Once Upon a Craft Shop, page 17
part #1 of Craft Shop Mysteries Series
I was about to ask her how long she’d been here in Starhaven when the door jingled, and a familiar figure slipped into the shop.
My eyes widened. “Bianca! What are you doing here? It’s the middle of the afternoon!”
Chapter
Thirty-Five
Bianca’s rosy lips curled in a mischievous grin. “I’m sneaking out.” She tipped her head toward the antique shop up the street. “Dave is busy with a call, and he can’t stop to yell at me.” Her grin widened, completely unrepentant.
Once again, I marveled at the relationship those two had. Dave seemed to have so much control over her, and at the same time, none at all.
“Besides,” Bianca pulled a plastic container of food from the large tote slung over her shoulder. It was glossy black, with pink sparkles, “I’m taking a late lunch. He can’t complain about that.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “He can’t complain about where you go to take your lunch? Are you sure? Given his boycott of my shop?”
Bianca just laughed as she strode toward us. “He can complain all he likes, but he can’t dictate where I go to lunch.” Her smile softened. “Besides, he’s only trying to help to protect me.”
“Protect you from what?” I gestured to the inside of my shop. “Marauding bolts of fabric, manic knitting needles?”
Bianca laughed, but there was a shadow behind her blue eyes. “Something like that.” She glanced from me to Zel and back. “So…I know I’m inviting myself in, but can anybody join this mini club of yours?”
Zel and I both shared an excited smile and then I beamed at Bianca. “Sure! We’d love to have you. That would be awesome.” A dour thought threatened to burst my bubble and I eyed her dubiously. “Are you sure it’s going to work with your schedule?”
Bianca just brandished her container of food. “Late lunch, remember?”
“Well, if you’re sure.” I canted my head to one side. “Can you manage eating lunch that late? I get hungry. I don’t know that I could skip lunch and eat at three PM. Not unless I was slammed.”
I glanced around the shop with a self-deprecating smile. Obviously, I have not been that busy.
Bianca just grinned and waved a careless hand. “Oh, I always bring snacks to work with me. I’m not worried about that.”
“Okay, then.” I nodded to Zel. “Have you met Zel?”
“Oh, yes.” Bianca gifted Zel with a warm smile. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Zel returned her smile. “Me too.”
I went to the back room to fetch another chair, and Bianca joined us in a little circle. She cooed over the babies, before settling down on her chair.
Zel leaned over to peer into her tote bag. “What are you making?”
“Oh, socks.” Bianca pulled out a half-finished striped teal and blue sock. “I like making socks. There’s something very comforting about going round and round in circles.” She said this with a tongue-in-cheek smile, and Zel and I both laughed.
“Seriously, though,” Bianca said. “I really do love socks. My next project, once I master these, is fingerless gloves. I want a pair. I think Dave could use a pair too.”
I brightened. “Oh, those are fun. I have a pattern that I like if you’re interested, although there are lots to choose from. But this one uses a fingering weight yarn, and they aren’t as bulky.”
“Wool yarn?” Bianca eyed me with interest.
“Yes.” I nodded. “They’re quite warm, just not bulky.”
“Ooh.” Bianca brightened. ““That would be good. I think we could use that.”
The three of us knit in companionable silence for a little while, the only sounds the clicking of our knitting needles and the soft music playing over my Bluetooth speaker.
After a moment, I glanced over at Bianca. “I was about to ask Zel this, but how long have you lived in Starhaven, anyway?”
Bianca actually stopped knitting halfway through a stitch. Her forehead crinkled in a frown, as though she was trying to remember. “Not long in the grand scheme of things. Just a couple of years. I think,” she added vaguely.
“Where did you live before here?” I finished a row and switched needles to begin the next row. “I came from Louisville, but where did you come from?”
“Oh, I don’t think you would have heard of it.” Smiling, Bianca shrugged easily. “It’s a really small town in Nebraska.”
Any other day, I’d have smiled and nodded. But…coming right on the heels of my conversation with Zel, my internal alarm bells went off. Unbidden, my gaze flicked to Zel, who was studiously bent over her own knitting.
The hair on the back of my neck prickled uncomfortably. What were the odds of Zel and Bianca both being from a small town neither of them wanted to talk about? What was up with this?
I bent my head over my own knitting as a crazy thought occurred to me. Maybe they were both part of the witness protection program.
Almost immediately though, I had to rethink that. Biting my lip, I considered the fact that the witness protection program probably didn’t put witnesses in the same general vicinity. It would be an odd way to operate if people knew that someone else around them was also in the witness protection program.
Maybe I’m just crazy, I told myself. But at the same time…I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was not right here.
I looked up as Bianca set her knitting aside and fished out a fork from a side pocket of her tote. She opened her plastic container of food. “Anybody want some?”
She’d brought some sort of chicken pasta with vegetables that looked absolutely delicious and smelled even better. Zel and I both shook our heads. It might smell amazing, but we didn’t want to literally eat her lunch.
Bianca glanced at me as she took her first bite. “Do you have family in Louisville?”
I sighed. Turnabout was fair play. I braved a smile.
“In a matter of speaking. Technically, my dad still lives there, but he’s never home.” I went on to explain that my parents were divorced and I was an only child. And that of my parents, one had been an only child and the other had been the older of two. So my extended family was quite small.
Bianca nodded slowly, an expression of sympathy crossing her face. “So you are here without much family either.”
I shrugged, glancing back down at my own knitting. For some reason, the topic made me uncomfortable. Either they were rubbing off on me or maybe the lack of having a large family bothered me more than I was willing to admit.
“Sometimes.” I shrugged. “But I think if I had had a large family, it would have been harder to leave Louisville and come here and start my craft shop.” I smiled at both women, waving a hand to my store. “And this really has been a dream of mine.”
“Do you want to go back to Louisville in the future?” Bianca asked me in between bites of her pasta.
I started to say no, but stopped, considering. “No,” I said at last. “There are things I love about that city, but I think I will do just as well here.” I grinned at them. “After all, I’ve met both of you. I can’t say I have a lot of good friends at home. They’ve all moved away, or gotten married and had families and they’re too busy to spend much time with anyone else. Not for lack of wanting to, but just because life’s busy and a lot goes on in a day, especially if you have kids.”
They both nodded emphatically.
“This is true.” Zel smiled, one hand reaching up to tuck a lock of golden hair behind her ear. Her fingers still slipped through it like she hadn’t gotten used to it being shorter. “There are times I wonder what I did with myself before I had children.”
Bianca gave her a sympathetic look, which I caught out of the corner of my eye. It was the sort of look that said Bianca related to her, or that she understood what she had been through. Which in turn told me that Bianca and Zel were more than just casual acquaintances.
Keeping my voice light, I asked, “How do you two know each other?”
Bianca and Zel exchanged smiles. “Maddie,” they said together with a laugh.
Maddie. Of course.
I matched their smiles. “All roads in Starhaven lead to Maddie, apparently.”
“She takes her job as town facilitator very seriously.” Bianca’s grin turned impish, highlighting a dimple in one cheek.
Well, that just brought up more questions in my mind, but the odds of Maddie actually answering some of them was probably slim to none. My fingers stilled on my knitting needles as another thought lanced through my brain. Did either Bianca or Zel know about Agnes?
Was it possible there were more brownies in Starhaven?
My heart started thudding in my chest and my mouth went a little dry. I took a breath, intending to casually ask if either of them had ever seen a brownie in Starhaven…but at the last second I chickened out. I knew I wasn’t crazy, but asking a question like that would definitely make it sound like I was.
I didn’t know what to do. So, instead, I drank my frappe and worked on my dishcloth, knitting stitch after stitch and trying to quiet the questions running rampant in my mind.
Chapter
Thirty-Six
The rest of the week passed uneventfully. On Sunday, I visited a church on the other side of town (I’d been making the rounds since I arrived in Starhaven) and took the time to fix myself a good lunch. I baked a couple of hamburgers in the oven and made a batch of my favorite pasta salad with garden rotini, balsamic vinaigrette dressing, and a bunch of delicious veggies.
I even spent an hour working on a pair of fingerless gloves I’d decided to knit on the weekends. Dark heather gray, with little squares of bright purple. They’d come in handy when fall arrived and the weather grew colder.
The cat curled up on the back of the couch beside me while I knitted the ribbing on the second glove. I’d named her Sassy, on account of the way she’d showed up at my apartment and taken over. Her quiet purrs accompanied the steady click-clack of my knitting needles as I repeated the knit one, purl one pattern around and around in endless circles.
Part of me felt at loose ends. I enjoyed spending my days in my craft shop so much that I almost didn’t know what to do with myself on my day off. And I’d decided from the start that I wasn’t going to be open on Sundays. Whether I felt like it initially or not, I figured it was a good idea to build in a little breathing room for myself.
Business would grow, and eventually I really would need a day to myself.
At the moment, though, the only downside to this plan was that I didn’t have enough friends in Starhaven yet to have concrete weekend plans.
After a few moments of indecision, I decided to treat myself to some iced coffee from the coffee shop and take a walk around the Square to peruse more of the shops I hadn’t had time to visit yet. Starting with the bookshop on the other side of the Square, opposite the library.
Frankly, I was impressed that Starhaven was big enough to boast both a public library and a bookshop, and I hadn’t had time to visit either of them yet.
The idea filled me with excitement. As far as I’m concerned, bookshops rate just under craft stores and libraries. I love libraries—they’re fantastic and I couldn’t tell you how many books I’ve checked out from the Louisville Public Library over the years—but there are some books you just have to own yourself.
And while I don’t mind shopping online, there’s something to be said for being able to pick books up and hold them.
It didn’t take long to stow my half-finished glove back in my knitting bag and grab my purse. Sassy opened one eye long enough to watch me go, and then promptly went back to sleep. Clearly, I was not that interesting.
The coffee shop was reasonably busy, but not too crazy. I bought a small iced coffee and then emerged back into the bright golden September sunshine. It was cooler now than it had been a few weeks ago, but still warm enough that you didn’t need a jacket.
I was grateful for that. I love the long, slow slide from summer into fall that we usually have here in Kentucky. It’s harder the years when the weather does strange things and we have an abrupt transition from warm to cold.
Sipping my coffee, I strolled along the Square, passing Black Forest Antiques on the corner and taking the crosswalk to the other side of the Square. I eagerly scanned the signs above the line of shops, searching for the bookshop.
There it was, nestled between a shoe store and a cake shop. Thornfire Books. I’d never heard of them before—probably a local owner instead of a larger chain.
Excitement lent wings to my feet as I hurried toward it. This was an interesting location, but as I’d already learned, when one runs a business sometimes one can’t be particularly choosy about locations.
Besides, the cake shop was probably a better neighbor for the bookstore than the smoke shop.
An obligatory little bell above the door tinkled as I stepped inside and inhaled that beautiful, wonderful smell of ink and paper that permeated every bookstore I’d ever visited. The floor beneath my feet was the same polished hardwood as the floor in my craft shop and many of the other old buildings around the Square. Sunlight poured in through a wide plate glass window, but the shelves of books and racks of books had been carefully arranged to prevent sunlight from reaching the books directly.
Clutching my half-empty coffee cup, I began wandering through the shop, glancing at books and shelves and searching for, well, I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for. Maybe a new release from one of my favorite authors. Or maybe just a new book whose cover caught my eye.
I read a wide variety of genres, so I was always on the lookout for new books.
Maybe they have a craft section. My eyes brightened at the thought. If they did, I could see what they had in terms of knitting, crocheting, or quilting.
I had a nascent idea of teaching a quilting class, but I didn’t have many books on it. It was too early to launch that, of course, but I could plan it for this winter or perhaps next spring.
Thornfire Books did have a craft section, though it was fairly small. I trailed my finger along the spines of a row of books on knitting, trying to determine which ones might help me teach better.
“Excuse me,” said a deep, gruff voice from behind me.
I was so absorbed in my thoughts that the sound of that voice just about scared the tar out of me. I jumped, one hand flying to my chest, and nearly dropped my coffee cup.
Whirling around, I found a tall man with unruly dark hair and the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen in a human being. He wore gray slacks and a dark blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He’d have been handsome, if it weren’t for the black scowl on his face.
“You can’t have that in here.” He nodded toward my cup, glaring at me. “Didn’t you see the sign?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door.
It was only then that I saw a sign mounted by the front door. In large letters, it read: NO OUTSIDE FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED.
“Oh,” I said quickly, though my heart was still hammering in my chest. “I’m sorry. I did not see that when I came in.”
The man just continued to glare at me, as though he found that excuse unacceptable.
My mouth went a little dry, but I swallowed and forced myself to smile at him. He was either the owner or an employee, even though he wasn’t wearing a name tag. “Hi. I’m Celia O’Malley.” I held out a hand. “I own the craft shop that just opened up on the other side of the Square.”
The man glanced from me to my hand and made a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. “Got a trash can over by the checkout counter. Use it.”
And then he walked off. leaving me standing there by myself.
My jaw dropped. Wow. Who is that guy?
If he was an employee…did his boss know how terrible he was on the customer service front? I shook my head as I turned, not toward the trash can, but toward the exit. No doubt his boss got plenty of complaints about him.
But if he was the owner…how in the world was he still in business?
A niggle of compassion worked its way through the indignant outrage coursing through me. Maybe he’s just having a bad day.
I could relate to that. Some days are just tough, regardless.
But then I shook my head. He works in customer service. Even if he has a bad day, he still has to try to be polite.
That’s probably one of the most challenging things about the service industry—being polite and professional about everything while dealing with the general public. (The law firm I’d worked for was not exempt from this—there were clients whose phone calls I dreaded having to take.)
Making a mental note to come back to the bookshop on another day, I walked out. I didn’t blame Thornfire Books for their policy—I can’t say I particularly want people wandering around my shop with food and drinks either.
But I really hadn’t seen the sign.
Oh, well, I thought, taking another sip of my coffee as I ventured into the cake shop instead. Just chalk it up to another experience in my slightly bumpy history here at Starhaven so far.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
Business continued to pick up over the next few days, which was encouraging. On Wednesday, it was such a gorgeous day—bright and a little cooler than it had been—that when I closed the shop for lunch, I decided to eat at the park.
Settling onto a park bench not far from the playground, I tipped my face up to the sky, closing my eyes and basking in the warm sunshine on my face. I breathed in the scent of fresh-mown grass and couldn’t help but smile. It was moments like this that made me so grateful I’d been able to leave my old job and come to Starhaven.
Opening up my lunch bag, I pulled out a turkey sandwich, a small bag of tortilla chips, and a little glass container of salsa. My stomach gave an appreciative rumble. I don’t know if it was the cooler air or what, but I was hungry today.
Just as I unwrapped my sandwich, I caught sight of a familiar figure strolling along the sidewalk leading past the park. It was Maddie, and with her was…
