Read Online Heart in Hand: Stitches in Time Series #3 by Barbara Cameron - Free Book Online

poked her head in the door. “Your class is here.”
    Gideon stood. “Well, I’m going to go brave the ladies.”
    “You’ll be fine.”
    There was a loud slurping noise as Sarah Rose drained the last of her hot chocolate.
    “My daughter, the delicate young lady,” he said wryly as they walked into the shop.
    Anna introduced Gideon and Sarah Rose to the members of the knitting class and got them started on the week’s lesson, then sat in the chair beside Sarah Rose to help her cast her yarn on her needles.
    Sarah Rose chewed on her lip as she struggled with the task, but after she got the first couple of loops safely on the needles, she smiled. “I did it!”
    “You did!”
    Anna remembered the first time her grandmother had helped her do this. Quilting hadn’t interested her as much as it had Naomi, but she loved the feel of the yarn in her hands, the thing she was creating—a muffler had been her first project just like Sarah Rose—emerging from the needles with their comforting clacking noise.
    Her father insisted that he loved the muffler when he opened it on Christmas even though it was overlong, contained a number of dropped stitches, and looked slightly crooked. He didn’t mind the length, he said, and wrapped it around his neck an extra time or two. Years later, in her teens, she’d tried to exchange it with a better one, but he’d refused, insisting that he loved her first effort.
    Poor Samuel had been the unfortunate recipient of some of my early knitting as well , she thought with a smile. He’d gotten many beginner projects that made her wince today: sweaters with one arm too long, a cap that covered his eyes but heswore was his favorite for keeping his head warm. Truth was, it slipped and often covered his eyebrows. That was okay, he said. They got cold in a Pennsylvania winter, too.
    She’d teased him that there was room enough under the hat for two. Laughing, he’d pulled her close, tried to drag it over both their heads, but only succeeded in bringing their faces so close that they’d ended up staring at each other, the cold-smoky plumes of their breath intermingling. Then they’d kissed, and nothing had been the same again. They’d been schoolhouse friends one day and inseparable the next.
    “This is hard,” Sarah Rose said, breaking into her thoughts.
    “You’re doing really well,” Anna told her. “Look at how much you’ve done so far.”
    She looked over at Gideon. “I’ll help you in just a minute.”
    “No hurry,” he said, watching his daughter’s progress.
    A few minutes later, satisfied that her new student was doing well, Anna got up and moved to a chair next to Gideon. “Oh, my.”
    He held up his hands tangled in yarn, laughed, and shook his head. “Not so good.”
    She leaned forward and began unsnarling the yarn. Just as she had the day she helped him get rid of the dye on his hands, she noticed how his hands looked so strong and capable. Although she was careful not to touch him, one of her hands accidentally brushed his and her fingers tingled. Looking up, she saw that his eyes had suddenly grown intense. Quickly, she finished pulling the yarn away.
    “Now, if you’ll hand me the ball of yarn I’ll rewind it and get you started again.”
    He picked up the ball from his lap and went to hand it to her, but he dropped it and it rolled under his chair. Anna bent to catch it, but he’d done the same thing and they knocked foreheads together.
    “Ouch!” they cried simultaneously and sprang back to rub their foreheads.
    Sarah Rose giggled, then slipped from her chair to retrieve the ball and hand it to Anna.
    “I’m doing real good,” she said in a lofty tone, climbing back into her chair and resuming her knitting.
    Anna rubbed at her forehead. “You certainly are.” She turned back to Gideon. “You’re not usually this—” she paused, searching for the word.
    “Klutzy?” he asked, rubbing his own forehead.
    She bit her lip, trying to stifle her