“Oh, really?”
She noticed him glance over at the one she was wearing, the one his grandfather told her cheered up a room. It was bright red with yellow accents and one bold streak of blue. She had to admit her spirits had risen when she’d been making it. She’d used the yellow yarn simply because it had been left over from another project. The instant she’d begun knitting it in, though, she’d known it was right.
“Who came up with that one?” Jason asked.
“I did.”
“And the other half dozen or so I’ve seen you wear?”
“I did.”
“Ever get any compliments on them?”
“Yes,” she said slowly. “Quite a few people have asked where I bought them.”
Jason nodded. “What did my grandfather suggest? A limited line, sold in exclusive boutiques?”
“Actually I didn’t let him get that far. He did say he knew someone who was interested in the line.”
Jason picked up his phone and rang his grandfather’s office. Dana was so busy trying to imagine seeing her sweater designs in some fancy boutique, she barely heard his end of the conversation. What would it be like to have unlimited resources at her command? To be able to select a color and create a dye that matched exactly what she saw in her mind’s eye? To choose yarns that felt soft, rather than those on sale? She was surprised to discover that the idea tempted.
Jason whistled softly at something his grandfather said. “I see,” he said. “Yeah, I will definitely tell her that.”
She glanced at him as he hung up.
“Granddad told me who he showed your sweaters to.”
“And?”
Jason named a designer whose clothes were sold in the most exclusive shops in the world. Dana’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not kidding. He’ll take any one-of-a-kind design you make by hand as exclusives for his private customers. He thinks the ski crowd will flip over them. Then he’d like at least four other designs in limited production for his ready-to-wear line that’s going into department stores for the first time next year.”
Dana couldn’t even grasp the fact that this man wanted to sell a few of her sweaters, much less the fact that Brandon Halloran was willing to commit his company to producing four designs in quantity. She shot Jason a puzzled look.
“Won’t it be incredibly expensive just to set up the equipment to make these sweaters? It’s not the same as making a bolt of cloth, is it?”
Jason grinned. “As Granddad sees it, that’s just part of the fun. We’ll be doing something new and exciting.”
“You’d probably prefer that he stick to weaving woolens.”
Jason sighed. “A month ago, maybe even a few days ago, I would have said yes. I’m starting to look at things differently now. Sure, Halloran Industries is a business and we want it to be profitable, but if you’re going to spend your life doing something, you’d really better like it as well. It won’t kill us if we make a little less. And at the kind of prices Granddad intends to charge, we definitely won’t go broke.”
“What kind of money are we talking about?”
“I’d say your share ought to enable you to do just about anything you’d like to do,” he said, naming a figure that would have seemed beyond the realm of possibility just a few short months ago.
Dazed, Dana nodded. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “I’ll see you at home later.”
Jason’s expression grew puzzled. “Are you okay?”
“For a woman who feels as if she’s been hit over the head with a baseball bat, I’m doing just fine.”
She walked for hours, oblivious to the cold, oblivious to the snow that swirled in the air. What Brandon Halloran was offering to her was total financial independence for the first time in her life. She would truly be free to make choices, to give Sammy the kind of life she’d wanted for herself growing up, including a college education. They’d be able to live almost anyplace they wanted. Maybe not in a house as fine as Jason’s, but certainly in one that was comfortable, that had its own fireplace and maybe even a bay window.
So, why wasn’t she shouting for joy? Why wasn’t she racing to look through the classified ads for apartments? Why wasn’t she picking up a sketch pad to draw sweater designs, rather than brochure layouts? Was it because the thought of walking away from Jason left this lonely emptiness deep inside her?
When she finally went home, still with no answers, she slowly climbed the steps to her room. Inside, she pulled out all of the sweaters she’d made over the years and spread them on the bed. She studied each one, recalling the exact moment when she’d come up with the idea, the hunt for the right yarn in some discount store, the frustration when she couldn’t find the exact shade she’d had in mind. She rubbed her fingers over uneven stitches and careless seams in her first faltering attempts.
Somewhere along the way these bold sweaters had become a part of her, an expression of all of her bright dreams for the future. How could she bear to give away—even for a bundle of money—something that was her? Wouldn’t she lose herself in the process?
There was no question, though, that an opportunity like this knocked once in a lifetime. Only a fool would turn it down. It would give her options she’d never even imagined. She could leave the Lansing Agency. Or stay. She could leave this house.
Or, she realized with a start, she could stay. If she stayed, she could pay her own way and Sammy’s. She would have the financial independence she’d always craved, even here in Jason’s home. As for emotional independence, that didn’t look nearly as attractive to her as it once had.
The freedom to choose. Wasn’t that all she had ever really wanted? And given the choice, wasn’t Jason the only man she could imagine loving? It kept coming back to Jason and the depth of the
