The Christmas Scoop

by Mimi Wells

  “Can’t hurt to keep up,” he said, pulling open the door of the Daily Grind. The rich smell of roasted coffee beans rolled out onto the sidewalk, and Ivy gave an audible groan.

  She stepped up to the rough wood counter, heaved her black leather tote in front of the covered cake stand by the register, and gave her order, a practiced litany of ingredients and toppings.

  Ivy’s giant bag blocked the view of the cake in the stand, which Rand noticed was a Macpherson fruitcake. He smiled. Same old Ivy. “Just a plain black coffee for me,” he said, pulling the hundred out of his pocket.

  Ivy rolled her eyes. “Really, Mr. Big Stuff?” She turned to the barista, a fresh-faced high school student, and handed her a folded wad of smaller bills. “Keep the change.” She avoided looking at Rand while the girl cashed them out, prepped their coffees, and set the steaming cups on the counter. They shifted to the condiments bar by the wall.

  “You just tipped her five bucks,” Rand said, pouring sugar into his cup from a thick glass container.

  Ivy glanced at the girl, who was now cleaning the steamer spout of the espresso machine, and shrugged. “I remember being a high school kid in this town. Whatever she’s being paid, I’m sure it’s not enough.”

  Rand lifted his cup in salute. “I owe you one.” Then he grinned and jerked a thumb back toward the cake stand. “You know, with some of that extra five, you could have bought a slice of—”

  She’d covered his mouth with her hand. “Don’t. You. Dare. Say. It.”

  Rand’s lips tingled at the unexpected touch. He held up his coffee and other hand in surrender. Ivy dropped her hand, and a whisper of her scent somehow cut through the coffee aroma. Citrus, maybe. Something crisp.

  Damn. He should have known talking with Ivy Macpherson would be a problem, even if they were talking about nothing. It had been twelve years since their high school graduation, and he’d never really gotten over her.

  Hell, who was he kidding? There was nothing to get over. They’d never been a couple. Just a hopeful boy and a smart, focused girl so busy competing with him so she could make her mark in the Macpherson pantheon that she’d never noticed he wasn’t competing with her at all. Just working alongside her, hoping she’d pay attention.

  “So, how long are you staying?” he asked again.

  “I’m leaving a couple of days after Christmas. Big things going down at work. I have to be back in New York before New Year’s Eve.”

  “What kind of big?”

  Ivy put down her cup and took a moment to consider him. “Corporate stuff, mostly. Staff reorganization.”

  “Just the kind of thrills you always dreamed of. You know,” he continued, teasing, “travel to exotic ports of call, get your own cable show, take New York by storm.”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “Get the scoop. For Scoop.” He waggled his brows.

  Ivy shot him a wintry glare colder than the weather outside. “Whatever, Frank Lloyd Wrong.”

  “Ouch.”

  “You asked for that one, smarty-pants.” She considered him. “And even though this is clearly no longer my town, for once in my life, Dogwood Mountain might be my ticket to something amazing.”

  Rand was intrigued. “How’s that?” He took a sip.

  She glanced around. Aside from the two-person staff and an older gentleman in the corner reading a months-old copy of Southern Living—the brilliant green grass and explosion of orange daylilies on the cover were a dead giveaway—the place was quiet.

  “Ever heard of Julian Wolf?”

  Rand’s heart tumbled through his chest and settled somewhere near his kneecaps. He willed himself to act nonchalant and just drink his coffee. “The movie star?”

  “Yes, the movie star. How many Julian Wolfs are out there?” She frowned. “Or is it Wolves?” She blew out an impatient breath and muttered, “One of these days, my internal copy editor will die of perfectionism.”

  Ivy took a sip of her latte and continued. “Julian Wolf, if you know anything about celebrity gossip, has been seen out and about with a mystery woman, and everyone is dying to know who she is. I think he’s spending the holidays with her. And I think they’re here.”

  “In Dogwood Mountain?” An icy cold gripped him. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because I saw him in the Atlanta airport.” She gave him a pert smile.

  He knew that smile. That was Ivy’s I-know-things-and-I’m-about-to-prove-them-right smile. His internal temperature dropped another couple of degrees.

  “I heard him on the phone. And I saw him get into a gray car with North Carolina plates.”

  His gray car with North Carolina plates, the one parked a couple of blocks away right behind the Cooper House. He willed his voice to sound nonchalant. “Could have been a rental.”

  She glared at him.

  “Even if he is in North Carolina, it’s a big state, Ivy. He could be anywhere.”

  “Not when he’s talking sexy right before that about sharing a Velocirapture with her, it’s not. He’s here. I can feel it.”

  Hoo-boy. He’d told Katy she and Julian were welcome to stay as long as they liked as his guest, but Julian had insisted on paying Rand for his trouble. “At high season rates.”

  He thought again of the cracked plaster, the sagging floorboards, and a million other little problems he’d discovered in the short time since he’d moved home. The generous check he’d receive in a few days if Katy and Julian could stay undisturbed would go a long way toward fixing them.

  “He has to be hiding here somewhere,” Ivy continued, oblivious to Rand’s turmoil. “If I can flush him out and take a few photos, that would be excellent. Finding out the mystery girl’s identity? I could write my own ticket.”

  Rand’s internal wince felt like an arrow to his gut. Katy and Julian’s privacy or Ivy’s dream? This was not the choice he thought he’d be making today. But why couldn’t he help them both? He grabbed at the crazy idea that wafted through his head. Insanity, he knew. He’d have to work very carefully to keep things in balance. But it just might work out to his advantage.

  He schooled his features into sympathetic lines and met Ivy’s gaze. “How can I help?”

  Chapter Three

  The Jetta bumped over the bridge spanning Dogwood Creek, just past Joy’s Sweets. All the candy in Joy’s wouldn’t be able to cut the sour taste in her mouth right now. Why in the world had she blabbed her plans to Rand Cooper, of all people?

  It wasn’t like she wasn’t used to Rand’s teasing. That had started when they were both in junior high, and she usually gave as good as she got. But his nothing remarks about how her grand journalistic plans had never panned out somehow tipped her right over.

  “I have a great job. I live in New York City,” she muttered to herself, turning up the volume on the pounding rock song the car’s Bluetooth connection was helpfully streaming from her phone. Sure, Scoop was primarily a gossip site, but it was changing, and she was going to be a part of that. “He has no idea how my life works. He’s still stuck here in the sticks, for Pete’s sake.”

  Whatever prompted her to confess her Julian Wolf hunch, she had. And now she had Rand Cooper, of all people, offering to help her in her quest.

  She wasn’t sure if that was a blessing or a curse.

  She emitted a low growl of frustration and cranked the volume even higher, then sang along as she drove. The road twisted away from downtown, past gift shops perched along the shoulders of the mountains, the plant nursery, and the occasional small development. New construction, much of it the prefab cabin variety, had popped up since her last brief stay, a sleepover breaking up a combination work trip and vacation to South Beach. Many of the windows were shuttered or had curtains pulled behind the dingy glass. These belonged to summer people fleeing the heat and humidity farther south. She entered the series of switchbacks called the Sidewinder, squealing a tire once or twice, and then slowed for the turnoff to Macpherson’s Hollow.

  T
he hollow sat in a flat bowl of fields surrounded by tree-covered peaks. A split-rail fence marked the transition between field and road, a carved sign painted green and picked out in red and gold announced MacPherson’s Hollow, and in smaller print below it, Established 1803. The graded drive wound across the front pasture toward the farmhouse that her ancestors had built all those years ago. Behind the house sat the collection of barns and outbuildings where her father and scads of locals brought in, sorted, and packed the apple harvest every autumn and where her mother and her teams of prep cooks and bakers began their work to meet the Christmas rush of fruitcake orders that started trickling in at Halloween and became a flood once December rolled around.

  In a few days, the last of those cakes would be picked up for overnight delivery, and Macpherson Farm would host its annual Phruitcake Phestival. It was a smaller gathering than the autumn harvest, where streams of tourists giddy on too much hard cider got lost in the year’s corn maze, but if anything, it was more raucous. Most of the town showed up to play the silly games and brought signature dishes to add to the groaning potluck table.

  Ivy hated the Phruitcake Phestival. It usually eclipsed her birthday, which was already problematic since it fell on Christmas Day. She’d take all the tourists and every bit of Rockefeller Center and Rockettes Christmas cheese New York City could dish out, but one long afternoon trapped with increasingly tipsy locals and their obnoxious fruitcake jokes brought out her inner Grinch.

  “Just a few days,” she reminded herself. “Family stuff, find Julian Wolf, and then it’s on to an amazing new year.” She pulled the Jetta alongside her mother’s old green Explorer and killed the engine. The sudden quiet echoed through the car’s small cabin, along with the nagging reminder that for this trip at least, she’d have to add Rand Cooper to her list. If she accepted his offer, which she did not want to do. She was perfectly capable of getting her story on her own.

  She’d barely stepped from the car into the slushy mud before an unfamiliar scruffy-looking brown and white dog came loping around the corner, baying as if its life depended on it. She tried to sidestep, but wham! Two dirty paws slammed into her midsection, slid down her herringbone wool coat, and plopped back into the wet mud at her feet.

  “Bark Ruffalo!” a voice cried. “Get off her!”

  Ivy looked up as her sister Laurel, dressed in jeans, hiking boots, and a bulky, red cable-knit sweater, came bounding down the side steps from the porch. “Bad dog!” she scolded as the dog slinked over to her side and slid a penitent look from under the crinkled folds of its forehead.

  Ivy laughed in spite of herself. “He’s new.”

  Laurel patted the dog firmly on his heaving ribs. “He came wandering over the ridge the day after Halloween, half starved, poor thing. What could I do?”

  Ivy chuckled. Laurel had always been a soft touch for lost souls and wayward animals. It wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility for birds to twitter in circles around her shiny brunette head.

  “He’s besotted,” Ivy said, popping the trunk to retrieve her suitcase. The dog was now leaning against her sister’s leg hard enough that Laurel had to shift her stance to keep from toppling over.

  “He’s a darling.” Laurel scrubbed up under the dog’s floppy ears. “Aren’t you, Bark Ruffalo?”

  “That’s a mouthful. Why not just Bark? Or Ruff?”

  “Because he’s dignified. He prefers his whole name,” Laurel said primly, opening the screen door. “Wipe your paws, Bark Ruffalo.”

  Ivy watched in surprise as the dog did as he was told, scraping his big feet on the ribbed rubber mat and then disappearing into the house, jaunty tail held aloft.

  “I’m glad you’re finally here,” Laurel said, hugging Ivy once she’d set down her bag and closed the door behind them both. “Mama’s too busy to remember her own name, Daddy’s off somewhere, and I’ve been waiting for you to take the heat off me for a while.”

  “Fantastic,” Ivy said, sarcasm icing the edges of the word. She unwound her scarf and hung up the coat. She wondered idly how long it would take the mud to dry so she could brush it off.

  “Aw, come on, Ivy. I do this all year, you know.”

  Ivy did. She ignored the sisterly jab and muttered, “Welcome home to me. Where’s Violet? Can’t she help?”

  “Busy at the library,” Laurel said. Their older sister lived in a small bungalow in town close enough for her to walk to her job as the town library’s director. “She’ll be here for dinner, I think.”

  “What’s Mama cooking?”

  “What are we cooking, more like,” Laurel said, grinning. “Unless you want to take her place out in the barn…”

  The fate worse than death. “Fine. Hand me an apron.”

  *

  It had been a while since Ivy had cooked for a crowd—and yes, four seemed like a crowd when most of the cooking she did back in New York was microwaveable dinners and the occasional salad. She’d forgotten the calming ritual of slicing vegetables into equal-sized pieces, the patience of cooking without gadgets to simplify the process, the rhythm of flouring and frying cubed steaks, the meditative swirl of a perfect gravy.

  Between steps, she and Laurel caught up, trading stories about their day-to-day lives. Laurel’s search for Bark Ruffalo’s owner and secret joy when none could be found. Ivy’s cranky landlord, always making excuses for the equally irascible building. How their older sister, Violet, stayed busy, and Laurel’s theory that her busyness increased the lonelier she felt.

  “I know she gets tired of all the biddies in town trying to matchmake her, but there was so much love in her that just withered when Evan died. Vi needs to find somebody,” Laurel said matter-of-factly, stirring rice into a pot of boiling water, then covering it and reducing the heat. “I hate seeing her all by herself.”

  “You hate seeing anyone by themselves.” Ivy popped a slice of carrot in her mouth and crunched.

  “That’s true.” Laurel set a couple of plates in the sink, then stirred the thickening gravy and added a smidge more milk. “I want people to be happy.”

  And that was her baby sister all over. Cheerful, smiling, giving. Somehow the Macpherson competitive streak had skipped Laurel. She was a content B student, never given to the urge for perfection that had driven Ivy and which seemed to come so naturally to Violet. Ivy should probably strive to emulate her younger sister more, although she’d admit she’d probably never be able to accomplish it.

  Bark Ruffalo trotted into the kitchen and lifted his nose toward the delicious smells on the stove.

  “You know better than that,” Laurel scolded, her voice as comforting as a handmade quilt.

  If there were a dog version of a shrug, Bark Ruffalo made it, moving off to the corner and curling into a plaid dog bed, setting his shaggy head down on the stuffed edge and staring soulfully toward them. Laurel tossed him a piece of carrot, which he caught and crunched happily.

  Ivy laughed. “That dog’s got your number.”

  Laurel shrugged. “At least he likes veggies,” she said. “He’d be the size of a horse if he ate like Daddy does.”

  “And how’s that?” a rich baritone voice called from the side porch.

  Ivy brightened. Alexander Macpherson stepped into the kitchen doorway, filling the space. As always, he wore mud-spattered work boots, multi-pocketed canvas pants, and a thick Pendleton wool plaid shirt over a thermal Henley pullover. He had seasonal variations of the same outfit, trading the wool and thermals for cotton plaid and Fruit of the Loom T-shirts when summer lay thick in the hollow and the winter’s chill transformed into humidity that lay like a wet towel over the budding trees.

  “Hey, Daddy,” Ivy said, sidestepping a dancing Bark Ruffalo to burrow into her father’s tight hug. He smelled like woodsmoke and whiskey. He’d just come from the kitchen shed.

  He kissed her on the crown of her head and stepped back to peer at her through eyes the color of new spring leaves. She felt a catch in her chest when she saw the lines
radiating from those kind eyes, the encroaching white in his nut-brown hair. He was a strong and vital man still, but more and more time showed in his kind face. “Your mama’s on her way,” he said, partly to Laurel.

  “Right,” Laurel returned, still stirring the gravy. “Ivy, get the table.”

  “Bossy,” she teased, but she did as directed, pulling the familiar stoneware dishes from the cabinet, their borders of fruit a daily reminder of the land and work that had kept this farmhouse standing and the barns busy for so many years. “Four or five?”

  “Four,” her father answered. “Vi has a library board meeting tonight, so she’s eating in town.”

  Ivy nodded and set four places at the pine table in the middle of the expansive room, adding napkins from a basket of clean linens on the sideboard and counting silverware out of a drawer that needed regular soaping to keep it from sticking. She admired the cool weight of the flatware in her hand, so different from the inexpensive set she’d bought when she’d first moved to New York and had so little money to set up house.

  “That smells divine.” Ivy turned toward the new voice, a smooth alto that poured out like a dram of fine scotch.

  Holly Macpherson was short where her husband was tall, plump and matter-of-fact, businesslike and as comforting as Laurel. She’d cut her hair short years ago, complaining that her original long, wavy locks were too hot to manage with three daughters, a husband, and a farm to keep after. Today, it stood away from her broad forehead, a sure sign she’d been pushing it back in frustration and speed. The last shipment of fruitcakes traditionally left two days before Christmas, so tomorrow would be a blur of packing, labeling, and stamping to ensure that only the last-minute orders had to be rushed over to the FedEx office in Hemlock before they closed up shop.

  “Goodness, Ivy, don’t they feed you in that city?” Holly said, pulling her into a tight hug.

  Older and smaller though she might be, Holly was as strong as a Shetland pony and about as stubborn.

  “They feed me, Mama. I just walk a lot.” That much was true. Ivy dared not admit that food was an afterthought most days. Certainly not food like this, heaped into serving dishes and passed around the table.