by Mimi Wells
Holly released Ivy and turned to the sink to wash her hands. “Supply is dwindling,” she said to Alexander. “I’m worried we’re going to have some upset people on our hands.”
“There are always some upset people,” he reminded her as he handed her a towel. “I’ll be sure to update the website tonight.”
Ivy arched a brow at Laurel.
“He’s become quite the computer guy,” Laurel said, handing her a bowl of steaming rice. “He went to a website design class at the library to support Violet and came home talking in HTML. It’s great. Keeps him busy when the apples aren’t doing anything but getting fatter.” She placed a basket of hot biscuits at their father’s elbow and took her seat.
Ivy chuckled and set the rice on the table next to the gravy boat and the platter of steaks. Melted butter gleamed on the carrots and baby lima beans in their dishes. She hadn’t had food like this in—well, since she was home last. Her stomach growled as she sat down.
“Somebody’s hungry,” her mother said, squeezing Ivy’s hand. “I’m so glad you’re finally here. Althea Pendleton said she saw you in town, and I was getting worried.”
Leave it to Mrs. Pendleton. “I bumped into Rand Cooper,” Ivy said.
“Really?”
Ivy winced inwardly at the speculative lilt in her mother’s voice. She shouldn’t have said anything. Laurel wasn’t the only MacPherson woman who loved matchmaking. Ivy met her sister’s gaze across the table. Get me out of this.
“Go on and say grace, Daddy,” Laurel prompted.
The four of them slid murmuring into the family grace Ivy had learned as a small child, the words blending together in a ritual of peace and anticipation.
“Amen.”
Nothing much was said for a while except requests to pass dishes and the clicking of forks on plates. Ivy heaped her plate with second helpings of her favorite sides. The breakfast sandwich she’d scarfed in the terminal at LaGuardia had happened long ago, and she’d been too unsettled to bother with a scone or muffin during her impromptu coffee break with Rand.
Rand Cooper. It had been a while since she’d really thought about him with anything other than irritation. Sure, he was a nice guy. His whole family was nice. It was just that he was a walking, talking reminder that she, Ivy, had been not quite good enough.
That .02 percentage separating her GPA from his was enough to slot them together in a way that would always grind on her. She sat to his left as the salutatorian of their small graduating class rather than occupying the top seat like her sister Violet had. Very, very good. Just not quite good enough.
Which was exactly why she needed to do her own work and keep Rand Cooper out of it. She was a reporter. She was perfectly capable of doing this all by herself. And besides, there was a very good chance Julian Wolf was holed up in the Cooper House. If Rand were so key on helping, why hadn’t he just told her so?
“Ivy?” her mother interrupted her reverie as she had done so often when the girls were still in school. At least she didn’t have Violet’s calm gaze meeting hers across the table, the one Ivy always felt held a tinge of pity even when common sense knew it didn’t. Instead, Laurel’s warm, sympathetic eyes smiled into hers.
“She’s probably thinking about work,” Laurel said, rescuing her. “She said something big was cooking.”
“Don’t talk to me about cooking,” Holly returned. “My dreams are haunted by fruitcakes.”
“Sorry.” Laurel patted her mother’s hand and passed her the gravy. “What were you telling me earlier, Ivy?”
“I’m working on a story in hopes of a promotion at work. It’s celebrity stuff,” She shrugged. “No big deal.” Ivy wasn’t sure how much of her big discovery she wanted to reveal just yet. She shouldn’t have blurted her plans to Rand. She felt stupid that her long-buried need to impress him popped up and took over her brain. Their competition was over, right?
But strangely enough, she had a feeling he’d keep the information to himself. Rand had always been a stickler for keeping his word. Not that her family was any different, but it was fruitcake season. She could tell her parents were close to exhausted. If her mother slipped up because she was frazzled and said something to one of her baking crew, the whole town would find out, and her exclusive would evaporate.
“Promotion, huh?” Her father quirked an eyebrow at her. Work for him had always been simple and straightforward, tending to trees and animals, honoring the passage of time and seasons and waiting for rain. Demographics, surveys, clicks, and climbing the ladder weren’t in his vocabulary—or hadn’t been.
“Maybe. I have some work to do while I’m here. Par for the course.” She smiled at her father.
They finished the meal companionably, her mother venting small frustrations about sore feet from standing and the contact high from all the whiskey. It was a familiar litany, one that would break once they told the festival guests goodbye. Then they could finally enjoy the peace of the season themselves.
Dinner concluded, her parents went out to the kitchen shed for the nightly ritual they’d perfected over the years. Her mother would prep the task list for tomorrow while her father stood nearby as her sounding board. Ivy and Laurel cleaned the kitchen and turned off the light, Ivy sneaking a small piece of leftover steak to Bark Ruffalo when her sister wasn’t looking.
Laurel crossed into the main sitting room and turned on the lights of their Christmas tree. Painted bead garlands, tiny wooden toys, hand-embellished ornaments, and a traditional string of popcorn covered the spreading Fraser fir.
“Violet came over to help with the popcorn garland,” Laurel explained, noting Ivy’s glance toward the tree. “We missed you.”
“I know.” She was a grown woman. She didn’t live here anymore. Why should she feel bad that she wasn’t here for a childhood ritual she’d long outgrown? But she did. “It’s been busy.”
“So tell me.” Laurel moved past her sister, grabbing the purple suitcase Ivy had parked next to the staircase and heading up to the second floor. Bark Ruffalo trailed at her heels.
“I can get that,” Ivy protested, thumping up the stairs after her.
“Already done.” Laurel pushed open the door to the room they’d shared since they were little girls. “Wait—do you want Vi’s room?”
Something about sleeping in her childhood bed called to Ivy, strangely enough. “Here’s fine.” She looked around the pale yellow room, their elementary school tempera paintings and teen posters now replaced by watercolors of mountain flowers, the dark walnut Jenny Lind beds her mother had found in a shop down the mountain and refinished, the hand-pieced quilts piled high offering warmth and comfort when the winter wind rattled the old windows in their frames.
Laurel sat cross-legged on the other bed, tucking a pillow in the crook of her arms and leaning back against the wall like she’d done so many times when they were younger. Bark Ruffalo leaped up and curled into a brown and white ball at the foot of the bed close enough for Laurel to reach out and pat. “So tell me about this thing you’re working on,” she prodded.
Ivy flopped back on her bed, arm shading her eyes against the harsh glare of the overhead light. “Nothing much. Just a total corporate reorganization that might mean the promotion of my dreams or a life of penury as a freelancer.”
“What?”
Ivy smiled. Seriously, they only made nicer people in movies. Twittering birds for real.
“Scoop is changing things around. I’m not worried.” Much.
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I have a plan.”
“Of course you do. Do I get details, or do I have to drag them out of you?”
“You don’t have to drag—” Ivy’s phone burst into a series of chirps. She pulled it out of her back pocket. “It’s Jada,” she said.
Laurel had met Ivy’s bestie the one time she’d visited Ivy in the city, and she and Jada had surprisingly got on like a house on fire. “Tell her I said hey,” she said as she slipped o
ff the bed. “I have to pee.” She disappeared into the hall.
“Tell her yourself when you get back,” Ivy said, punching the button to connect FaceTime.
Jada’s sculpted face bloomed onto the screen, her warm brown skin and springy curls blending with the tones in the rough brick wall of her loft apartment.
“How are things in Podunk?” Jada asked without preamble. She was a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker and couldn’t understand why anyone might consider living anywhere else.
“Quiet,” Ivy admitted. “How about you?”
“Dreading the deadly family reunion, as usual, but I’ll manage. Listen,” she said, leaning forward so her face filled the screen. “There weren’t a lot of people in today, but the ones who were weren’t exactly quiet. Paris is onto something.”
Ivy let out a groan. Paris Temperley was exactly the kind of workplace thorn in her side she tried to avoid. Paris was talented, smart, and excellent at what she did, but she was selfish with information and tended to lord it over people when she did well. Someone like that in a position of power could turn a great job into a hellscape.
“What’s that?”
“Remember that Instagram model who got caught in the sack with her mentor’s husband? It looks like there’s going to be a spectacular divorce.”
Ivy’s heart sank. “No kidding. I thought those rumors had been cleared up by all the publicists.”
“Paris was gloating that she had inside information.”
Of course she was. Ivy pressed her lips into a determined line. “Guess I’ll have to be quicker with my story, then.”
Jada squealed. “Oooh! Tell.”
“Nothing much to tell, yet. I need a couple of days to run down my lead. I will say one thing, though. If I’m right, Paris’s story will be an instaflop.”
“If you’re right, you can write your own ticket.”
Ivy leaned over and knocked against the headboard. Best not tempt fate. “That’s what I’m counting on.”
“What are you counting on?” Laurel asked, re-entering the room. She saw Jada’s image on the phone and leaned over into the camera. “Hey, Jada! Why didn’t you come down here with Ivy? There’s plenty of room, and you know I’m dying to see you again.”
Jada flapped a dismissive hand at her. “Honey, you know I’d only leave the city for a small town is if someone waved a ticket to Aruba under my nose. You come here anytime you want. Want me to come to you? Call me when you hit the lottery.”
The three women laughed. “Let me know if you hear anything else interesting, okay?” Ivy added.
“Of course. Try not to bore yourself to death.”
“Ouch,” Laurel put in.
Ivy chuckled. “I’ll try.” She clicked the call off and put the phone on the bedside table.
Ivy and Laurel stayed up a while talking in the dark room like they had when they were children, Laurel bubbling over with town gossip, Ivy listening more than she contributed.
Ivy reassured herself as Laurel chatted on. Finding Julian Wolf wasn’t going to be hard. Most of Dogwood Mountain was just like her sister—friendly, open, and eager to share. All she had to do was ask the right people and she’d be set. No Rand Cooper necessary. A twinge of guilt shot through her as she considered the fact that Rand knew what she was up to, but her sister didn’t.
Ivy propped herself up on her elbows to check why Laurel had fallen silent on the other side of the room. Asleep. Ivy resettled under the heavy bundle of flannel sheets and quilts and yawned. She’d tell Laurel everything about Julian Wolf eventually, but the long day and her ebbing adrenaline was lulling her into drowsiness. The last thing she remembered before she drifted off was a sparkling pair of blue-green eyes.
Chapter Four
Rand closed the door of the Dogwood suite behind him, stiff all over from its too-soft mattress, and ran through the day’s list of tasks. There was the usual inn business, although Jessica handled much of that, four rooms on the upper floors he had a contractor coming to look at, and preliminary sketches for the house addition that Amelia Quinn, a former Miss America who lived on Mirror Lake at the country club, wanted him to design.
And then there was Ivy Macpherson. Normally, when they crossed paths she kept a polite distance. She lived in New York, he in North Carolina, and there was nothing besides a bunch of high school memories that connected them anymore. But when she slammed into him yesterday, and he’d steadied her with a hand on each of her shoulders, something he’d buried long ago had awakened from hibernation. It didn’t help that she’d been uncharacteristically talkative, and now he had a problem of his own to solve rather than someone else’s.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Rand took the two flights downstairs and exchanged a hello with Jessica. He cut through the dining room past a few tables of seated guests, who were serving themselves from carafes and nibbling on pastries, including toasted slices of Macpherson fruitcake, while waiting for their breakfast orders to arrive. After a round of greetings to the small kitchen staff, he pulled on his coat and went out back to where his gray Subaru waited.
The car was going to be a problem. Ivy had spotted him picking up Julian. Lucky for him, she hadn’t identified exactly what kind of car she’d seen, but having it parked out back every day was a disaster waiting to happen.
Yesterday had been a close call. Once he and Ivy had parted ways, he’d spent a good half hour convincing Katy and Julian to relocate for greater privacy, then bundled them off to his own house up at Cooper’s Notch.
Katy had followed him up the mountain in her generic sedan. His neighbors wouldn’t think twice about his car’s comings and goings, but they were sure to comment on Katy’s fleet car parked outside his house and start asking questions all over town in case he wasn’t immediately forthcoming with information. He kicked himself for not thinking of this the night before. They needed to trade cars. He sent a quick text to Katy, hoping she and Julian had adjusted to East Coast time enough to be awake this early.
Need to talk about cars. Headed to the grocery first. Need anything?
In a moment a flurry of answers arrived.
Eggs. Julian’s trainer has him on a high protein regimen.
And steak. Sirloin or flank.
Gallon of 2%
And a box of Cap’n Crunch.
Rand chuckled and texted back, That’s not high protein.
It’s for me, doofus. Crunchberries pls
As if I’d forget your favorite.
*high five emoji*
Rand shivered as he waited for the car’s heater to kick in and glanced at the sky. Right now, things looked clear, but it didn’t take long for unpleasant weather to roll in. He’d have to remind Katy and Julian to pay attention to the weather reports if they planned any long hikes.
His trip to the grocery was uneventful save for the cashier’s look of ire when he offered Julian’s hundred-dollar bill to pay for the groceries.
“No card?”
He shrugged. She counted out the change and flapped it in his palm, then dismissed him to bag up his purchases.
Rand scooped up the bags and headed across the parking lot, one nervous eye peeled for Ivy’s bright red rental.
“Hey, handsome,” Bebe Vogel, who had just emerged from an ancient burgundy Suburban on the opposite row, called out. Bebe and her longtime companion Daphne Broussard owned Stitch and Thyme, a combination yarn and gourmet kitchen store across the street from the inn. Rand saluted her as he got into the Subaru, then set off to Cooper’s Notch.
A short drive out of town and up the mountain brought him to the clearing where his grandparents’ house stood nestled in a cove of trees. Hank Baggett’s blue pickup sat in the driveway along with an assortment of other vehicles. Hank emerged from the carport and waved. Rand braked to a halt and rolled down the passenger window.
“Morning,” Hank called. “I thought we were meeting at the inn.”
“We are,” Rand affirmed. “I forgot some
thing at home.”
Hank nodded toward the senior Coopers’ ranch-style house. “Tile arrived last night. The crew’s ready to go once the furniture’s out.”
“Great. Do I need to get some folks up here to do that?”
“Nope. The guys said they’d handle it. Offering them a bump in their holiday bonus helped.” Hank winked and thumped the Subaru’s roof. “See you in a bit.” He strode down the driveway toward the house and began talking to the site foreman. Rand put the car back in gear and drove up the short rise to his house.
Like the inn, the land at Cooper’s Notch had been in the family for generations, but the stone and wood cottage crowning the summit was new. It was the first home he’d ever designed and built, and Rand was inordinately proud of it.
Katy’s white Camry, the most obvious rental car on the planet, took up half the double carport. He slid his Subaru alongside it and got out with the grocery bags. He knocked briefly before unlocking the front door. The rich smell of frying bacon filled the entryway. He called out a greeting.
“In here,” came a two-voice chorus from the kitchen.
Rand set the groceries on the counter. Julian stood at the stove in a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, pushing the bacon around a cast iron skillet with an old wood-handled fork. Katy leaned on the corner, still in pajamas, hands cupped around a steaming blue mug.
“Morning,” Julian tossed over his shoulder.
“Same to you,” Rand returned. He made an elaborate show of extracting the box of cereal from one of the bags and offering it to Katy over his arm as if it were an expensive bottle of champagne. “For you, milady.”
Katy rolled her eyes at him. “Why are you always so dramatic?”
Rand shrugged. “I blame the women in my life.” Katy punched him on the shoulder while Julian guffawed. Rand unloaded the other bags into the refrigerator.
“How much do we owe you?” she asked.