Memory quilt.
On the next page was a graph. A design for a quilt, with each piece laid out on the grid.
“Grandma was making a quilt,” she said. “This is...”
She turned the page. There was a scrap of lace affixed to it, and underneath it in that same handwriting it said: wedding dress.
“It’s like a swatch book. With fabric for the quilt.”
“That’s interesting,” Hannah said. She got up from her seat and move down to the end of the table, peering over Lark’s shoulder. “What else?”
She flipped the page where there was a very colored fabric in silk and velvet. “‘Parlor curtains.’” She went to the next page, which had a fine, beaded silk. “‘Party dress.’”
“There’s all kinds of stuff like this up in the attic,” she said. “Remember when Gram used to let us go through her collection and choose things to craft with? Broken earrings and old yarn and fabric. And always tons of unfinished projects lying around. Obviously she intended to make this quilt. Maybe she even started it. And it’s somewhere up there with all of the...the unfinished things.”
Unfinished.
That was the word that kept echoing inside of her.
Because it was why she was here. She was one of the unfinished things.
Being here, opening the café, it would give her a chance to finish some of what her grandmother had started.
Maybe along the way she’d manage to join up some of the unfinished pieces inside her own soul.
Don’t miss Confessions from the Quilting Circle
Available May 2021 wherever HQN books and eBooks are sold.
www.Harlequin.com
Copyright © 2021 by Maisey Yates
It’s Christmas and rancher Creed Cooper must work with his rival, Wren Maxfield—and tempers flare! But animosity becomes passion and, now, Wren is pregnant. Creed wants a marriage in name only. But as desire takes over, this may be a vow neither can keep...
Read on for a sneak peek at Claiming the Rancher’s Heir by New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates!
Claiming the Rancher's Heir
by Maisey Yates
One
Creed Cooper was a cowboy. A rich, successful cowboy from one of the most well-regarded families in Logan County. He also happened to be tall, muscular and in possession of the kind of good looks a lot of women liked.
As a result, nearly nothing—or no one—was off-limits to him.
No one except Wren Maxfield.
Maybe that was why every time he looked at her his hands itched.
To unwind that tight bun from her hair. To make that mouth, which was always flattened in disapproval—at least around him—get soft and sexy and get all over his body.
And he had that itch a lot, considering he and Wren were the representatives for their respective families’ vineyards. Rivals, in fact.
And she hated him.
She hated him so much that when she saw him her eyes flared with a particular kind of fire.
Fair enough, since he couldn’t really stand her either.
But somehow, years ago, a piece of that dislike inside him had twisted and caught hard in his gut and turned into an intensity of another kind entirely.
He was obsessed.
Obsessed with the idea he might be able to use that fire in her eyes to burn up the sheets between them.
Instead, he had to listen to her heels clicking on the floor as she paced around the showroom of Cowboy Wines, looking like a smug cat, making him wait to hear whatever plan it was she’d come to tell him about.
“Are you listening to me?” she asked suddenly, her green cat eyes getting sharp.
She was dressed in a tight-fitting red dress that fell to the top of her knees. It had a high, wide neck, and while it didn’t show a lot of skin, it hugged her full breasts so tight it didn’t leave a lot to the imagination.
Even if it had, his imagination was damn good. And it was willing to work for Wren. Overtime.
She had on those ridiculous spiked heels, too. Red, like the dress. He wanted to see her in only those heels.
He wasn’t into prissy women. Not generally. He liked a more practical girl. A cowgirl who would be at home on his ranch.
Wren looked like she never left her family showroom, all glass walls and wrought iron furniture. Maxfield Vineyards was the premier wine brand for people who were up their own asses.
And still, he wanted her.
That might be her greatest sin.
That she tested control he’d had firmly leashed for the last eighteen years and made him want to send it right to hell as he burned in her body.
Of all the reasons to hate Wren Maxfield, wanting her and not being able to do a damn thing to make himself stop was number one on the list.
He looked around the Cowboy Wines showroom, the barrels with glass tabletops on them, the heavy, distressed beams that ran the length of the room.
And then there was him: battered jeans and cowboy boots, a hat for good measure.
Everything a woman like Wren would hate.
A testament to just why there was no reason to carry a burning torch for her fine little body.
Too bad his own body was a dumbass.
“I wasn’t listening at all,” he said, making sure to drawl it. As slow as possible. He was rewarded with a subtle flare of heat in those eyes. “Make it more interesting next time, Wren. Maybe do a dance.”
“The only dancing I’ll ever do is on your grave, Creed.”
The sparring sent a kick of lust through him. They did this every time they were in a room together. Every damn time. No matter that he knew he shouldn’t indulge it.
But hell, he was afraid the alternative was stripping her naked and screwing her against the nearest wall, and that wasn’t a real option.
So verbal sparring it was.
“What did I die of?” he asked. “Boredom?”
Those eyes shot sparks at him. “It was tragic. You were found with a high heel protruding out
