Loves Me, Loves Me Knot

Knit 13

Jenna sauntered into the barn, her eyes automatically adjusting to the building’s dim interior. She tipped her head, listening for sounds of Gage and where he might be. A scraping noise from the rear of the barn drew her in that direction, and she realized he was doing a quick cleanup of the stalls before the alpacas were brought in for the night.

Tipping her head around the corner, she saw him working. His broad back. His strong, bare forearms and wide upper arms covered by snug black cotton. His long, denim-clad legs leading down to a pair of black leather boots.

She thought about making her presence known, knew she should offer to help… but it was such an attractive sight, she wanted to just sit back and watch. He was better than television.

Wandering over to a stack of hay bales in the center of the open barn floor, she sat down and waited for him to finish. A couple of her aunt’s cats-all rescued, and all spayed or neutered because Charlotte didn’t believe in adding to the animal overpopulation problem-came over to beg for attention, and Jenna happily stroked their bellies and behind their ears, sending them into choruses of loud, ecstatic purrs.

Several minutes later, Gage appeared in the doorway of the stall he’d been cleaning, leaning his shovel against the wall and his shoulder against the doorjamb.

“Looks like I’m not the only one who enjoys spending time in your lap,” he drawled, a devilish grin tipping up the corner of his mouth.

Her cheeks flared with color, but she continued to meet his gaze. “What can I say? I’m a popular gal.”

His smile slipped a degree, and in a low voice, he muttered, “So I’ve heard.”

His response surprised her, and her eyes widened a fraction. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged his free shoulder, glancing past her rather than at her. “You’ve done a lot of dating since we broke up, that’s all.”

Ah, so that’s what his sudden sullenness was about. “I am single now,” she told him. “And who I date is my business, not yours.”

“True,” he reluctantly agreed, “I just didn’t expect you to make the rounds quite so soon after the papers were signed.”

“ ‘Make the rounds?’ ” she repeated, a slight edge seeping into her voice.

“Yeah. You went out with another cop, a firefighter, a doctor, a Marine… What were you trying to do, give a one-woman salute to America ’s heroes?”

Anger simmered just below the surface… and then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. She should take his head off for that last remark, but darned if she didn’t find him adorable instead.

“You’re jealous,” she said with a touch of humor.

His eyes narrowed. His lips thinned. “I don’t think so.”

“I do. Why else would you care who I dated, let alone keep track of them all?” A smile itched to spread across her face and amusement bubbled in her chest.

In contrast, Gage’s scowl deepened. “I was concerned about you, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh.” Setting aside the tabby who had been resting on her thigh, she stood up and wiped the seat of her lime-green Capri pants. She stepped forward until they nearly touched and tipped her head back to gaze directly into his brown eyes, gone even darker with displeasure.

Placing her palms flat on the hard wall of his chest, she said, “Well, I think it’s sweet, whatever you want to call it. And for the record, I might have gone out with a lot of men these past few months, but I didn’t sleep with any of them.”

A tiny muscle at the corner of one eye twitched. “You didn’t?”

She shook her head. “Not a one. The last man I slept with-not counting this weekend-was my husband.”

A flash of heat flickered in his eyes and across his face. Bringing a hand to her chin, he cupped her jaw, stroking slowly back and forth with the pad of his thumb. A second later, he lowered his mouth and kissed her.

His lips were soft, but firm. Light but possessive. She leaned into him, accepting what he offered and giving back everything she had in return.

“I haven’t been with any other women, either,” he murmured when they came up for air. “Just so you know.”

His words made her gut hitch in a wave of unexpected happiness and relief, and she wrapped her arms around him even tighter, going in for another heartfelt kiss.

An hour later, after scaring off the cats and making a bit of a mess in the pile of hay bales, Jenna straightened her brightly colored peasant blouse and rewrapped the matching green boa around her neck while Gage tucked his T-shirt into his pants and buttoned the fly.

“I’m going into town tonight for my knitting group,” she told him when he took her hand and tugged her to her feet. “Do you want to come with me?”

“Sure.”

“I’m not riding on the back of your bike, so we’ll have to take my little clown car,” she said with a hint of humor in her voice.

He pulled a face, letting her know just how much he loved that idea.

“And I think Zack and Dylan may still be out of town, so you won’t have anybody to hang out with at The Penalty Box. I’ll understand if you’d rather stay here.”

“Nah. I don’t mind drinking alone. Besides, there’s nothing here but cats, alpacas, and stacks of old craft magazines.”

With a chuckle, Jenna said, “I think Daisy has a crush on you,” referring to an adorable brown and white alpaca female who’d taken to following Gage around like a puppy whenever he was in the pasture or trying to herd them into their stalls for the night.

Rather than deny it, he grinned. “She was making eyes at me. If you’re not careful, you might have some serious competition.”

A jolt of something she didn’t want to think too hard about struck her low in the belly. She also didn’t want to think too long on his words, because-however lightly delivered-they implied there was more between them than truly existed.

“So when do you want to leave?” he asked.

She checked her watch, surprised to find it still on her wrist after the half-naked wrestling match they’d participated in earlier. “Soon,” she said. “Maybe twenty minutes.”

“That gives us enough time for another quickie,” he replied.

Her eyes went wide and she turned a stunned expression in his direction. He wanted to do it again? So soon? She was lucky she could even walk after that last round.

He let out a bark of laughter. “Kidding,” he said. “Just kidding. I can wait until we get back from town.”

At that, she gave him the stink eye, and he laughed again.

“God, your face is so telling. I could yank your chain all day just to see what kinds of looks you’d give me.”

Shaking his head-in amusement, she presumed-he cupped her chin with one hand and told her, “You go on in the house and get ready to leave. I’ll get the mangy beasts bedded down for the night.”

And then he kissed her. A quick, hard peck on the lips before he let his arm drop and headed back for the barn.

Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats” blasted from Grace Fisher’s car stereo. For the past week-actually four days, eight hours, and forty-seven minutes to be exact, but who was counting?-she’d played the song over and over and over again, until the words seeped into her bones.

She could completely relate to the woman in the song who was taking revenge against her boyfriend by destroying his truck in the parking lot of a local watering hole while the jerk was inside cheating on her with some bleach-blond tramp. Especially since she’d done something poetically similar to Zack’s beloved cherry-red Hummer after discovering another woman in his hotel room.

Grace wasn’t exactly proud of some of the things she’d done that night. Oh, she was totally in the right, totally justified in her anger, her grief, her desire to punish the man who had hurt and betrayed her. No doubt about that.

And she wasn’t sorry that she’d trashed Zack’s apartment, either. Or flushed the two-carat diamond-and-platinum engagement ring he’d given her. Or stolen his dog. On the contrary, she only wished he had a second apartment she could have destroyed, had given her a second ring she could hammer and melt down to a pile of junk, and had a second dog she could abduct.

But she did sort of wish she hadn’t made her abject misery and the details of her broken engagement such a public affair.

She’d always been open and honest on the air, which was what made her show such a hit. If she was having a good day, she shared her happiness with her audience, both in the studio and on the other side of the camera. If she was having a bad day, she used them to talk through it, and nine times out of ten found them more than willing to commiserate.

After all, everyone suffered from bad hair, chipped nails, lost contact lenses, and cramps, right? Letting her fans know she was as normal as the next person made her more human in their eyes, more like someone they would be friends with than an untouchable local celebrity.

This time, however, she suspected she’d gone slightly overboard. Not a lot, just a tad.

For instance, she probably shouldn’t have gone on the air Monday morning with puffy eyes, a red nose, and streaked mascara because no matter how hard the makeup artist tried, she couldn’t stem Grace’s constant flow of tears or stop the makeup from running down her cheeks with them.

She also probably shouldn’t have spent the whole hour ranting and raving and voicing her heartfelt desire for certain parts of Zack’s anatomy to shrivel up and fall off. Or for him to contract a wasting disease. Or for the tramp he’d been with to break out in crusty, oozing sores so the world would know her for the whore she was.

That had been-perhaps, just a smidgen-over the top.

She wouldn’t take it back, though. Nor would she take back the order for her program director to find guests and set up a series of men-are-scum shows for the very near future. She wanted to out the lying, scheming bastards who couldn’t keep their dicks in their pants, and help other women like herself who had been lied to and betrayed by said bastards.

She also wanted to hang Zack upside down by his testicles and use his penis as a voodoo doll, but since he had a good eighty pounds on her and she hadn’t yet figured out a way to hoist him up all on her own, she was willing to settle-for the time being, at least-for knowing that she’d done a good bit of damage to a handful of personal belongings that were near and dear to his heart.

Nosing her silver Lexus into a parking spot between two other cars, she folded down the visor and checked her appearance in the small mirror hidden there. She was at least trying to give a shit about her appearance again, but it had been a rough, ugly week.

Except for lipstick, her makeup was fine, so she applied another quick coat of high-gloss Ruby Slippers-a freebie from one of the major cosmetics companies in hopes that she would wear it on her show and possibly thank them publicly by name.

Her hair could use a little help, but running her fingers through a couple of spiky strands then scrunching in an attempt to curl a few others seemed to work.

What she needed was a spa day. Or at the very least, a trip to the salon. Her roots, which were a slightly darker shade of blond than the rest, were beginning to show.

Being an on-air personality, she didn’t have the luxury of letting herself go. She was expected to have perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect nails, the perfect figure, and the perfect attitude to go with her perfect smile.

And ninety-eight-point-six percent of the time, she succeeded.

This week just happened to be one of the remaining one-point-four percent.

Her attitude ever since walking in on a half-naked Zack with a half-naked puck bunny had pretty much been “Fuck Zack, fuck her appearance, fuck the show, fuck the world.”

Zack’s constant attempts to contact her weren’t helping, either. He’d called her cell and home phones-to grovel and beg for forgiveness, she was sure-so many times, she’d finally blocked his numbers. And everyone at work-hell, everyone she knew-had strict instructions not to let him anywhere near her, whether it was in person or through telephone calls, text messages, or candy-grams.

He was persona non grata, as far as she was concerned, and could go fuck himself, right along with his trail of willing bimbettes.

But because her attitude these days was somewhat less than perky and she had more important things on her mind-like how to torture and kill a man without leaving a trace-her hair and nails had pretty much fallen to the very bottom of her list of concerns.

Ironically, it was Zack’s big, slobbery, pain-in-the-ass dog that had kept her sane and was starting to help her climb out of her deep, dark pit of despair.

Oh, Zack was still very much at risk of having an armed mercenary cut off the protruding parts of his body. She’d actually gone so far as picking up a copy of one of those magazines-Mercenary Monthly or some such-at a newsstand on her way home from work in hopes of finding a classified ad that read, Will kill your cheating ex for cash.

But before she’d had a chance to thumb through it, dumb old Bruiser had ambled up to the side of the bed, nudged her in the thigh, then hefted his way up to sleep next to her, his giant head and floppy, drool-covered lips resting in her lap. For the first ten seconds, she’d scowled and tried to push him away. Tried to figure out how to roll him off the bed and out of her room so she could lock the door.

She didn’t even like the stupid Saint Bernard. She’d only brought him home with her because she knew it would kill Zack to find him missing. Even now, she imagined Mr. Hump-Anything-That-Moves pacing, tearing at his hair, bemoaning the fact that his beloved behemoth had been taken by his furious, and very possibly homicidal, ex-girlfriend.

It had taken only one glance from Bruiser’s wide brown eyes to win her over, though. Well, that, and a deep, contented sigh and a long swipe of his wet tongue along her cheek. He’d done that, and she’d melted into a puddle of doggy-loving goo right along with the pint of Chunky Monkey resting on her bedside table.

She’d spent the rest of the evening cuddling with the big bag of fur under her favorite comforter while they’d both finished the ice cream and watched Fatal Attraction twice in a row. Of course, she’d had the presence of mind to cover Bruiser’s eyes during the boiling bunny scene. Being a dog, he would probably eat a rabbit if given half a chance-heck, he ate socks, sneakers, and tennis balls on a regular basis-but she didn’t want him to think she endorsed animal abuse of any kind.

The next morning, when she’d awakened with Bruiser still snuggled beside her, filling one side of the bed the way Zack used to, she’d suffered a brief moment of sadness. Most women, she supposed, would prefer to share their beds with a six-foot-six blond Adonis of a professional hockey player rather than a two-hundred-pound brown and white Saint Bernard with a drool stain the size of Jenna’s Volkswagen under his right jowl.

Despite the damage to her fifteen-hundred thread count Egyptian-cotton sheets, there was something extremely comforting about having Bruiser there. His steady breathing, his soft fur, his radiating warmth. She’d wrapped her arms around him, given him a hard hug, and decided that life couldn’t be all that bad if the sight of Zack’s dumb dog could bring a smile to her face.

That name, though-Bruiser-would have to go. It reminded her too much of Zack, in a way that the Saint Bernard himself didn’t. And she suspected a trip to the veterinarian was in their very near future. Breath that noxious simply could not be healthy.

So she would make an appointment to have her hair done. Maybe even her nails. And she would find a place that could do the same for Jethro.

Or Roscoe.

Or Chompers.

Well, she’d come up with something.

Grabbing her purse and knitting tote, she opened the driver’s side door of her silver Lexus and headed for the front of The Yarn Barn. At the back of the store, she greeted her Wednesday-night knitting group and plopped down in the empty seat Jenna and Ronnie had saved for her.

Everyone else already had their projects out, needles clicking away as they knit and chatted and sipped lemonade from the small sidebar the store had provided for gatherings just like this.

Jenna was knitting yet another of her trademark boas. The feathery purple yarn ran through her fingers like water as she worked the set of large, plastic needles almost faster than the eye could see. She probably had two hundred boas in her own collection by now, but because she loved making them so much, she often gave bunches of them to her aunt Charlotte to sell at her craft booth-and this week, on the road. And they apparently went well, because Jenna was forever knitting them, and Charlotte was forever asking for more.

Ronnie, however, was using much smaller needles and a much sturdier yarn for the sleeve of a dark, smoky-blue sweater she was knitting for Dylan to wear during the coming winter.

“You’re late,” Ronnie said from her spot in the armchair to Grace’s left. “Is everything all right?”

A stab of guilt speared her at the concern in her friend’s voice. She knew Ronnie was worried about her. If their situations had been reversed and she’d been the one to witness Ronnie taking a baseball bat to Dylan’s car and tearing apart his apartment, then crawling into her own bed to rail and wail for a day and a half, she’d have been concerned, too.

Frankly, Grace was lucky her friends hadn’t called the men in white coats. Not that a few hours in a strait-jacket and room with padded walls wouldn’t have done her some good.

“Everything’s fine,” she reassured them. “Work has just been a little hectic lately, and my producer stopped me on my way out to argue about some upcoming show topics.” The men-are-evil-and-must-be-shot segments, which she still maintained were timely and necessary to the fate of womankind.

Reaching into her bag, Grace removed a giant wad of thin, delicate white yarn already knit into several complicated pieces. Parts of what was supposed to have been her wedding dress. She’d been so excited about making it herself, instilling that love and excitement into every stitch.

On several occasions, Jenna and Ronnie had both offered to help, seeing how complicated the pattern was and fearing Grace wouldn’t be able to complete it in time by herself. But Grace had declined. She’d wanted to do it all herself, to wear her own creation down the aisle.

Now, though, the idea brought her only pain and heartbreak.

Removing the miniscule needles from the piece she’d been working on last, she crossed her legs, sat back, and began tugging the end of the yarn to unravel the whole horrible mess.

“What are you doing?” Jenna shrieked, nearly jumping out of her chair when she spotted Grace’s actions.

“I’m pulling apart my wedding dress,” Grace answered, without emotion and without lifting her head. “And when I’m finished, I’m going to burn it, along with everything that asshole ever gave me, everything he left at my place, and every picture of him I can find.”

While most of the women in the group didn’t know about Zack’s recent infidelity or the demise of their relationship, they caught on quickly-and wisely kept their mouths shut. Only Melanie, a young mother of two small children and one of their closer friends who often joined them for drinks at The Penalty Box after meetings, had the nerve to ask what in God’s name was going on.

Ronnie attempted to fill her in as politely and with as few of the more gruesome details as possible. Grace wasn’t nearly as discerning. She recapped the story in a voice sharp enough to cut glass and with a generous sprinkling of four-letter words… most of them used to describe the cheating Zack-Ass bastard.

By the time she finished, a pile of curly white thread lay at her feet, the physical embodiment of a metaphor for the unraveled mess her life and engagement had recently become.

Rather than feeling distressed over undoing all the hard work she’d put into the dress-and Lord, it had been hard work; tiny needles, whisper-thin yarn, and teeny, extremely complicated stitches-she found the harsh, repetitious yank-and-pull, yank-and-pull to be cathartic. She even managed to match her motions to the chorus of “Before He Cheats,” which she was humming beneath her breath while the others chatted around her.

She hadn’t been at it twenty minutes when she noticed the change. The air around her grew suddenly brittle, and there was a distinct shift to the sounds of the store that usually surrounded them.

And then there were the footsteps. Heavy, booted footsteps moving at a fast clip.

Grace’s stomach tightened and a lump of something she preferred not to identify by name formed in her chest. She sat up straighter, steeling herself for what was to come as a dark shadow fell over her and the hot breath of doom blew on her neck.

“You.”

That one syllable was spoken so low and with so much venom, she was surprised she didn’t die of odium poisoning right there on the spot. As it was, her skin did tingle and her pulse did kick up a beat.

Slowly and very carefully, she set aside what she was doing and turned in her chair to smile pleasantly up at a red-faced Zachary Hoolihan. He towered over her, chest heaving. He looked angry enough to spit nails, and she was frankly surprised steam didn’t pour out of his ears.

Dylan stood on his left, just behind Ronnie’s chair, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Gage stood on his right, looking… well, like Gage. Sort of big, intimidating, and expressionless. Between them, Zack put her in mind of Yosemite Sam, hopping around and blustering like a crazy person.

All week, she’d been imagining how she would act the next time she ran into Zack. And she’d known she would. Cleveland might have been a nice, big city, but it wasn’t that big, and she’d expected he would make a point of tracking her down eventually to confront her about the damage she’d done to his car and apartment.

Payback, as they said, was a bitch.

“Are you addressing moi?” she asked in a voice so sweet, it nearly blew out her pancreas. Because damned if she’d let him think he’d gotten to her-aside from the recent acts of wanton destruction, that was.

“Damn right, I’m addressing you, Little Miss Smart-Ass,” Zack snapped. “You wrecked my apartment, stole my dog, and killed my car.”

“Excuse me?” Her eyes went wide in practiced innocence.

“You. Killed. My. Car.” He enunciated each word, spitting them through gritted teeth before resting both hands on the back of her chair and leaning in until they were nearly nose to nose. “You destroyed my Hummer.”

“Your Hummer?” she asked in a voice she was pretty sure Shirley Temple had used in every one of her adorable little movies. “Did something happen to that big red beast?”

Zack stood back once again, but a vein had begun to throb at his temple and she thought he might be at serious risk of popping an embolism.

Good. It would serve him right, the jerk.

“You know goddamn well something happened to it. You happened to it. You broke into the parking garage at my apartment complex and destroyed my fucking Hummer! Then you broke into my apartment and went apeshit in there, too.”

Grace placed one long index finger against her cheek, wishing now that she’d made a point of stopping at the salon before tonight’s meeting. A beautifully manicured nail would have been just the thing to show Zack that she was doing fine without him. That she didn’t care how many silicone-boobed puck bunnies he boffed.

Batting her lashes and pulling her mouth into a sympathetic pucker, she used her best Betty Boop impression to say, “But I thought you said your Hummer was indestructible.”

If possible, Zack’s face mottled an even darker shade of red. His eyes were so wide, they were practically solid white with only pinpricks of blue at the pupils, and he looked ready to explode.

“Arrest her!” he burst out instead, pointing a shaking finger at her while nudging Gage in the ribs with his elbow.

Gage raised a brow, startled by his sudden demand. He glanced from Zack to Grace and back again. “What?”

“You heard me,” Zack continued at a volume she suspected could be heard not only throughout the entire craft store, but at the other end of the strip mall where it was located. “Arrest her. Slap the cuffs on her, read her her rights, and drag her down to the pokey. I want her locked up for breaking and entering, theft because she took Bruiser, destruction of property, and just plain being a bitch.” His tone lowered at the last and he delivered the insult as though it were supposed to be a great, painful stab to her heart.

Grace nearly snorted. After walking in on him five minutes after he’d Zamboni-ed some random tramp, being called a nasty name didn’t make a dent.

Rising gracefully to her feet, she faced him full on, only the imitation-leather armchair separating them.

“I may be a bitch,” she told him, her voice turning frosty for the first time since he’d walked into the store and started tossing around accusations, “but I’m a faithful bitch. You, on the other hand, are a lying, cheating bastard, who doesn’t deserve a nice vehicle, doesn’t deserve a nice apartment, and most certainly doesn’t deserve a sweet little dog like Bruiser.”

If Zack noticed her positive reference to the Saint Bernard when in the past she’d mostly complained about how big, stinky, and in the way he was, he didn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he latched on to the rest of her diatribe.

A muscle in Zack’s jaw jumped as he ground his teeth. Leaning forward until they were nearly nose to nose, he said, “For your information, I didn’t lie and I didn’t cheat. Something I’d have explained to you if you’d stop being pissed off for five minutes and answered your goddamn phone!”

“Oh,” she replied tartly, “I suppose that bimbo was in your bed because she started choking on a salad shrimp during a promotional banquet and you decided to take her up to your hotel room to give her the Heimlich, right? And somehow during all the chaos, everybody’s clothes just fell off.”

“I didn’t take her to my room,” Zack insisted, eyes narrowed in growing frustration. “I didn’t even know she was there.”

“Yeah, and there’s this great piece of swampland in Florida I’m thinking of buying for a summer getaway.” She snorted. “I may have been dumb enough to date you for three years, but I’m not a complete idiot. You’re lucky your Hummer wasn’t set on fire, too.”

“So you admit you did those things. I told you,” he said, elbowing Gage again. “See, she confessed. Arrest her.”

“I didn’t confess to anything,” she replied softly. “I was simply making a statement. If someone else feels the same way about you as I do and decided to mete out a bit of karmic justice… well, I say, Yay, them. And screw you, Zack.”

Balling his hands into fists, he jabbed them on his hips and ground out, “Dammit, I didn’t cheat on you, Grace. You’d know that if you’d answer one of my phone calls and give me five fucking minutes to explain.”

“You don’t need to explain. I’ve got eyes to see and a brain that’s fully capable of adding two plus two to get four. And you can spend your five fucking minutes fucking someone else from now on.”

With that, she used her foot to rearrange some of the yarn on the floor that had gotten moved around and took her seat once again, returning to the job of unraveling as though none of the men hovering behind her even existed.

She heard grumbling, but couldn’t quite make out what Zack was saying beneath his breath. Obviously, some of the wind had been taken out of his sails-something that should have pleased her, but didn’t.

If she’d been home alone, she probably would have been curled up in bed by now with… Rex? King? Tonto?… and another pint of Ben and Jerry’s. As it was, she was hanging on to her composure by a thread thinner than the yarn she was even now pulling loose from her wedding gown pattern.

Surprisingly, it wasn’t anger that threatened to bubble over, but sorrow, and she hoped to hell Zack left before she burst into tears and let him know how much he’d hurt her.

Thankfully, he did, but not without a bit of prompting from his friends.

“Come on,” Dylan said. “Let’s get out of here. You’ll feel better after a couple of beers.”

“I’ll feel better after she’s behind bars,” Zack quipped, and she could imagine a sneer twisting his lips. Ironically, his tone didn’t seem to carry the same vehemence of only minutes before.

Even knowing he couldn’t see the gesture, Grace raised a brow and calmly said, “And I’ll feel better after you break out in genital herpes and your cock falls off.”