Anything for Her(3)

A man was making his way gingerly toward her, between the rows of bolts of fabric. For a moment she did nothing but gape at him. He didn’t belong, even more so than most men. She couldn’t decide why. He was good-sized, but not huge—maybe six feet or a little under, broad-shouldered and powerfully built, though not massive. Maybe what she was reading was his discomfort with being here.

He had brown, unruly hair and a plain, bony but nice face. Blunt cheekbones, a nose distinguished by a bump that suggested a long-ago break and eyes so blue Allie blinked in surprise.

She could almost sense his relief when he escaped the narrow aisles between tightly packed bolts of cotton into the clearing at the back.

She anchored the needle in the fabric. “Can I help you?”

“I hope so.” He stopped at the edge of the polished wood frame and gazed at the half-finished quilt with interest. “Well, isn’t that a beauty,” he murmured after a minute.

“Thank you. It’s a simple pattern called Lady of the Lake.”

“It’s the colors.” He seemed to be enthralled. “And the sewing you’re doing.”

“Quilting,” she corrected him. “This is what makes the sandwich of fabrics a quilt and not a comforter.”

She was happy with this particular quilt herself. She’d used all shades of purple, from palest lavender to deep, rich plum, interspersed with a red startling enough to define the blocks.

The man lifted a big, blunt-fingered hand and said, “Would you mind if I touched it?”

“Not at all. Come around here.” Part of the quilt was outside the frame.

He fingered it, seeming to savor the texture. He still held the corner of the quilt when he lifted his eyes, suddenly, to her face. They were not only vividly blue, they were penetrating. Allie had the uneasy feeling he was seeing more in her than most people did.

“Beautiful,” he said again, his voice deep and even a little gravelly, as if he ought to clear his throat.

Feeling her cheeks heat, Allie wondered if he was still talking about the quilt.

Get a grip.

“Can I help you?” she asked.

“I’m looking for someone willing to do what you’re doing right now. We have this part—” he touched the top “—but the thing never got finished. I guess I figured these days the sewing—the quilting,” he corrected himself, “was done on a machine.”

“Machine-quilting is more common than hand-quilting like I do,” she agreed. “And most often, what hand-done quilts you see were made in China or somewhere else with cheap labor, and usually the stitches are big and fairly sloppy.”

He nodded slowly.

“I’d have to see what you’ve got to tell you whether it’s worth getting hand-quilted. How old is it? Was it hand-pieced? What’s it look like?”

His expression was mildly befuddled. “Well, it’s different than this. It’s only two colors, for one thing. Dark blue and white.”

She nodded encouragement.

“Little squares and big squares and...” He seemed to struggle to find the right words and finally shrugged as if giving up. “They form a pattern.”

Allie laughed. “There are quilts with one big picture in the middle or a giant star, something like that. Otherwise, a pieced quilt by its very nature ends up with symmetrical blocks.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “It’s not new.” He considered her, looking a little wary. Allie had the feeling he wasn’t much of a talker and probably not given to confiding in many people, and especially not a total stranger. But after a minute his face relaxed, as if he’d made up his mind. “I’ve got a foster son—he’s fourteen—and supposedly his great-great-grandmother made this quilt top. The story is that her arthritis had gotten so bad she couldn’t finish.”

Intrigued now by the quilt and not only the man, Allie calculated. “Um...if he’s right about the great-greats, it’s probably at least eighty years old, then. Maybe a hundred.”

“That might be.”

“I’d like to see it.”

“Your work is beautiful,” he said simply. “I want you to do Sean’s quilt.”

Smiling, she shook her head. “I won’t make any promises. I do take on a project like that once in a while, but it has to be something special. Interesting enough for me to want to give it a great deal of time.”

“I understand,” he said, and looked as if he really did. “I’ll bring it to you.”