The Sweethearts’ Knitting Club Read Online Free Page B

uncharacteristically cutting her some slack. “You’re giving me that look again.”
    “Who are you and what have you done with my sister, you evil pod person?”
    “How come you’re late?”
    “Beau gave me an ultimatum.”
    “Oh?” Carrie paused, one leg in the kitchen, the other on the porch. “What kind?”
    “Marry him or he’s going to find someone else.”
    “He’s bluffing.”
    Flynn shook her head. “I don’t think so. Not this time.”
    “I guess he’s getting the urge for babies.”
    Flynn covered her ears with her palms. “Don’t say that. I’m not ready to hear that. I’m not ready for babies.”
    “Remember twins run in our family.” Carrie scooped up her purse.
    “You’re evil, you know that?”
    “I thought you just said I was a pod person.”
    “Okay, my mistake. You’re still the same old Carrie. You just lured me in there for a minute with these lovely little sandwiches with the crusts cut off.”
    “Honestly, Flynn, you’re finally going to say yes, right? I mean you guys are meant for each other. Mr. and Mrs. I Walk the Line. Of course, I pity the kids. They’ll have no choice but to rebel, but look at the bright side; they’ll have Auntie Carrie showing them the ropes.” Carrie headed across the veranda.
    Flynn followed her. “You think I should say yes?”
    “Beau’s crazy about you.”
    “I know.”
    “So why the hesitation? You guys fit like peanut butter and jelly. Although there is the issue that you’ve never dated anyone else. That’s gotta be weird, having only been with one guy.”
    Except Jesse . Sort of.
    But Carrie didn’t know about that. Nobody knew about her and Jesse except Jesse’s Aunt Patsy.
    “We all can’t have your colorful past with the opposite sex.”
    Carrie hummed a line from an oldies song, “Going to the Chapel.”
    “Who’s going to get married?” Patsy Cross asked as she and three other members of the knitting club—Dotty Mae Densmore, Terri Longoria, and Marva Bullock—walked up on the porch.
    Patsy owned the Teal Peacock, a curio/souvenirshop situated on Ruby Street catty-corner from the Twilight Playhouse on the town square, where in the summers, touring companies performed Broadway musicals. It drew visitors from the Dallas/ Fort Worth Metroplex, infused extra money into the town. This month Mamma Mia! was on the playbill. Patsy also served on the town council, and people sought her advice because of her sound, logical outlook on life. She possessed round cheeks, a rounder waistline, and a precise, measured way of taking stock of people and situations. She wore her hair short and dyed blond and she reminded Flynn a bit of Debbie Reynolds, just not as perky. She’d never had any kids. Last year, her husband had been diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s and she’d been forced to put him in a home. Flynn’s mother had once told her to be extra kind to Patsy, because she’d had a very hard life, but she’d given her no details.
    “Beau and Flynn,” Carrie supplied in answer to Patsy’s question.
    “Finally?” Dotty Mae Densmore squealed with excitement and clapped her hands. “It’s about damn time.”
    Dotty Mae was a former Miss Twilight, 1942. She had the outer appearance of a typical great-grandmother—blue hair, floral print housedress, a rash of liver spots on the backs of her hands, thick glasses perched on the end of her nose. But it was all a guise. Dotty Mae cussed like a Green Beret, played the Lotto every Saturday, and never missed the biannual Twilight senior citizens’ bus trip to the Indian Casino in Choctaw, Oklahoma. Her passion for the Dallas Cowboys rivaled that ofany Joe Six-Pack. She smoked clove cigarettes and had a certain fondness for peppermint schnapps. Flynn had discovered that last tidbit when Carrie had come home staggering drunk at age twelve, reeking of cloves and peppermint. Dotty Mae had called her up to bawl her out for letting Carrie go around stealing old people’s