Sasha’s Dad (8 page)

Dutch grunted. Claire wanted to smack him, but instead poured hot water into a mug and mixed in more cocoa powder.

“How are my llamas?” she asked.

Dutch blew out a breath and shoved his clenched hands in the front pockets of his jeans. Claire hated herself for permitting her gaze to follow his hands and linger over the area between his pockets. He’d filled out since their late teens and become more rugged.

Sexier.

Claire looked away, but not soon enough. Dutch’s eyes narrowed, and she knew that if Sasha hadn’t been in the room he’d have a few choice words about keeping her distance.

She shoved the mug at him. “Here. This’ll warm you up.”

He pulled his hands out of his pockets and took the mug before she spilled its contents all over his chest. One eyebrow rose, indicating that even he saw a hint of humor in the situation.

“Your llamas? They’re doing well. The weather should help when it decides to warm up, but they’re fine.”

“Thank goodness,” she murmured. “It’s been so cold. I don’t remember a March or April this cold when we were kids.”

The childhood memory produced a moment’s awkward silence.

“Would you like something to eat?” She’d found her manners again.

“No, thanks. We need to leave as soon as we finish this.” He downed the rest of his cocoa. “Sasha?”

Sasha’s eyelids were lowered as she held her fresh cup of hot cocoa. Claire knew the kid hadn’t missed a single note of the conversation. What did she make of Claire and Dutch? The blatantly rude way they addressed each other?

Sasha threw back her head and drained the mug.

She stood. “Thanks, Claire. I had a nice time.”

“Me, too.”

Sasha stood there expectantly, watching Claire. Claire looked back at her, dumbfounded. What was it?

“Okay, well, bye.” Sasha walked over and stood in front of Claire.

Oh…

“See you around.” Claire gave Sasha the hug she’d been waiting for, all the while conscious of Dutch’s perturbed glare.

Sasha passed her dad and ran down the steps.

“Cozy.” Dutch issued the one-word observation like a missile.

“You’ve raised a daughter who’s used to lots of love and support. That’s commendable.”

Dutch sent Claire another hard gaze—and then she saw his stony expression dissolve.

“She
has
had that. It’s important to me that she not get hurt. She craves female adult attention and I hope you realize what a trusting young girl she is.”

Claire appreciated his honesty, and was stunned that he’d opened up even this much. But she didn’t need another reminder of the gap Natalie’s death had left in all their lives.

“Of course.” She cleared her throat. “Thanks for checking on the animals.”

“It’s my job. I’ll be back in a few days. Call me if you need me sooner.” Dutch turned on the porch, his foot raised to go down the steps, then turned back.

“You’ve done an admirable job with the llamas.”

She watched him descend the steps before she closed the door and leaned against it. Not until she heard the pickup’s engine, did she respond.

“Thank you.”

“You be good.” She patted his upper arm. “Dutch? Try to keep an open mind.”

“About what?” His sister always had an uncanny sense of his emotional state.

“About everything. Natalie’s been gone for over three years, and she never wanted you to be a monk.”

“Why do I think you’re talking about Claire?”

“Claire?” Ginny opened her eyes wide in pretended innocence. But Dutch knew damn well that his little sister wasn’t naive on this subject at all.

“Well, now that you mention it, Sasha needs a woman in her life. Since I’m leaving, it
is
rather fortuitous that Claire’s around. And that she knew Natalie as a kid. They were really close, Dutch.”

“Don’t even
try
to guilt me into this, Ginny.”

Ginny’s signature laugh-with-a-snort coaxed his lips up in spite of his exasperation with his sister. Her dark corkscrew curls bobbed about her face.

“Any guilt you have is because you know it’s the truth. You’re entitled to your opinion of Claire, Dutch, but she’s a good person underneath it all. Don’t deny Sasha a connection to Natalie because of your own selfishness.”

Dutch opened his mouth to blast Ginny, then snapped it shut. He wasn’t going to win this one, and besides, he didn’t want to send Ginny away in a bad mood.

“Give me a hug, bro.”

Ginny hugged him tight and he hugged her back.

“I can’t thank you enough, Gin.”

“Shh, don’t be silly. It helped all of us. It’s time for me to get my degree, and for you and Sasha to get your own life.”

Tears burned his eyes as he hugged his sister. She’d been such a rock for all of them.

Ginny pulled away. “Knock it off, Dutch. You need to get dinner going if you want to eat tonight.”

“Yeah.” He stood there as she walked around her car and slid into the driver’s seat. After a few adjustments, she backed down their drive, shifted gears and headed for Baltimore.

Ginny would be fine; he knew it. And God help whoever crossed her in a courtroom.

Yeah, Ginny would be okay. And Sasha would, too; he’d make sure of it.

But would he?

Plus, she had her wits about her now. Wits weren’t something she’d had a lot of immediately after she’d left the press corps. Until the doctors had determined the extent of her mother’s illness and Claire got used to small-town living again, she’d been in a whirl of change.

Then it’d taken her a while to adjust to the idea that her mother was fine, and her dad could take care of her very well, thank you. They didn’t need Claire over there each and every day. And she had to face the fact that she hadn’t come home for Mom, not really. She’d come back to find herself again. Mom’s illness had only precipitated a quicker move.

Mrs. Ames looked up, her black-penciled eyebrows in sharp contrast to her snowy mane of shoulder-length hair and her crystal-blue irises.

“Oh, you’re back?” Mrs. Ames spoke as if Claire had been there last week and not nearly a year ago.

“Of course! Where is everyone?”

“Group starts at ten-thirty. You’re early.”

Mrs. Ames returned to her knitting—a gauzy length that Claire surmised was a lace stole or shawl.

“That’s lovely.” She pointed at the other woman’s work. “What are you making?” Claire knew good manners would carry her further than an antagonistic attitude, warranted or not.

“A prayer shawl for my church ministry.”

Claire slid into the seat across from her. “That’s a wonderful idea! Do you think I could learn to make one?”

“Of course.” Mrs. Ames peered into the basket Claire placed on the table between them. “Ooh, looks like you’ve been making progress!” The pleased tone was unexpected.

“I’ve been learning on the Internet and from a friend. I know I should finish one project before I begin another, but I can’t help myself.”

“Nonsense. It’s important to have several projects going at once. I always do. Keeps me interested. I finish them as needed—whether a gift for me or someone else.”

Relief washed over Claire. “I must admit I’m thrilled to hear you say that. I thought I might have some kind of knitting attention-deficit disorder.”

Mrs. Ames laughed. “No more than the rest of us—oh, look, here comes Patsy.”

Patsy Lovette sashayed in, her giraffe-print jacket an odd mix with her blueberry shade of dyed hair and fuchsia scarf.

“Hey.” She cast a curious glance at Claire and bent to air-kiss Mrs. Ames.

“You remember each other, don’t you?” Mrs. Ames offered as introduction.

Claire smiled at Patsy. How could they forget? They’d both competed for the same spot on the high school gymnastics team. Claire won in ninth and tenth grade, but Patsy had taken the spot as a junior and senior. They’d never been real enemies, but not close friends, either.

“Hi,” Claire said.

“Hi, honey, I heard you were back in town. Didn’t know you were a knitter, though.” Patsy wasn’t at the group that disastrous time the year before.

Claire shoved the memory aside. She’d assumed it would be a group of genteel older ladies all too willing to teach a young woman like her the techniques of their craft. Not the lively women she’d discovered, many of whom still grieved Natalie.

“So what are you working on?” Patsy nodded at Claire’s basket.

Claire had faced world leaders with what they perceived as hostile interview questions. She’d stared down prevaricating government officials. She could handle opposition and criticism with the best of them; she knew not to take it personally.

But her knitting projects
were
highly personal. She’d labored over learning the stitches and deciding which patterns she could attempt with her limited skills. Learning to knit was part of how she’d redefined herself.

To her dismay, her hands shook as she reached into her basket. She yanked up the first project she touched, hoping that her action covered her nervousness.

“This is a scarf and this—” she pulled out a brown square “—is the first of thirty-six squares for an afghan I saw in a magazine.”

Patsy’s hands were all over her projects, caressing the yarn. “Oooh, is this alpaca?”

“No, it’s a blend of llama and merino.”

“Really? Did you buy that around here?”

“She’s probably one of those Internet yarn buyers, aren’t you, Claire? Your generation doesn’t go to stores as much.” Mrs. Ames sniffed and kept up with her knitting, using the plastic needles Claire had tried, but found uncomfortable in her hands.

“Actually, it’s from the farm where I bought my llamas.” Claire felt a certain smugness—she might not knit well, but she’d learned a great deal about fiber over the past couple of years. “Llama fiber tends to stretch, so even though it’s warm and soft like alpaca, it works best when it’s spun with another wool or natural fiber.”

Patsy nodded again. “You’re really gonna make a go of this—your llama farm?”

Claire couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “That’s my plan.”

“Give me a high five!” Claire hesitated when Patsy held up a slim, acrylic-nailed hand, but then raised her own worn, short-nailed hand and landed a firm smack on Patsy’s palm.

“Now
this
is what I’m talking about, Claire. Women need to do their own thing and show the world we can do it.”

“Sure.” Claire smiled. She and Patsy would never share fashion taste nor be close friends, but they had a common history.

And now they had knitting.

Claire settled in and started knitting her second square for the afghan. She watched as each woman appeared, and then, to her surprise, a man joined the group. Tall, elegant and with a shock of white hair, Mr. Black had been Claire’s tenth-grade English teacher. She’d loved that class. She also remembered the unending teasing Mr. Black had taken. Not directly to his face, but the guys in class made jokes about his sexual preference, often within his earshot. The girls usually frowned, not sure why their male classmates cared if Mr. Black was gay or not.

“Hey, Donald.” A chorus of female voices greeted their lone male.

“Good morning, ladies.” He smiled at each woman. His gaze rested on Claire’s for a moment.

“Claire Renquist. Row two, three from the window.” His voice hadn’t changed. It was still the same deep melodious voice that had read passages of Shakespeare to them as they struggled to grasp the meaning.

Claire wanted to hug Mr. Black, but didn’t know the ins and outs of knit-group etiquette. “So nice to see you again, Mr. Black.”

Mr. Black folded his frame into the single chair left in the circle. He pulled an intricate Scandinavian-looking sweater from his bag and started knitting. Claire observed the deftness of his long-fingered hands and the casual manner with which he wove two colors into such a detailed pattern.

He raised his dark eyes and caught her stare. “I never did reveal my love of knitting to my English Lit classes.” The whole group laughed, and Claire marveled at this softer, friendlier version of Mr. Black. He’d been an erudite teacher, his passion for story evident, but he’d never revealed an inkling of his personal life to the students.

“No, but you taught the best class I’ve ever taken. Even in college my professors didn’t have the grasp of story structure and theme that you did, Mr. Black.”

“Why, thank you so much, Claire. And please call me Donald. I haven’t been Mr. Black for years.”

“So you retired?”

“Yes, to write the great American novel, of course. What else do retired English teachers do?”

“They knit!” Mrs. Ames piped up and the group laughed again.

Mr. Black chuckled and pulled up a strand of red yarn. “Yes, I knit.”

“Is that sweater for you?”

He gave Claire a measured look over his glasses.

“No, it’s for my partner, Jim.”

“It’s gorgeous. He’s very lucky to get it.”

“He snagged the other one on barbed wire when he was bringing in hay last fall.”

Claire’s expression must have revealed her horror. What a beautiful sweater, with so much love knit into it. And his partner had worn it to
harvest?

“Jim loves the fit and design of all the things Donald’s made him, but he doesn’t get it when it comes to the quality part, or the time.” Patsy filled in some of the blanks.

“He doesn’t get the cost of the fiber, either,” Donald grumbled, but it was clear from his tone that he’d knit a sweater every month for his partner if he had to.

Claire felt a warm sense of security that she hadn’t had in years. She was glad Mr. Black had a good life and someone to love. It was nice to be with him again, this time without adolescent boys making snarky, ignorant remarks. She was also relieved that no one in the knitting group had critiqued her knitting ability.

I’m happy to be here.

After two years of often backbreaking work, Claire felt the tension in her shoulders begin to dissipate. This was where she belonged.