Kaisha pointed to the shelf of vicuña, now three-quarters empty. ‘Sold to the lovely knitter from Brooklyn.’ She beamed.
‘You sold loads of it!’
‘She’s a serious knitter, and she’s fast. She has all kinds of plans for that yarn. She’s coming along to the workshop tonight too so she can knit some vicuña socks for her husband without him knowing. She says it’ll be good to make a start and then she’ll have to hide out in cafes or knit when he’s at work. Apparently, he always moans about getting socks for Christmas, but she can’t wait to see his face when he sees how luxurious they are. If he moans, she says she’ll wear them herself.’
‘Good for her. I’d certainly be happy with them. Can you imagine them on your feet?’
‘You’ve never used vicuña?’
‘You sound surprised.’
‘Surely it’s the owner’s prerogative to try all the yarns.’
‘It’s also the owner’s prerogative to pay for all the yarns.’
‘Ah.’ Kaisha moved to help another customer.
Cleo went out back and shut down the laptop. That would do for today. She closed her notebook and slotted in the printout of details on a couple of vacant stores, possibilities if she chose to go down that road. There was one in Brooklyn, the other in Washington Heights. Both carried with them rents higher than expected and Cleo wasn’t sure if either were in a location she could work with. There was the distance from her apartment for a start, and then there was the clientele. Her head was swimming with the research she would still need to do for another premises to be a possibility, but right now it was time to switch off from all of that.
‘Go take your break,’ she told Kaisha, when she joined her in the store and the customer had left. ‘Take a bit longer, seeing as you’ll be managing the workshop on your own this evening.’
‘Thanks, will do. It’ll give me some time to work on my project.’ Kaisha went out back and picked up her knitting bag and patted it. ‘I’m making a sweater for my boyfriend for Christmas.’
‘That’s lovely.’ An art student too, Kaisha’s boyfriend sounded like a keeper. They had so much in common, and he’d won Cleo’s complete approval two days ago when he sent Kaisha a dozen red roses to the Little Knitting Box for her birthday.
‘Can I see it?’ Cleo asked, ignoring the pang of recognition that she didn’t have anyone herself this Christmas. Nobody to hold hands with as they strolled around the city and the snow fell lightly onto their shoulders, nobody to snuggle up with on the sofa in the evening with a mug of hot chocolate or a mulled wine.
Kaisha showed her the sweater.
‘It’s beautiful.’ She waved Kaisha off and then bent down to the lower shelves beneath the cash register in search of a duster. The front door was incredibly dirty on the wood surrounding the glass, and Cleo liked her store in top working order. She was also fiercely protective of her stock and didn’t want it to be at risk of picking up the dirt.
As the bell tinged again, she was stretching to grab the duster right at the back behind the tray of tape measures, a couple of knitting patterns, and a calculator, and when she heard her name she jumped so much she smacked her head on the shelf.
She swallowed an expletive and stood up to see Dylan standing on the other side of the cash register. Damn, he was handsome. She’d tried to put that small fact out of her mind and think of only the ex-wife, the kids who needed a mother, her ex and whether she’d run away from him too fast, the fact this man was putting her out of business, and numerous other reasons that stopped her from wanting him so much. But here he was, deep-green eyes looking at her from a clean-shaven face and dark-blond hair flopping in just the right way.
‘Dylan…’ She rubbed the top of her head. ‘You gave me a bit of a fright.’
When he stepped forward, she inhaled deeply as a waft of fresh, zesty aftershave grabbed her. It spoke of strength and sensuality, all the things this man could be.
Dylan lifted his hands and gently tipped her head towards him, fingers in her hair. ‘There’s no blood, but you’ve got a lump.’
The physical contact took her by surprise and she hoped he couldn’t tell how lost for words she was.
‘Do you have an ice pack?’ He was in full daddy mode and it made her grin. ‘Put it on now and the lump should go down quickly enough.’
Cleo found her voice. ‘I’ve got ice cubes in the top of the freezer out back. I’ll get them and wrap them in a tea towel.’
‘I’ll get them. You sit there.’ He indicated the little wooden stool beside the curtain that she sometimes used to reach the stash of yarn on the uppermost shelves.
Within a couple of minutes, he’d followed the call of her instructions and came back brandishing the home-made ice pack. He gently lowered it onto the top of her head. It wasn’t quite the way she wanted to look when they hadn’t seen each other since the day at the Christmas market, but she still felt a fizz of excitement at him being so close to her now.
‘What brings you here?’ she asked, suddenly embarrassed with no lump emergency to focus on and only two customers browsing at the front of the store.
‘I was in town. Ruby has a Build-A-Bear workshop to go to.’
‘A what?’ Cleo adjusted the ice pack on her head.
‘Build-A-Bear; it’s a store where you make your own bear. Ruby’s little friend Maya is turning seven, so all her classmates will go, stuff bears with cotton fluff or whatever filling it is, and dress them in peculiar clothes.’
