Streak of Lightning by Clare O'Donohue Page A

help.”
    â€œHe’s a sweet man. Really, he is,” she said. “He just gets upset too easily. I keep telling him one of these days it’s going to kill him, all that anger and stress, but . . .” She shrugged her shoulders.
    â€œIt’s not him I’m worried about. If you need me, if you need help for any reason . . .”
    She patted Jesse’s arm and then went inside without another word. I wondered how many times Jesse and Lori had had that conversation.
    â€œCouldn’t we do something?” I asked him as we walked back to Someday Quilts. “Couldn’t you arrest him?”
    â€œI’d love to, but he hasn’t broken the law. When I walked in, he looked like he might lunge at Rich, so I had to hold him back, but I don’t know if he would have done anything. As far as I know, Joe’s never laid a hand on anyone, including Lori. He screams, he makes threats, but I have no evidence he’s ever gone farther than that. He’s just a jerk, and unfortunately there’s no law against that.”
    â€œWell, there should be. He’s a WOMBAT.”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œIt’s a quilting term,” I explained. “Waste of money, batting, and time. Sometimes when you’re making a quilt, something doesn’t work. Maybe it’s the design, or the fabrics, or you’ve made some big mistake in the sewing. You can change it—add things, take things away—but the truth is sometimes nothing will help. Rather than put any more time into it, you have to just accept that it’s a loss and move on.”
    â€œThat’s a pretty good description of Joe. Trouble is, I don’t think Lori agrees. At least not yet,” Jesse said as we reached the quilt shop where I worked. “So what do quilters do with WOMBATs, anyway?”
    I thought about it for a second. There were lots of things quilters did with the quilts we’d given up on. We traded them with friends who saw in them what we no longer did; we turned them into dog beds, donated them, cut them up and repurposed the fabric; or we just threw them in the trash and chalked it up to experience.
    â€œDoes it really matter,” I said, “as long as they’re gone?”

Chapter 2
    Jesse and I settled into the classroom at Someday Quilts. I pushed aside the latest shipment of books that had arrived, including a pattern that offered an easier method for making a double wedding ring quilt, a classic and time-consuming pattern of interlocking rings that was on my quilting bucket list.
    Our pizza slices were getting cold by the time we sat down to eat, but they were still delicious. It was the dilemma everyone in town faced. No one liked dealing with the man, but the lure of his cooking was hard to resist.
    As Jesse and I ate, we talked about my new favorite subject: the upcoming trip to New York City. In just three hours, our train would be leaving, and just three hours after that, we’d be pulling into Grand Central Terminal. I’d lived in New York for several years, but I hadn’t been back since I’d moved to Archers Rest over a year ago. As much as I loved our small village perched on the Hudson River, Someday Quilts, and the people who had come into my life since I’d moved to town, I was looking forward to forty-eight hours of big city excitement again. And I was especially looking forward to two whole days alone with Jesse.
    We’d been dating for eleven months, but between his duties as the local police chief and life as the widowed father of a seven-year-old girl, a free evening was hard for him to come by, let alone a whole weekend.
    And I had my share of responsibilities in town, too. I was a part-time art student, with a project due in my pottery class when winter break was over. I’d gone into the studio over the holiday to finish it, and I’d wrapped up everything that needed to be taken care of at the