had let slip a few details that corroborated the whispers. Poor boy made good, indeed.

Although Sawyer had tried to keep his circumstances as hidden as possible, she'd gotten hints at how difficult his childhood had been after his parents had been killed by a drunk driver. She was happy for Cade, but even happier her best friend had found love.

“Hello.” Her voice echoed and took on a tentative quality in the space. Both men looked over at her. Cade didn't move, so she took a step forward. “I'm terribly sorry to interrupt. I'm looking for Sawyer. I saw his truck outside.” She thumbed over her shoulder and shifted on her feet.

Cade cleared his throat but didn't move. “Of course. We don't get too many visitors out here.”

Usually, Cade treated her as if she carried the plague, no matter that she was Monroe's best friend. But, surprise lightened his voice, and while she didn't exactly feel welcomed, he didn't seem inclined to toss her out either.

“I'm sorry to bust in, but it won't take long. Festival business.”

“Come on back to the break room. Sawyer's buttoning up an engine.” He led her to a stark room that was empty besides a dorm-sized refrigerator on the floor, a card table, and three metal folding chairs. “Wait here and let me get him. There's Cokes in the frig. Help yourself.”

She paced the room a few times. Uncertainty hammered away at her. What was she doing coming to the one man who wanted her festival to fail so he could win the competition? Maybe there was a back door she could slip out of without anyone being the wiser.

Before she could act, Sawyer blocked the doorway, tugging off black gloves. She took a step backward and swallowed past a huge lump. Her gaze roved despite instructions to stay on his face.

The top half of his gray coveralls had been stripped off, the sleeves tied around his waist to keep them from falling to his ankles. A tight white undershirt was streaked with black grease. His hair was a disheveled mess, his stubble classifying as a beard. She'd never entertained erotic fantasies about a mechanic, but that would change tonight.

His gaze seemed to be drifting up and down her body as well, and she shifted on her heels. He stepped closer. Was he going to back her up against the card table? Was he going to lift her on top and push her legs apart? She wasn't sure whether warnings to flee or entreaties to stay were making her stomach hop like a bullfrog on crack. She pulled in a sharp breath.

He bypassed her by a good three feet and squatted in front of the mini-frig. “You want something to drink?”

“Sure. Okay.” Her voice cracked like an adolescent boy's. Litanies to God and Jesus went on repeat in her head. She even threw in a few to Mary. Surely a woman would understand her plight. The curve of his butt in the coveralls was not helping. Did he have on anything underneath them? He rose and her gaze followed.