I squirmed. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you home.”
Mira Ann caught my eye, and a line of worry dipped between her brows.
Ryan offered thanks for both of us for lunch and carried me across the hot asphalt, leaving Mira Ann to whatever thoughts churned behind her eyes.
I’d never been carried by a man, and the strange sensation made me feel both sickeningly helpless and cared for in the same moment. He gently tucked me into the passenger side of his gray pickup. Not nearly as pristine as Mira Ann’s vehicle, Ryan’s truck hosted hats shoved between the dash and the windshield, stacks of papers on the center console, and three Coke cans.
He bounded around the front of the truck and leapt inside with the grace of one who never stumbled over his own two clumsy feet. I wanted to argue, to say I needed to get my car, but it would be futile. The man who Ida had entrusted as the gatekeeper to all my answers didn’t strike me as the type who would cave to puny arguments. The church was less than five minutes from Ida’s house. I could get my car later.
Ryan rolled the windows down, and fresh air whipped strands of dark hair over my face. I drew in a deep breath and let the scents of pine and flora cleanse my senses. A few bumpy minutes later, we pulled into the drive at Ida’s house.
Knowing better than to grab the handle, I waited as Ryan exited the truck and walked around. He opened my door, but I refused to let him carry me again. Too disconcerting. Instead, I slid down to the concrete driveway and steadied my feet beneath me. It hurt, but not badly enough for me to think I’d torn or broken anything. With a little support, could put most of my weight on my ankle. With his help I made it up the steps, the scrapes on my knee smarting.
Ryan opened the front door. And paused.
“What’s wrong?” I leaned to look around him, but his big frame blocked the doorway.
Without answering me, Ryan swung the door the rest of the way open and gripped my elbow again. As I hobbled inside, the reason for his hesitation became painfully clear. The scraps of material—which I’d tried to stitch together by hand—were spread out over the dusty hardwood floor. I’d gathered together ragged edges of the mismatched fabric and looped a threaded needle unevenly through the pieces. The result was a roughly four-foot by six-foot misshapen rectangle sprawling across the floor. It looked terrible.
“Just wanted to be sure you wouldn’t mind me coming inside.”
Oh. Right. The smile in his voice brought heat up my neck. Crazy lady afraid of strangers.
Ryan stepped around the fabric without a word and steered me toward the kitchen. Sunlight dappled through the lace curtains of the bay window brimming with herbs and lay in speckled patterns across the farmhouse table. Ryan pulled a chair out for me and waited until I’d lowered myself into it before flipping on the light to the pantry. A moment later he returned with a bottle of peroxide and two bandages.
He certainly knew his way around Ida’s house. “How often did you come over here?” I looked over the top of his head, too glad someone else was eyeing my cuts to be unnerved by his presence.
The fresh hole in these jeans was too big to pass off as a fashion choice.
Ryan poured some peroxide onto a cotton ball and dabbed at the scraped flesh on my exposed kneecap. I prided myself on withholding an embarrassing yelp.
“Lots of times. That’s why Ida moved the first-aid box from the upstairs bathroom to the pantry.” He chuckled. “She knew I’d need it often enough, and the relocation saved her needless treks up the stairs.”
“Why?”
After dabbing the wound and pressing on the two adhesive bandages, Ryan rose and tossed the packaging in the trash. “I did maintenance work for her. Nothing big, since I’m not a plumber or carpenter or anything. I cleaned the gutters, cut the grass, and fixed sagging cabinet doors.”
I examined my knee. “Thanks.” I couldn’t even see the scrapes under the two little bandages. They couldn’t have been all that bad. I was just a wimp.
Ryan put his hands on the countertop and regarded me across the central island. “It’s good for you to let people care about you.”
Not the response I’d been expecting. I shifted in my seat.
“Ida wanted you to enjoy making the quilt.”
Uh-oh. Another uncomfortable subject switch. I should have known he wouldn’t let the mess in the foyer slide.
“She wanted to connect with you because she cared about you.” He tapped a finger on the countertop, but his eyes were soft.
I bristled anyway and tilted my chin in defiance. “I am doing the quilt. As best I can, anyway. I’m not a quilter. Or a seamstress. I don’t even know how to use the machine.”
Ryan shrugged. “Google.”
I fished my phone out of my back pocket and held it up. The old-style flip phone with a cracked top barely took calls. I wouldn’t be Googling anything with my limited data, which I saved for emergencies, and Ida didn’t have a computer. My computer had been lost with the rest of the stuff Derick had bought for me and insisted on keeping when he tossed me out.
“You have a lot of excuses.”
His words washed over me, settling into cracks and stinging worse than the peroxide. “Pardon me?”
Ryan drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “In the short time I’ve known you, you’ve told me several things you’re not good at. I’m starting to wonder if you’re using that as an excuse to avoid working or to keep you from getting out of your comfort zone.”
I glared at him, his words pricking at my insides in ways I didn’t appreciate. “You think me not knowing how to make a quilt is an excuse? For what? I’m doing it. I’m sorry if it’s not as pretty as you’d like it to be.” I wouldn’t have another man pointing out all my flaws. I could see them enough on my own. I didn’t need his help.
“That’s not what I meant.” He stared at me a moment, and this time I lost the battle to hold his gaze.
I looked at my shoes. Great. I’d scuffed the left one. Chalk up ruined shoes to go with my ruined pants. The back of my throat burned. I clenched my teeth. I would not cry over scuffed shoes.
“I meant that you say you’re not good with people—”
“Because I’m not.”
“—and maybe that’s true. But you’re letting that label you. Define you. You say you’re not good with people, so you use that as a reason not to try to get better. People don’t need to practice what they’re good at as much as they need to practice where they’re weak.”
Two sermons in one day. Just what I needed.
“You say you don’t know how to quilt, but that’s exactly the point. Ida knew you didn’t know how. But she gave you the project so that you could learn from it. Figure it out.”
The truth of his words sank into my middle, and I hung my head. “I’m failing at that, too.”
“You’re only failing because you’re giving up. If you run from every problem, you never solve anything.”
“I’m making the quilt, aren’t I?” The words sounded childish and petulant even to my own ears, and I hated myself all the more for it. Why could I never sound like a put-together grown woman?
“Did you care for Ida?”