The Quilting House Read online

  Though he never did pressure. Not once. Maybe that scared Gretchen, too. The “too-good-to-be-trueness” of it all.

  “It’s not what you might think,” Liesel answered, her lips curling again.

  Gretchen felt herself flush. “I don’t know what you mean,” she answered, focusing all her attention on threading the needle with a new color of thread. Green.

  “I think this next generation has trouble with commitment. And while divorce continues to become more and more socially acceptable and a desire to wait on marriage becomes trendy, that still isn’t it, either. And it’s not the hard work, mind you.” Liesel shook her finger, the clean, manicured red nail flashing in the low glow of the candlelight. “It’s always more. More and bigger and better and newer and different. And that flies in the face of Christianity.”

  Gretchen considered this. Having only ever been a casual church goer, she really didn’t have a leg to stand on in arguing against Liesel. Still, something occurred to her that the woman might consider. “That’s not entirely true,” she said carefully, eyeing Liesel discretely from the corner of her vision. “I think Christians desire to love God more and bigger and better. And faith is all about newness. New life. New chances. Different paths.” She blinked and looked up at Liesel, who’d cocked her head. Her mouth had fallen slightly agape.

  “I never thought of it that way,” she murmured, her brows knitting together in consternation. Then, she shook her head. “I didn’t become a nun for a different reason anyway.”

  “Oh?” Gretchen looked back at her stocking. She was nearly done with this. Dakota’s would be next. Then her sister’s. She might finish them all tonight. “So, what happened?” she asked.

  Three sharp raps sliced through their conversation.

  Someone was at the door.

  Greta smiled. “Essentials are here.”

  Chapter 6—Liesel

  Liesel peered curiously at the front door, fully expecting Gretchen’s so-called friend to appear.

  But it wasn’t Theo Linden. It was a different man.

  “Coach Ketchum,” Greta breathed his name on a shutter of relief and passed the baby to Gretchen, but Liesel remained frozen on the threshold between the parlor and the foyer, useless.

  Snow whipped around him as he twisted inside, his arms laden with snow-capped paper grocery sacks. Once in, he shook his head like a wet dog.

  Liesel narrowed her stare on him. For being her same age, Mark Ketchum was easy on the eyes. A fit figure—the perk of being a coach—and full head of hair helped to give him a one-up on many of his contemporaries.

  “Ladies,” he said as Greta pushed the door shut and secured the deadbolt as if the snow had the power to break in. “Don’t go out there. I’m glad Luke called me. I—” he stammered as his eyes focused on Greta, then Gretchen and the baby, and at last to the stairs, where half the guests had emerged again, interested in the goings-on of the first floor of their storm-straddled B&B.

  “Hello,” Liesel said at last, crossing the threshold, both feet now squarely on the hardwood floor of the foyer.

  Liesel’s eyes hung briefly on Mark and his on her.

  “Miss Hart,” he answered. “Didn’t expect to see you here tonight.” The words sank like a heavy brick in the quiet house. Quiet, save for the blizzard outside.

  She pushed her lips into a pout. “Likewise.” She tried for a smile but then remembered she hadn’t touched up her lipstick. There was every chance it had bled into the cracks at the sides of her mouth. Or worse, onto her teeth. She ran her tongue over her teeth only to feel the gesture come across as lascivious. Stopping, she simply pricked her mouth up and nodded.

  Greta retrieved Tabby and her bottle from Gretchen and addressed the onlookers who’d joined them by the front desk. “Hi, all. No news yet. I did call the electric company, and a transformer is out nearby. They are standing by for the weather to die down before they can repair. It’s pretty bad out there.”

  One of the guests hooked a thumb at Mark. “You’d think if he can make it out, a power worker could.”

  Liesel threw the caustic guest a sharp look then remembered her place there and softened. People were stressed. She was stressed. Michigan awaited her, but here she was, stuck in her nephew’s little Inn with a girl who might have been a younger version of herself and a handsome high school football coach who made Liesel’s knees turn to jelly and her throat close up as if she was fifteen again. Ridiculous. She wasn’t fifteen. She was closer to fifty. And so was he, most ridiculously of all!

  “Yes, well. Coach Ketchum is a renegade.” The sweet blonde innkeeper shrugged Tabby up on her shoulder and gave Mark a severe look. “And it wasn’t safe for you to come here. In fact, it’s not safe for you to leave. Might as well get comfortable, Coach. If I’m not letting Aunt Liesel leave, then you can bet your bottom dollar I won’t let you, either.”

  Mark groaned. “I can’t stay, Greta. I told Luke I’d drop this by just in case.” He set the bags down. “And now, I’m off. I’ll drive slowly. I promise.”

  And without another chance to talk him down, Mark swept back out through the front door, unlocking it and tugging it shut behind himself and leaving wet white footprints from his boots on the utility mat made for just that sort of thing. Still, their presence felt foreboding in some way. Liesel shook the thought and let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding.

  The guests who’d come down ambled into the parlor and stared hard out the window as Greta, Gretchen, Tabby, and Liesel slipped into the kitchen. There, they emptied the bags by candlelight and chatted mildly, as if they weren’t trapped in a snowstorm as an innocent man took his life in his hands and drove off into a blizzard.

  “That wasn’t very smart,” Gretchen chided, clicking her tongue. Liesel agreed silently.

  “You can’t tell Mark Ketchum what he can and can’t do,” Greta responded, pulling out a tin of formula powder and shelving it in a cupboard. “He doesn’t even listen to me.”

  Liesel wondered if she oughtn’t have either. She could be on her way to a different airport by now. Or maybe just on her way home. Maybe she wasn’t listening to Greta, though. Maybe she was listening to something else.

  “Anyway,” Liesel added, “didn’t you say Theo was coming by with wood? Maybe you should call him and tell him to stay home.”

  Gretchen’s eyes flashed at Liesel before she tugged her phone from her sweater pocket and swiveled away, texting furiously as Liesel peered on. She turned back just as quickly. “My phone died.”

  Chapter 7—Gretchen

  Theo shouldn’t have come. But he was there now, and even worse? He was in trouble with his mama. Sure, he was twenty, but in Hickory Grove, you were your parents’ child until the bitter end. And that meant that a grown man could still be in trouble with his mama.

  The four of them stood awkwardly in the kitchen. Three single white candle sticks glowed on the table. Just after the girls and the guests finished supper, he’d appeared, frosted over from head-to-toe and lugging an oversized, worn canvas tote, chock full of split wood and kindling.

  Greta shushed Tabby, whose bedtime was fast approaching. Liesel poured milk into a kettle to boil for hot cocoa.

  “Thank goodness for a wood-burning stove,” Liesel remarked. She and Greta fussed over how many scoops of powder for each mug, and Gretchen turned to her ex-boyfriend.

  Gritting her teeth, she hissed, “You can’t stay here. Not overnight.”

  He shot back, “You want me to drive in this?”

  “You drove over here, didn’t you?”

  “And you shouldn’t have,” Greta interjected, her tone sharp. “It’s one thing for Mark Ketchum to drive. He’s got that big truck and four-wheel drive. And he’s old. You didn’t have to come, Theo. It was a dangerous thing to do.”

  Gretchen winced as Greta admonished him. She knew her employer meant to be motherly, but then… they really could use the wood, and maybe they ought to be grateful.


  As if reading her mind, Miss Liesel added, “But we’re glad you did, Theo.” Then, she winked at Gretchen, who wanted to melt into the hardwood floor like one of the snowflakes that Theo carried in on his snow boots.

  “Anyway.” Gretchen cleared her throat. “I need to get back to work.”

  Greta waved her hand vaguely. “What work? The guests are fed. Dishes done. Bed turned down. Go on. You two, go. Relax.”

  Gretchen’s skin prickled as Theo took a step near her. She glanced his way. “Sure, okay. I need to work on my sewing projects, anyway.” She felt through the dark, sensing the path as she led the short way from the kitchen to the parlor.

  Theo followed her with one of the candlesticks, placing it at the center of the coffee table. Before dinner, Liesel and Greta had figured out how to use the old record player in the parlor, setting a Frank Sinatra Christmas special on. It still played now, offering a gentle holiday heartbeat as a backdrop to their awkward reunion. The reunion each one of them wanted and didn’t want. Then again, it was stupid of Gretchen to presume to know what Theo wanted or didn’t want.

  Maybe there was something to the age-old idea about men and women and being friends. Then again, Gretchen didn’t really feel like a woman. So, if she wasn’t a woman, if she was still a girl—and in so many ways, she was—then maybe there could be a friendship. Something innocent and devoid of want. Devoid of all the things that threatened the balance of what she and Theo had carved out before she called it quits.

  “I’m sorry, Gretchen,” he mumbled once she took her place back in the floral print sitting chair. “Jingle Bells” turned to “Silent Night,” and Gretchen felt sad suddenly. Here she was, hours before Christmas Eve, with one stocking done, no gifts bought, and at least three stockings to go. Maybe more, depending on if she could pull it off. And not only that, she was now officially locked in a snow-embedded inn with her ex-boyfriend who she was never very serious about but who she never officially got over.

  As if the song change really was an omen, Gretchen realized she hadn’t heard the wind in a while. Maybe since before supper.

  Then, as soon as she realized that, the lights flickered on, buzzing then boom. On, on. She felt naked under the glimmering parlor chandelier. The furnace also roared to life. Cheers came from above them—the guests.

  Liesel appeared in the archway. “I don’t want to bother you, but there’s a bit of good news.”

  Gretchen smiled. “Let me guess. The power came back on?”

  The woman cocked her head. “Ready for your hot cocoa?”

  “Well, now that the power is on, maybe I can go. Or… should go.” Theo stood and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ll leave the wood here. Just in case.”

  He shuffled to the front door, and Gretchen stood, swallowing, frowning.

  Liesel gave her a look then disappeared back into the kitchen before calling over her shoulder. “Not before hot cocoa!” she called back, then bobbed her head back through the door, catching Theo before he’d crossed the threshold to the foyer. “And if you leave, I’ll call Becky.”

  Chapter 8—Liesel

  Just because the power returned didn’t make it safe to drive. Not for Theo, and not for Liesel. At least, according to Greta. By then, it was getting late, and Liesel had accepted that she’d best hunker down in the parlor.

  However, the snow had died down enough for the little group to make their way back to the main house, should they need to.

  Technically, Gretchen was to cover the late shift, which, as Greta explained, meant she’d stay until midnight. At that point their other innkeeper would arrive and take over until six in the morning. However, that plan was dead in the water—or snow, as the case may be.

  This meant, that Gretchen, like Liesel and now Theo, would have to stay the night, too.

  Propriety demanded, however, that Gretchen and Theo, who were already acting awkwardly enough, were kept separate.

  So, the girls ended up back in the house, the innkeeper’s house where Greta and Luke lived with Tabby. The one Liesel’s mother had owned. Where she’d once stowed her own afghans and quilts aplenty. Many of those were now at Liesel’s home, tucked for safekeeping in her hope chest. Something occurred to Liesel as she and Gretchen each climbed beneath heavy down comforters on a set of twin beds in the guest room.

  The quilt.

  Folded carefully and tucked in its own little carry-on was one of her more prized possessions. It was her mother’s quilt: the wedding ring pattern. The one gifted to Liesel when she chose to pursue the vocation of serving God. You’re marrying the Church now. God, now. This is as good a time as any to hand this over, Liesel’s mother had said with a harumph, adding, I thought I’d be giving this to my daughter on her wedding day. Then she’d smiled and squeezed Liesel’s hand. Close enough.

  Liesel had spent an inordinate amount of her adulthood wondering when she’d have that conversation with her own daughter. After she turned forty, she realized she ought to consider alternatives.

  Then, years after that, when her biological family had made its very first contact, a dim light had blinked to life. Like that one dead Christmas lightbulb that needed to be replaced, then you just gave it a little twist, and boom, it was in good working order again… Liesel had it. She had sisters. Sisters aplenty. Sisters she didn’t know. Sisters who were younger. Sisters who might work a bit like daughters if they all put the time in.

  So, once Liesel was invited to Michigan to get to know the family, she pulled that old quilt out, smoothing it on her own bed and admiring the fine embroidery. The perfect squares, nearly seamless in their execution. Other thoughts danced over her mind. What about Greta? She’d become close to Greta. And now Greta had Tabby. And Luke would appreciate that.

  But then why hadn’t the lightbulb blinked on for their wedding? Maybe because, despite Luke, there wasn’t anything pulling Liesel and Greta together. No common thread, so to speak.

  Still, she wouldn’t count the sweet-natured innkeeper out. Greta was as good a candidate as any.

  Then again, Greta now owned half of Liesel’s mother’s things anyway. She’d probably found a different wedding ring quilt hidden in the back of a closet somewhere. So, in essence, Greta had already been bequeathed quite a lot. Quite a lot of the Hart family heirlooms.

  That’s why Liesel had packed the quilt for her trip. Maybe she and her family there would bond. Maybe the whole trip would turn into a longer commitment. Before she knew it, New Year’s Eve would have come and gone and she’d still be there, on Lake Huron in Michigan, the freezing cold, obliviously happy.

  And yet… how could she?

  Liesel was social enough, sure. But outgoing? Extroverted to the point of taking up in some strange place and with some strange people, and for what?

  For what? To gain another address for her address book? Another recipient of her Christmas greeting cards?

  And why, anyway? Why was Liesel so interested in connecting with people who’d given her up? Maybe, because now that her nephew—her sole surviving relative, or at least… the sole surviving relative she knew—was married with his own little brood, it cast a light on Liesel’s own failings. Her own losses. The things she never did have.

  Gretchen was snoring lightly, like a baby snores—soft and rhythmic and sweet. Liesel pulled the comforter up to her chin and snuggled down deeper. The next morning would start a new day. A fresh layer of snow. Maybe the storm wouldn’t be over. Maybe her flight would still be cancelled.

  And maybe, by then, she wouldn’t want to go anyway. Maybe her mother’s quilt had something different in mind.

  Step 3: Assemble the Units

  “You never know where a quilt will wind up,” Liesel’s mother said once they were ready to put together the patches.

  “What do you mean?” Liesel asked, although she figured she knew.

  “Quilters often gift their quilts away, right?”

  “You keep some of the ones you make,” Liesel pointed out.


  “Yes. Rarely though. Most of the quilts we have here are passed down from my mother, and hers before her. Or even other family members. Other friends.”

  “Do you know who made every quilt you own?”

  Liesel’s mother frowned in concentration. “I reckon I do,” she confirmed. “If we take them all out and spread them across the table, I could tell you who gave me which—of those ones that were given directly to me. Or the ones my own mama told me about.”

  “How do you know?”

  This must have been obvious, because a little smirk ticked up the edges of her mother’s mouth. “Oh, honey, you always remember. A pretty fabric here or a new pattern there—they stick with your heart.”

  Satisfied at that, Liesel looked on as her mother showed her the steps to creating the half-square triangles. It was a tedious job, and Liesel had a difficult time imagining how they’d not only compile all those half-square triangles… but then the blocks… and then the quilt itself. There was no way they’d finish in a month.

  Liesel said as much. “When will we have the time to get this done before Christmas?”

  Her mother just clicked her tongue. “It’s winter, Liesel. No gardening to do. Scarcely any yardwork at’all. And it’s the slow season, you know.”

  “But it’s a lot of work, I think,” Liesel worried aloud. “It’ll take a long time, right? All your quilts do.”

  “From here to the birth of Christ, we’ve got precious little else to do, my dear.”