She bites her lip.
I look away.
We set out and about ten minutes later hit what is obviously Galilee’s downtown area. Shops line both sides of a charming small-town street that widens at one end into a green park area, which is bustling with, of all things, a?—
“Quilt festival!” Eden crows, delighted, eyes bright. “I had no idea there was one in Galilee!”
It’s not huge, but tens of quilts hang from wooden racks and tall scaffolds, waving gently in the breeze, blazes of bright color and wild designs. Even from this distance, I can see a vivid giraffe, a patchwork in every shade of red, a cat with a Cheshire grin and slightly deranged eyes.
“Oh, wow, look at that log cabin with all the blues. Gorgeous.” She edges closer to the quilt, and I bite back a smile. She’s cute like this, all fired up. Not thinking about worthless Paul and his bad decisions.
“Do you want to check it out?”
“I mean, we’ve got flights now, so we basically just have to kill time till then, right?”
“Right.”
Meanwhile, Eden has drifted another three feet toward the quilts, like she’s being drawn with a magnet.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind?” she calls over her shoulder.
“I don’t mind.”
What I mean is:I want to see you smile again.
I follow her toward the quilts and stand near as she examines them one by one.
“Look,” she says, pointing to some faint stitching on the surface of the quilt. When I step closer, I can see that it’s not random—the stitches follow the shapes of leaves. And the quilt itself is all autumn color—rich, saturated earth tones with splashes of deep red and yellow.
“What am I looking at?” I ask.
“Okay, so, I don’t know how much you know about quilts…” She’s practically quivering with excitement—that’s how much she loves talking about this.
“Absolutely nothing,” I admit.
She explains that a quilt is a sandwich, and that the woman who quilted this one used her own small home sewing machine. “It takes a ton of skill and patience. She literally made all these leaf shapes by moving the quilt around under the machine’s needle. It would be like if I held a pen still and you had to move the paper to draw leaves. Except the quilt is shockingly heavy and bunches up while you work. Mad props to her.”
Damn, she’s right; that’s amazing.
All of a sudden, I can see that this quilt isn’t just a big fabric blanket. It’s layers, and each one took loads of thought and planning and effort. It’s not some old-fashioned hobby; it’s an art form.
She’s still talking, explaining something to me aboutburying knotsandone continuous threadandedge-to-edge design. She’s bouncing on her toes, and her voice sounds like a smile.
And I realize I’m not looking at the quilt anymore, not following her finger as it traces the stitching along the surface of the fabric. I’m watching her instead.
Her cheeks are pink and her eyes dance, and she’s beaming, so fucking beautiful that it takes my breath away.
Eden’s fingers sweep across the surface of the quilt, and I feel the caress like a brush over tightening flesh. I want to drink her excitement straight from her lips, lean into her and devour her energy from the source.
My phone, buzzing, startles me out of the moment, and I reach for it.
“Hey,” I say into the phone, striding to the edge of the quilt display.
“We have a problem.” Hanna’s voice is tight.
Shit.“Okay. Lay it on me.”
“I just listened to a voicemail on the office line from Leah Piper.”
