Read Online Coming Apart at the Seams by Jenna Sutton - Free Book Online Page A

one of them.
    But he’d settled on history because he’d always been interested in the past and how it impacted the present. People would be surprised to find out he watched the History Channel a lot more than he watched ESPN.
    â€œHow d-d-d-did he get to the Bay Area?” he asked.
    â€œWe’re not sure. My Grandma Vi was interested in genealogy, and she found out he came here on a coffin ship from Dublin. He arrived in Boston in 1839, and then he showed up in San Francisco in 1843.”
    â€œGo on,” he prompted Teagan, using one of his many verbal tricks that encouraged other people to keep talking.
    She stared at him. “Are you really that interested?”
    He nodded emphatically, and she smiled. He stared at her rosy lips, watching them shape words he had trouble pronouncing.
    â€œWell, once Riley O’Brien arrived in San Francisco, he opened a dry goods store. His store was known for having the largest selection and the best price—basically the Walmart of the 1800s.”
    Her description made him laugh. She certainly had a way of painting a picture with a few words. It was just one of the many reasons he had so much fun when he was with her.
    â€œOne of the biggest mysteries about Riley O’Brien is where he got his money to open the store,” she continued.
    He raised his eyebrows. By and large, Irish immigrants had been poor, and the ones who’d had money were usually involved in all sorts of illegal activities.
    â€œCriminal?” he guessed.
    â€œMaybe. But there might be another explanation. Grandma Vi found a book with a bunch of posters advertising fights across the U.S. in the early 1840s, and some of them referred to a brawler called the Irish Mountain. I think the Irish Mountain was Riley O’Brien.”
    â€œMakes sense,” he agreed. He couldn’t imagine many men who would have been larger than Riley O’Brien. “And the jeans?”
    Teagan nodded, understanding his question. Sometimes he felt as if she could read his mind.
    â€œIt’s kind of a long story,” she warned him.
    â€œContinue,” he directed, using yet another verbal prompt. He had a lot of them.
    â€œWe’re not sure how Rileys came to be, exactly. It’s urban legend, for the most part. Apparently, quite a few of Riley O’Brien’s customers were angry the pants he’d sold them weren’t very durable.”
    â€œProspectors?”
    â€œNo, the Gold Rush hadn’t started yet. These were just regular working guys. Somehow he got the idea to make pants out of the same canvas material that tents were made out of. Of course, the material was a light color, and it showed dirt, so he sent a swatch of tent material to fabric manufacturers in France looking for a similar material in a darker color. They sent him a fabric called
serge de nimes,
which is basically serge fabric from the town of Nimes. That’s why it’s known as denim.”
    â€œFrance?”
    â€œYes. Back then, the French were a lot more advanced than other countries in producing textiles. Riley O’Brien had to ship the denim in bulk from France to San Francisco, where he had a team of seamstresses to sew the pants.”
    â€œCool.”
    He found the entire history of the O’Brien family fascinating. In fact, he knew more about Teagan’s ancestry than his own. He didn’t know the origin of his last name, and he didn’t know where his ancestors were from.
    Teagan shifted next to him, drawing his gaze. Her sundress was the color of watermelon, and a cardigan sweater of the same color draped over her arm. And just like watermelon, she looked cool and sweet and reminded him of summer.
    She had twisted her dark hair on top of her head, leaving her shoulders bare except for the skinny straps of her sundress. It dipped a little in the front, revealing her abundant cleavage, and Nick wished for the hundredth time she’d worn something