Saved (Minnesota Caribou #5) - Colleen Charles Page 0,3

I can always use the stress relief of working the needles to decompress.

It doesn’t even matter that I’m always the youngest one here by decades. Ever since Papa died, I jump at any chance to spend time with Nana. Besides, her best friend, Roxie, makes the best cream cheese Danish in Minnesota. I have a sweet tooth, and I crave those little devils that always seem to end up on my backside.

After Barb helps me cast on, I finally put my hat down for the night. I should be able to finish it up in time for Blaine’s birthday in a few weeks. I usually cook him his favorite hamburger hotdish with homemade bread and we kick back and share a few beers and a small gift. I don’t like to think about what might happen when he gets a steady girlfriend, or God forbid—a wife—because that tiny pinch behind my chest blossoms into a spiderweb of pain whenever I do.

No wife is going to tolerate that close of a friendship between her husband and another woman. So at that point, I won’t even be the other woman. I’ll be no one of any importance at all, fading back into nothingness like the wallflower I am and let Blaine go.

Because Cora LaCoste always does the right thing, even if that isn’t the best thing for her heart.

And that heart always wants too much. It would do well to stay tightly within my chest cavity, beat, and mind its own damn business instead of flinging out demands that I can never meet.

Like tell Blaine that I’ve loved him since the day I saw him rollerblading down the sidewalk in our neighborhood with kneepads protecting his spindly legs.

They’re not spindly anymore.

Shaking away the image of Blaine’s powerful thighs, I get up to pour myself a cup of hot cocoa from a silver metal serving pot on the refreshment table. I garnish it off with a handful of mini marshmallows and put two Danish on a plate. Once I slide back into my seat beside Nana, I take my first tentative sip. It’s hot but not too hot, and smooth and rich.

Barb starts talking about her grandson’s soccer club while Roxie laments about the root canal she has to have next week. I’d just polished off my first Danish with a little moan of pleasure when, like a symphony of crickets, everyone’s phone shoots off alerts at exactly the same time. That’s strange as heck.

Barb claps her hands together. “Oh, my! It must be that new wool yarn in primary colors I’ve been telling you all about. So perfect for hats, scarves, and mittens. The company is notifying all of us it’s available. We can place a group order. What great timing!”

Nana grabs her glasses from the chain around her neck and perches them across her pert nose. “Um… I don’t think so, ladies.” She taps at her phone, trying to enlarge something. “Now what in tarnation is this picture? Dagnabbit. I should have worn my far-away glasses, not these magnifiers.”

Roxie peers over Nana’s shoulder and sucks in a breath. “I think it’s a member, Blanche.”

Nana cups her hand behind her ear. “What? Speak up, Rox. Did you say you needed to renew your membership for the wine of the month club?”

I happily munch on Danish number two and watch the ladies enlarging and sighing and… screaming?

Josie Smith snorts a laugh. “For the love of God, Blanche, it’s a dick!”

Someone sent my Nana a dick pic? And not just her, all of us? What the hell is wrong with men? Realizing I don’t have near enough time to answer my own rhetorical question, I slap down my half-eaten Danish and whip my phone out. Maybe whipping it out isn’t my best word choice, but if the shoe fits.

Nana fists her throat, clutching for pearls that just aren’t there. “Oh my. Oh… my.”

I stare at my phone from various angles, trying to figure out if there’s something we’re all missing. There has to be a reason we got this. It can’t just be some pervert trying to torment old ladies.

And one young lady.

A young lady who’s never even seen a penis up close and personal. Because there’s only one that would really make me want to look.

But at my age, I’ll never admit that, so I just roll with this whole situation, praying no one asks for my opinion since I really don’t have one about the dick itself, only that the person behind