Free Seven Threadly Sins by Janet Bolin Page B

then the gate to my side yard clanged.
    Seconds later, from downstairs in my apartment, Sally-Forth and Tally-Ho began the excited barking that signaled they’d heard or seen someone they liked outside. They raced up the stairs to the door of In Stitches, which I kept closed, and down again. They knew I was in the shop, and they were trying to get me to let them out to greet their friends.
    I didn’t move.
    After a few minutes, the dogs settled down. Listening, I stayed out of sight of the front door and windows.
    I knew I was being silly. I was stressed from staying up late every night for weeks to complete the garments I wore in the fashion show. I’d have enjoyed all that pattern-making, sewing, and machine embroidery if I had designed the clothes, or if I had liked them. And then last night, the dress rehearsal hadn’t been a lot of fun.
    Tonight had been even worse.
    If Antonio hadn’t possibly damaged Ashley’s ego, I could have laughed off his joking insults about our seven threadly sins, but the undercurrents of nastiness surrounding TADAM had been too much, especially capped by Paula’s accusations of assault and murder.
    No, the worst part of the evening, of the past weeks and months, had been seeing Clay’s arms around Loretta.
    I heard footsteps on the shop’s front porch. I crouched behind sewing cabinets. Someone tapped on the glass door. I held my breath and didn’t move. What if Clay wanted to tell me how happy he was to find Loretta again after all these years?
    The dogs barked, galumphed upstairs, snuffled at the door at the top of the stairs, barked again, and thudded downstairs.
    After a few minutes, I decided that whoever had been on my porch was gone. I tiptoed to the door at the top of the stairs.
    Four furry bodies greeted me the second I opened it.
    I decided that if Clay was persistent enough to return to my backyard and apartment door, I would talk to him after all.
    Bravely, I turned on lights, tromped downstairs, slipped into the moccasins I kept by the patio door, and let the animals outside.
    “There you are,” Dora called out.
    The dogs romped to her back porch. They loved Dora, but they also loved Clay. My carefully suppressed hopes returned. Was Clay, by any chance, sitting with Dora on her back porch?
    I waited for the cats to finish their careful digging, then shooed them inside and closed the patio door before I wandered down to talk to Dora and whoever might be with her.
    Dora was in one of her Adirondack chairs. “Clay was looking for you,” she said. Except for my two dogs, she was alone.
    “I must have been upstairs in my shop.”
    The dogs had arranged themselves on each side of her, conveniently close to her hands. She scratched their ears. “He said he would check there. Didn’t he find you?”
    “I guess I was downstairs by then. Too bad I missed him.”
    “You don’t sound very convinced.”
    I merely shrugged and crossed my arms over the low-cut dress. I should have thrown on a sweater before I came out into the rapidly cooling evening.
    Dora prodded, “Don’t you want to hang on to Clay?”
    “You can’t hang on to something that’s beyond your grasp.”
    “He’s not. He likes you. I can tell. I couldn’t get him to say even
one
word about that redhead. She probably threw herself at him.”
    Easy for Dora to say.
“I’ll let him make his own decisions.”
    “If you hide from him,” she countered, “what’s he going to think?”
    “That I’m giving him time and space to sort things out.”
    “And playing hard to get?”
    “I hope he doesn’t think I’m ‘playing’ anything. I need to sort my feelings out, too.” Oops. I’d told Dora too much.
    “I didn’t like that so-called first love, anyway.”
    “She’s pretty, and that auburn hair is fabulous.”
    Dora harrumphed. “A big tangle.”
    Especially after her long rendezvous with Clay in the carriage house . . .
But I only said, “And she’s the only staff member at TADAM who