Confessions from the Quilting Circle by Maisey Yates (ebook reader color screen txt) 📕

was. He might not realize it, but it wasn’t a casual question that a stranger could just ask her. It felt deep and intimate, like he was searching beneath her skin.

“It’s when I feel like me,” she said, and she left it at that, because there was more. There was a way to explain that. A way that it felt. But... She didn’t want to tell him. She didn’t want to say it out loud. Not right now, not to him. Really, not ever.

“And all the other times?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It’s hard to explain.”

It wasn’t. Not really. She just didn’t want to explain it to him.

“I’m not in a hurry.”

“I am,” she said. “I’m on in about a minute.”

“Then give me the one minute version.”

She shouldn’t find that dogged persistence of his charming.

“I could never figure out how to explain myself to my family. What I wanted. What I felt. And when I first picked up the violin, I found a way to do that. It’s everything I want, it gives me a way to express what I feel. It gives me the way to earn a living. It’s everything that I am. So that’s... That’s what that means.”

He didn’t say anything, he just stared at her, those blue eyes different than she remembered them. Because when he’d been a boy, they’d been beautiful, and they’d made her stomach flutter, but she hadn’t felt like he’d seen something in her that she’d never shown anyone before. And he’d been the first person to see her naked.

“It’s my turn,” she said.

“Good. I can’t wait to hear.”

She swallowed, and walked up to the stage, positioning herself in front of the microphone as best she could, and angling. And then she started to play. Slow at first, building, until it was fierce and fast, the rhythm of her heart. The song itself was joyful, a celebration song, and nothing inside of her felt joyful or celebratory. But it was like the music created it within her. Carved out a space for something new, something different, and allowed her to experience something that she didn’t have in her. It was magic, and it was wonderful.

She stomped her foot in rhythm as she played, spinning and turning and not caring about the microphone anymore, because she knew that the sound was carrying without it. And people in the room got up and danced with her. Her hair fell out of its bun, vivid red in her face and sticking to her forehead as sweat beaded there, heat from her movements, and adrenaline from the performance building through her, and when her song was done, the whole bar erupted, and asked for more. So she played. And she kept on playing.

And somewhere in the middle of that, she realized that she hadn’t played in her own town before.

Her own town.

When had she started thinking of Bear Creek as anything other than an old home that she had outgrown?

It wasn’t her town. Boston was her town. But Bear Creek was something, and she couldn’t deny it. And she had never done recitals or talent shows or anything like that, because it had never felt like something she could share here. She had played at home, she had played for her teachers.

When she was finished, she was breathless, and she was smiling.

And Josh was waiting for her just off the stage.

“You are amazing,” he said, his voice low.

“Yeah,” she said, grinning wide. “I am.”

He shook his head. “You’re something else, Hannah.”

“That’s the point.” She nodded in affirmation of herself. “I mean, that was always the point. To be something else.”

“It’s pretty impressive,” he said. “But you know, I liked you just fine back then too.”

“I didn’t. So.”

“Fair enough.”

“I’m going to kiss you,” she said. Then she got up on her toes and did just that.

He wrapped his arms around her, and she gave herself up to it. Absolutely. Completely. And she wasn’t really sure if this was something Lark would do or not, but Hannah didn’t feel like that was a binding agreement that she’d made with her sister. And this was a moment that she wanted to live in.

This was a moment she wanted to extend.

“I hope you have room for one redheaded violinist at your place.”

“I’m sure I can find a spot for you,” he said, his voice rough.

“Then let’s go home.”

This wasn’t the memory lane she had intended to walk down tonight. In fact, nostalgia hadn’t been the reason she’d gone out at all. But somehow, right now, the chance to be with the first man she’d ever been with seemed... Right. Like it might be the exact thing she needed. She didn’t know why.

Or maybe this was just a classic case of arousal making you act a little bit stupid.

Either way. She was okay with it.

“All right, Hannah,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

18

I have agreed to be sent away for the remainder of the pregnancy. I told Mama I got a job. It was a lie. I know why his mother wants me to go. I have time to make up my mind. I could just never come home.

Dot’s diary, August 1944

Lark

Lark was in the process of turning the Closed sign when Ben started up the sidewalk. She stopped what she was doing and just kind of froze. She had picked her car up from the garage, but they had only exchanged a few words, and they’d had the counter between them. It had been a cordial conversation, and there had been none of the tension that had been present in the previous interaction. At least, that’s what she told herself.

In reality, she hadn’t been able to breathe. But she had done her best to ignore that.

And to make sure that he didn’t realize it.

But now, the air was sucked right out of her.

He pushed the door open to the Craft Café, and she was still standing there with her hand on the Closed sign.

“Am I too late?”

For some reason, it