Tangled Up In Love Read online

  And if that wasn’t an invitation to brutal honesty, she didn’t know what was. She only hoped she could handle whatever response the older woman chose to give her.

  “Oh, I think it’s wonderful, dear. It’s lovely that you and your young man have finally learned to talk out your differences instead of harping at each other through your newspaper columns.”

  The words were pleasant enough, sounded sincere enough, but the odd light in her eyes and strange twist of her lips never altered. Ronnie didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended. She’d expected more from Charlotte, she guessed. A bigger, more exuberant, Charlotte-like reaction; something to go with the bright orange hair and mismatched polyester ensembles.

  But then the others started chiming in again, distracting her and demanding more details about her time with Dylan. The PG- to R-rated version, anyway.

  The hour passed quickly, and just as Ronnie had predicted, no one—save the unusually focused Charlotte—got much knitting done. They didn’t seem to mind, though. They were women first, knitters second, and a good piece of gossip trumped the chance to make progress on a current project or share new patterns any day.

  As they all got up to don their coats and gather their things, each of the ladies came up to give her a hug and wish her congratulations again. A few even offered bits of advice on living with a man . . . Start early on training them to put their dirty clothes in the laundry hamper. Threaten to withhold sex if they forget to put the toilet seat down more than three times in a row. Tattoo important dates like birthdays and anniversaries on her forehead, otherwise they were sure to forget.

  Ronnie promised to remember and not let Dylan get away with watching too much ESPN or being too much of a slob, then asked who cared to join her at The Penalty Box for a drink.

  For the first time ever, she and Dylan had agreed to meet there immediately after her knitting group. For the first time ever, she was looking forward to seeing him there, instead of praying he’d get hit by a bus on the way, or by some miracle leave before she arrived.

  She almost didn’t want to wait for anyone else to decide if they were going or not; she just wanted to get there and see him again. See him, touch him, kiss his lips. Sit and have a drink with him instead of crawling off to the farthest corner of the bar and drinking to forget that he was in the room and likely ogling her ass.

  These days, she liked knowing he was ogling her ass. Especially since it meant that before long, he’d be doing a lot more than just looking at that portion of her anatomy.

  They’d been apart for almost seventy-five minutes now, and she missed him, God help her.

  Lord, she was such a sap. She’d gone from being the Ice Queen to being a big jiggly pile of lemon Jell-O who practically couldn’t function if she didn’t get her Dylan fix every couple of hours.

  Thankfully, she didn’t think her pathetic-ness showed, which meant nobody needed to know just what a pushover she’d become because of a man.

  But not just any man. Dylan.

  Her heartbeat doubled just thinking about him, and she curled her fingers into the soft black alpaca wool of her scarf to keep from rushing the girls into making up their minds. As usual, Grace and Jenna were headed her way, but the others begged off with various excuses.

  “Are you sure you won’t join us, Aunt Charlotte?” Jenna asked, waiting for the older woman to gather her things and waddle along with them toward the front entrance of the store.

  “Oh, no, no. I’ve got too much to do at home, but thank you for the invitation.” She covered her head with a giant variegated hat she’d made herself, complete with earflaps and a pom-pom on top, and tied it beneath her chin. “You three girls have fun, though, and congratulations again, Ronnie. I’m very happy for you.”

  After thanking her, the three of them made their way to Grace’s car. Since Dylan had dropped Ronnie off at the store for her meeting, she needed a ride to the bar.

  Another first. Ronnie imagined there would be a lot of them from now on, and though she never would have expected it of herself, she was looking forward to experiencing each and every one.

  On the ride to The Penalty Box, Grace and Jenna wanted the full scoop and all the details Ronnie hadn’t divulged in front of the others. And while she filled them in on most of it, there were still some things she kept to herself. The sexier, kinkier, more private stuff that even her very best friends didn’t need to know about. She preferred to keep that just between Dylan and herself.

  And when they arrived at the bar, ducking inside quickly to get away from the wind and cold, her eyes immediately scanned the room for Dylan. She found him sitting at his usual table, along with Zack and Gage and three half-empty bottles of their favorite beer.

  It might have been her imagination, but almost like a scene from a movie, the loud cacophony of the bar seemed to soften, and Dylan turned his head in her direction. As soon as he saw her, he pushed his chair back to stand, the legs scraping across the floor and adding an even sharper edge to the rope of tension arching between them.

  All eyes tracked him as he moved toward her, his long strides eating up the space that separated them. He grabbed her around the shoulders, yanked her to his chest, and kissed her like a soldier just back from the war . . . a little more of a performance than she’d counted on, but definitely something she could get used to.

  After sucking the air from her lungs and leaving her none too steady on her feet, he stepped back, stared at her a moment, then held a hand out in invitation.

  She knew that just about everyone in the room, save her friends and his, expected her to deck him. They were waiting for it. A month ago, she wouldn’t have left them hanging, but probably would have sucker-punched him in the gut before he’d gotten his mouth anywhere near hers.

  But now, she simply linked her hand with his and followed him to the large round table where his buddies were waiting.

  A second passed, and then the entire bar erupted in whoops and whistles, cheers and catcalls, and though Ronnie’s stomach was tight in embarrassment over their public display of affection, she felt warm and contented, too.

  This definitely beat a public pissing contest any day of the week.

  From now on, if she felt like competing with Dylan, she would be way more creative in her dares, and do it in the bedroom where they’d already established that anything goes.

  Bind Off

  Charlotte watched her three favorite girls from the knitting group walk together to Grace’s car while she remained on the sidewalk outside The Yarn Barn.

  She kept her expression carefully blank until they’d rolled out of the parking lot . . . then a wide, beaming grin spread across her face. She picked up her sneaker-clad feet and did a little jig right there, singing along with her excitement.

  She’d done it. Or rather, the spinning wheel had done it.

  Even after that night at her house when Ronnie had confessed she’d gone to bed with her so-called enemy, Charlotte still hadn’t been sure she should believe the stories she’d been told about the wheel being enchanted and bringing true love to anyone who used the yarns it spun.

  She’d been hopeful, but not certain.

  Now, though . . .

  Oh, glory. The proof was in the pudding, and now she knew her mother and grandmother and all of her other little old ancestors had been right about the magic of the spinning wheel. Ronnie’s happiness in finding love with a man she’d formerly professed to hate more than a case of the chicken pox was proof of that.

  Charlotte could barely contain her glee as she pranced across the sloppy wet parking lot to her old but reliable Buick and climbed inside. She cranked the engine, then turned up the heat, eager to make her way home and get to work.

  Now that she knew she could rely on the power of the spinning wheel, there was someone else she wanted to help find true love.

  Spinning the yarn for this one would be tricky, since her niece enjoyed making fancy, fuzzy boas more than knitting just a run-of-th
e-mill scarf or hat.

  But with the help of her enchanted spinning wheel, maybe she could help Jenna get over her failed marriage to Gage and once again find true love.

  Ronnie’s Scarf

  (as knit by Dylan)

  Materials:

  Size 10 knitting needles

  1 8-ounce skein of yarn (any color)

  Special Instructions:

  yo = yarn over

  (bring the yarn over the top of the right hand needle)

  k2tog = knit 2 together

  (insert the right hand needle into the front of the next two stitches on the left hand needle, then knit them together as one)

  ( ) = directions in parentheses are to be repeated

  Directions:

  Cast on 23 stitches

  Knit first 5 rows

  Row 6: k3, (yo, k2tog, k1) repeat 4 more

  times, yo, k2tog, k3

  Rows 7 and 8: knit across

  Row 9: Repeat Row 6

  Rows 10 and 11: Repeat Rows 7 and 8

  Continue pattern until scarf reaches about 4

  feet or desired length

  Bind off

  Fringe (optional):

  Cut several pieces of yarn, about 5 inches long. (The more pieces you use, the thicker your fringe will be.)

  With a crochet hook, attach individual pieces of yarn to both ends of scarf using a “cow hitch” stitch. (See graphic.)

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at

  Heidi Betts’s next novel

  Loves Me,

  Loves Me Knot

  Coming August 2009 from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  Cast On

  With a final shove, Charlotte Langan managed to heave the heavy, centuries-old spinning wheel up the last two attic steps and onto the dusty floor.

  When she’d hauled the thing down to her bedroom six months before, she certainly hadn’t anticipated the need to carry it back up so soon—at least not by herself. But with her niece due to arrive any minute, she didn’t have much choice. Jenna would be staying at the house for the next two weeks while Charlotte was on the road with one of the country’s largest traveling craft shows.

  She’d been preparing for this trip for years. Raising and shearing her own alpacas—who had become practically like children to her, given the amount of time she spent with them. Dying their fiber and spinning it into yarn. Knitting scarves and hats and mittens and sweaters—everything she could think of that might sell until she had boxes upon boxes of items ready to go.

  Some of her creations she sold at her booth in a local indoor craft and flea market, but since she spent most of her time either knitting or spinning, she had plenty left over for the traveling show. Or rather, she had enough left over from her stockpiling for the traveling show to also keep the small local booth.

  Breath wheezing from her lungs, Charlotte tugged the hem of her floral polyester top down over her wide hips and continued to slide the spinning wheel across the floor toward a far, shadowed corner. She planned to lock the attic door, and couldn’t think of any reason her niece might have for poking around up here, but she didn’t want to take chances.

  If Jenna found the ancient spinning wheel in a corner of the attic, covered by a thick white sheet, she might wonder why Charlotte wasn’t using it. Why she’d gone to the expense of purchasing a new one when she had a perfectly good and probably much more valuable one in her possession.

  Oh, Charlotte could lie to her. She had no compunction about that sort of thing, not when it was for the greater good. She could tell her niece she hadn’t wanted to risk anything happening to the family heirloom . . . or that it had a squeaky wheel . . . or that it didn’t spin quite as well as the other one.

  And Jenna would probably believe her. The dear, sweet child would never even consider that her eccentric old aunt might be up to something. Something secret, something devious, something . . . well, something Jenna would likely not appreciate if she knew.

  Because the spinning wheel she was even now covering with the sheet, hiding like a fat kid squirreling away a last slice of birthday cake, wasn’t just old. It wasn’t just a family heirloom or a possibly priceless antique. It was magic.

  Charlotte hadn’t believed it in the beginning. When she’d first remembered the old spinning wheel in the attic, she’d also begun to recall the tales her mother and grandmother used to tell her during her youth about its enchanted properties. How it was a true love spinning wheel, and that the yarn it spun could bring two people together for their very own happily ever after.

  At the time, she’d thought they were simply stories created to lull her to sleep or fill her head with Rose Red dreams. But when Ronnie Chasen, one of the young women in her Wednesday night knitting group, had found herself at sixes and sevens with a fellow journalist, Charlotte had decided to put the spinning wheel to the test.

  As hopeful as she’d been that the soft black yarn she spun with Ronnie and Dylan in mind would work to draw the two together, she wasn’t sure she’d actually believed it would. Not until the sparks had begun to fly and the animosity between the two newspaper columnists had turned into something equally combustible, but far more . . . naughty. The details Ronnie had since shared with the group were enough to turn Charlotte’s hair carrot orange . . . if it weren’t already, thanks to a copious supply of L’Oreal’s limited edition “I Love Lucy” do-it-yourself hair coloring kits.

  The good news, though, wasn’t that Ronnie and Dylan were apparently extremely sexually compatible, but that the spinning wheel had worked! The yarn it spun really did seem to be magic and able to generate love where there hadn’t been love before.

  Of course, one positive result couldn’t really be considered conclusive evidence, could it? No. As impressed as Charlotte was with the results of the first skein of yarn she’d spun on the antique wheel, she thought that another test or two might be in order.

  And if anyone needed a little love in her life, it was her dear niece, Jenna. The poor girl just hadn’t been the same since her divorce from Gage a year and a half before. The two had been meant for each other—or so Charlotte had thought. She’d been completely shocked when they’d split up, and she still wasn’t sure she understood the reason for the breakup. Not all of it, anyway.

  But just because Jenna’s marriage to Gage hadn’t worked out didn’t mean the girl had to spend the rest of her life moping. And no matter how many dates she’d been on recently, that’s exactly what Jenna was doing!

  She needed a boost. A lift. A little fairy dust to raise her spirits and get her back in the game.

  Confident the spinning wheel was adequately covered and hidden behind several large boxes of odds and ends, Charlotte dusted her hands together, patted her brow with the edge of one sleeve, and moved back down the stairs to the doorway that opened directly into her bedroom. She closed and locked it behind her, tucked the key at the back of her underwear drawer, then took a second to glance in the mirror.

  Her mop of bright orange hair was still perfectly coiffed, thanks to the industrial amount of hairspray she’d used on it only a few hours before. Her white blouse with its tiny blue flowers was still pristine, not even a smudge of dust from her excursion to the attic on it or her navy blue slacks.

  Satisfied with her appearance, she headed downstairs and into the sitting room to collect her handbag and a thick skein of bright purple yarn. Her niece’s penchant for knitting sexy, slinky boas to go with just about everything she wore meant that Charlotte had had to spin a light, feathery yarn that Jenna would be likely to start using right away.

  It hadn’t been easy. Certainly not as quick or straightforward as the thicker, sturdier yarn she’d spun for Ronnie, and which the young woman had ended up using to help teach Dylan—albeit reluctantly—to knit. A competitive challenge that had developed into something much more personal and significant.

  Thanks to Charlotte’s covert matchmaking efforts, of course. Oh, she hadn’t picked Dylan for Ronnie or anything as ordinary a
s that. No, she’d simply handed Ronnie the special yarn and let the enchanted spinning wheel’s powers do their thing.

  Which was exactly what she planned to do with this ball of yarn. The rest would be up to Fate and magic . . . and hopefully Jenna’s willingness to experience love again.

  At the sound of a vehicle pulling into the drive, Charlotte grabbed her things and hurried to the front door in time to see her niece climbing out of her sunflower yellow VW beetle. Falling in line with Jenna’s somewhat quirky personality, large magnets in the shape of white and yellow daisies decorated the doors and hood of the adorable vehicle.

  Flowers weren’t Jenna’s only mode of decorating her beloved bug, though. At Easter, she used a nose, tail, and ears to make the car look like a bunny rabbit; at Halloween, a broom and the back end of a witch’s robe would appear as though sticking out of the rear hatch; at Christmas, it was antlers and a bright red Rudolph nose.

  Charlotte loved to see Jenna’s happy yellow beetle coming up the drive, never knowing what amusing guise the little VW would be wearing.

  Today, Jenna herself was dressed in dark blue jeans that flared at the calf and sparkled at the thighs and pockets with a mixture of rhinestones and silver studs. Her blouse was sage green and cut in a tank-top style, made of some soft, flowing, almost diaphanous material that was so popular these days. Never mind that one could almost see a girl’s bits and pieces and skimpy brassieres underneath.

  And as usual, Jenna also had a boa wrapped loosely around her neck in blending hues of green, yellow, and brown that perfectly matched her top.

  “Hello, dear!” Charlotte called as she pushed through the front screen door and bustled down from the porch.

  Jenna smiled and raised a hand to wave before reaching into the back seat for her overnight bag.