The Christmas Scoop

by Mimi Wells

  The bell over the door jingled and a voice swirled in along with a cold blast of air. “My, my. We all need either lottery tickets or apocalypse supplies if my sister’s here.”

  Ivy swiveled and glared at Violet, who was draping her coat over the front counter. “Laurel might have talked me into this, but I don’t have to stay, you know.”

  “Relax,” Violet said, giving her a playful shove on the arm. “You’ll like this more than you think you will. Trust me.”

  “I had to drag Violet here her first time, too,” Laurel said, rejoining them. She produced a big drawstring bag made out of hedgehog print cotton Ivy hadn’t seen before. “You can thank me later.” She led them toward the back of the shop.

  In an alcove created between the storage rooms of both areas, BeBe and Daphne had created a lounge of sorts. A counter along the back wall held urns of hot water and trays of cookies. An inlaid wooden box brimmed with an assortment of teas. Thick mugs of blue-glazed pottery stood to left alongside cut glass bowls of lemon slices, sugar, and cinnamon sticks. A row of old silver-plated spoons and a stack of rimmed porcelain hotel bread plates stood next to fanned-out piles of bright napkins printed with quotations about tea.

  Laurel claimed a chintz love seat on the kitchen side of the lounge and patted the seat next to her for Ivy. Violet chose a dusty rose 1950s-style slipper chair an arm’s length away.

  Ivy leaned over and whispered to Laurel, who was busy extracting a mass of maroon yarn from the hedgehog bag. “Is this all of us?”

  “Probably not. Usually, all the chairs are full. Depends on who still needs to finish a project by Christmas.”

  As if in answer to Laurel’s promise, the bell over the door jangled and two women came in who couldn’t have been more different. The first was a statuesque older blonde with elegant features and perfect makeup clad in soft wool slacks, a monogrammed sweater, and a pair of well-worn driving moccasins. The whole outfit looked classic, comfortable, and cost what Ivy would make in a week. Ivy recognized her from around town—Azalea Quinn, former Miss America and proprietor of the Azalea Spa over at the Dogwood Mountain Country Club. The other was Jessica Park, dressed today in jeans, Converse sneakers, and a pink Boston Red Sox hoodie.

  “How you ladies doin’?” Azalea drawled, folding into a club chair with an elegance Ivy couldn’t have managed with tutorials conducted by Queen Elizabeth’s ladies-in-waiting.

  BeBe bustled over. “Azalea! Aren’t you supposed to be at the Worthington cocktail party? They had Daphne up there all afternoon running her crazy over canapés.”

  Azalea let out a dramatic sigh. “I’ve been to too many of those already this season. Same people, same stories—” She waved a dismissive hand. “The only thing good about those parties is Daphne’s cooking.”

  BeBe chuckled. “I hear that.”

  Azalea pulled a multicolored crochet square and a pair of reading glasses out of her Chanel tote and began to inspect her work.

  “Hey, Laurel!” Jessica chirped. She glanced at Ivy sitting next to Laurel. “Oh—this is the sister you’ve been telling me so much about! You didn’t tell me she was friends with Mr. Cooper.”

  “You can call him Rand, you know,” Laurel teased. “He wants you to.”

  Jessica sighed and sat across from them. “I know, but it’s just so awkward with everything. You know.”

  “I know,” Laurel commiserated.

  A jagged hotness tore through Ivy’s midsection, startling her with its sudden ferocity. What in the world? Was she—she could barely say the word—jealous?

  No. No, she was most definitely not jealous. That would be ludicrous. She looked up and caught Violet watching her, a knowing look in her older sister’s eyes.

  She glared at Violet and got up to fix herself a cup of tea. While she spent too much time on purpose picking out a tea bag, defaulting to her usual choice of orange spice, other women joined the circle, pulling thick pillows from some hidden storage on the yarn side of the shop and pulling everything from partially completed baby blankets to intricate socks out of their bags.

  Ivy squeezed back into her spot next to Laurel, who’d shifted over to save a space for her best friend Angelica Torres, who was running late. Laurel handed her what looked like a half-knitted sleeve of maroon wool.

  “Don’t give me that look,” Laurel scolded. “You learned how to do this in Girl Scouts just like I did. Ten rows, fifty stitches each. Plus, this is garter stitch, so all you have to do is knit.”

  “But—”

  “Knit,” Laurel commanded in a voice so out of character for her that Ivy laughed and relaxed.

  “Now, ladies, don’t forget to complete a project card and a photo for the wall if you finish something tonight,” BeBe reminded them. She settled back into an old cane-bottomed rocker with her needlework and grinned, a sly smile curving across her elfin face. “It’s the penultimate meeting of our weekly Stitch and Bitch for this year, ladies. I expect to close out the year with a bang. The floor is open.”

  “All right, I’ll start. Did y’all see that new stock boy at the hardware store?” Azalea purred.

  “The one with the stubble and the muscles?” BeBe put in.

  “That’s the one,” Azalea confirmed. “Mmm. I’d like to sop him up with a biscuit.”

  Cheers rang out from the circle, and the talk began. Laughter both comical and wicked pealed out among the stores of townsfolk and relatives, gossip and good-natured trash talk. Angelica arrived after a while, threading her way through the noisy group and offering hellos. Angelica’s cloud of dark, curly hair framed a merry face and a mischievous grin. She tucked into the spot next to Laurel with a sigh of relief.

  “About time,” Laurel said, handing Angelica a skein of yarn attached to a bristling arrangement of double-pointed needles, from which sprouted a partially knitted red, green, and white-striped sock. “I turned the heel for you, so all you have to do is finish off the toe.”

  “You’re the best. Papi is going to love these. What’d I miss?” Angelica asked, a little breathless.

  “The usual bitching. Plus, Miz Azalea has the hots for the new guy at the hardware store.”

  “The one who looks like Julian Wolf?”

  Ivy’s head jerked up. “What about Julian Wolf?”

  “Calm down,” Laurel said. “Angie was just saying that the hot stock dude at Dogwood Mountain Hardware looks like him, that’s all.” She turned to Angelica. “Ivy is working on this big Julian Wolf story—ow!”

  Ivy’s hand stung. She’d given Laurel a harder warning smack on the thigh than she’d intended. “I told you that in confidence,” she ground out.

  “Oops.”

  BeBe’s sharp ears rarely missed anything. “What about Julian Wolf?”

  Ivy glared at Laurel but smoothed her face when she turned to BeBe. “It’s for work. I’m researching a story about him for Scoop.”

  “She thinks he might be in Dogwood Mountain,” Laurel supplied.

  The group erupted in chatter, but it was soon clear that no one in the room had heard even a whisper of gossip about People’s Sexiest Man Alive except what they’d read or seen on TV, much less seen him around town.

  Ivy tamped down a flare of worry as the conversation shifted to other topics. Had she been wrong? Was she just wasting her time while her big break evaporated like snowflakes on a sidewalk?

  “I’m glad I said something.” Laurel gestured to the circle of women. “You could use some help beyond Rand Cooper.”

  “Oh,” Jessica breathed. “That’s what you were doing. I guessed wrong.”

  Ivy wasn’t used to being the focus of an entire group of women, much less a group that might know a few too many embarrassing stories about her from childhood. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Jessica said, “you two looked pretty cozy when I saw you yesterday.”

  “Interesting,” Violet said, brows raised above her section of maroon knitting. “Rand Cooper.”

  “There is
nothing between me and Rand Cooper,” Ivy blurted. She could feel her ears getting hotter.

  “Now,” Laurel mouthed at Violet, jerking her thigh away from Ivy to avoid getting smacked again.

  “Can we not?” Ivy hissed. “And what am I working on, anyway?” She held up her section of maroon knitting, the two most recent rows revealing a distinct lack of dexterity from the ones preceding it.

  “It’s a sweater for Daddy,” Violet said. “I’m so close, but I’m afraid I won’t get it finished in time for Christmas morning without some help.”

  “It makes zero sense to hand it to me.” Ivy snorted. At least she’d pulled the group’s focus from Julian Wolf.

  “This way you can honestly say you helped with his handmade gift,” Laurel said.

  “Ugh,” Ivy said. Two stitches had slipped off the end of one needle. She handed them over to Violet to repair.

  “Speaking of hot guys,” Angelica said, looking over at Jessica, “What’s this I hear about you and Hank Baggett?” A chorus of oooh broke out from the group along with a surprised “My Hank?” from Ginny Baggett, and now it was Jessica’s turn to blush.

  Ivy kept her head down and knit slowly, focusing on each stitch as she ran through the mess her supposedly easy story idea had become. Julian had come to Dogwood Mountain. She was sure of it. But she still hadn’t located the gray SUV she’d seen at the airport despite all that hunting with Rand. Plus, he’d had a perfectly logical explanation for the man she’d spotted upstairs at the inn. Eagle Scout Rand wouldn’t lie to her—would he?

  She’d called Dale Gentry after dinner, but he said he didn’t have anyone at the cabins except a passel of his kids and grandkids this year. He’d been friends with her father so long, he’d have been sure to drop a broad hint if he knew anything. That left the Mountain Rest. Or, she thought as she looked at Azalea Quinn, he might be staying in a private home—at the country club, maybe. Azalea might be a town fixture, but the rest of those country club folks were insular. None of their properties had shown up on the lists she’d collected. They’d make a perfect place for someone obsessed with privacy to hide out.

  Azalea got up for another cup of tea, so Ivy leaped up to do the same.

  “So, Miz Azalea,” she began.

  “Just Azalea, if you please. You aren’t a little girl anymore, Ivy Macpherson.”

  “Azalea.” She smiled and placed three gingersnaps on one of the tiny plates. “If someone wanted to stay at the country club—discreetly, of course—who’d be the best person to arrange that?”

  Azalea gave her a direct look. “Now, Ivy. I know you know better than to hint around an important question.”

  Ivy met Azalea’s gaze. “All right. Has Julian Wolf touched your extensive contact network for a quiet place to stay over the holidays?”

  Azalea stirred another sugar into her cup of herbal tea and sighed. “Alas, no. I’m not sure my old heart could handle that level of excitement.”

  Ivy eyed her dubiously.

  Azalea nodded her head. “Really. Something like that would have been too good for them not to share. Bragging rights, you know.”

  “It was worth asking, anyhow,” Ivy said. Azalea Quinn was many things, but she knew how to tip a hand discreetly. Julian wasn’t at the country club. “How well do you know the folks who own the Mountain Rest?”

  “Not that well,” Azalea admitted. “They’re nice enough, but they’re not from here, if you catch my drift.”

  Ivy did. That was Azalea-speak for “not forthcoming with gossip.”

  “I’d ask Rand if I were you,” Azalea said, arching one brow. “For a multitude of reasons. He knows people in town, he’s in the hotel business, and he’s crazy about you.”

  Ivy groaned. “Not you, too.”

  Azalea patted her on the forearm. “The whole town knows, honey. We’re just wondering how long it will take for one of you to crack.”

  Ivy didn’t even know what to say to that, so she went back to her bad knitting and kept her head down until it was time to go.

  *

  The next day dawned clear and cold. The intermittent sleet of the past week seemed to have been swept out of the sky by some cosmic broom, leaving blue skies and barely any wind in its wake.

  “Perfect festival weather!” her father chortled over his morning eggs. “I have a feeling this is going to be a good one.”

  Ivy had awakened that morning from another weird Rand Cooper dream. This time they were hiking along Dogwood Creek, still in their underwear, but wearing thick socks and hiking boots. If she just kept moving, maybe Rand wouldn’t notice that her bra and panties didn’t match.

  A few weeks ago, she would have shrugged that kind of thing off as the aftereffects of a long New York night out. Now it seemed like her subconscious was ganging up on her along with her sisters and the women of Stitch and Bitch. With the festival looming, she set her teeth, intending to be a good sport as long as it was possible.

  This was Ivy’s first time helping with festival setup in a few years. She’d managed to avoid it by claiming work pressure and taking the first flight home Christmas Eve morning. The whole foolishness had started as a joke back when she was a teenager. The longtime mayor, now retired, had proclaimed December 23 Macpherson’s Phamous Phruitcake Day, and the original celebration in the park across from city hall had mutated into what was now an annual day of silliness that took over their farm and involved a decent chunk of the county.

  Now, instead of polite applause from Mama’s friends and good-natured ribbing from the Liars Club, the Phruitcake Phestival was more of a community potluck complete with music and games.

  By noon, tables had been arranged all over the wide porch and in the growing shadow of the farmhouse. Five women, members of Holly’s seasonal crew who assisted with the prep, baking, and packing during the busy weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, set out homemade dishes of macaroni and cheese, scalloped potatoes, pole beans cooked with smoked turkey wings, sherried fruit, mashed turnips, carrots, and a dizzying array of salads that ran the gamut between traditional green mixtures in deep bowls and inexplicable jellied concoctions dotted and swirled with fruit or fluff of some kind. Platters of fried chicken, sliced meat, and all kinds of bread and rolls filled one table, while another contained finger foods and appetizers of all kinds. The only thing missing were cakes. Pie, pastry, and cookies were fair game, but if you wanted cake at the festival, you were indulging in a slice of—what else—Macpherson’s Phamous Phruitcake.

  Ivy’s bone-deep weariness toward the festival and anything else fruitcake-related was unique among her family. They loved the festival in all its ridiculous glory. Along with the expected sack races and egg relays and three-legged races, her dad coordinated the “phruitcake phling,” which involved tossing mass-produced fruitcakes for distance. That event got so big, they had to break the competitors into age groups.

  Leaning against the porch rail, Ivy surveyed the growing madness and had to admit the festival held a certain small-town charm. She might be looking forward to this more than she’d been willing to admit. Or, to be perfectly honest, to who might be attending that would make the whole crazy day worth it.

  Admit it, Macpherson, you’re hoping to see Rand Cooper.

  On that disquieting note, she pushed back from the railing and went inside the house.

  Chapter Ten

  Rand shouldered his way through the crowd massed on the lawn of the Macphersons’ old farmhouse. Music blared from speakers set up on one end of the wide wraparound porch. A massive sack race was pitting teenagers against a bunch of elementary school kids, who were winning.

  Dotting the grass between the back of the house and the collection of sheds and barns were a number of tables rimmed with folks from town. He spotted BeBe and Daphne talking with Julio and Estrella Torres, who owned the Chihuahua Burrito at the top of the hill. Reverend Hunter from the Creekside Church was laughing with women from the church’s auxiliary. Holly Macpherson, face flu
shed and hair standing in spikes, emerged through the open door of the kitchen shed where they baked the fruitcakes, a slicing knife in her hand. Cake plates dotted the table before her.

  A moment later, Violet popped out of the shed, took the knife from Holly, and disappeared inside again. Laurel was easy to spot since she always helped with the children’s games.

  But where was Ivy?

  He climbed up the few stairs to the porch to better scan the crowd but couldn’t find her. Where would she be? Not in town, surely. Most of the businesses had Closed for the Phestival signs posted in their windows for the afternoon, their proprietors sprinkled through the crowd. Jessica waited in line with a plate, laughing at something Hank Baggett said to her. She looked up and he waved. Hank looked sheepish, Jessica radiant.

  Okay, then.

  “Hey, stranger,” came a voice from behind him. He turned, startled, to discover Katy laughing up at him, relaxed and clearly happy.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, casting a panicked glance around for Ivy. Ivy and Julian in the same orbit spelled trouble for him.

  “Coming up for air.” Katy chuckled and sighed. “It’s been amazing, and we have you to thank.”

  Rand frowned and glanced around for Julian.

  “He’s over there somewhere,” Katy said, waving her arm in the general direction of the phruitcake phling. “After losing out on his barbecue lunch yesterday, Julian decided we should share that Velocirapture I promised him, but a sign in the window at the pub said they were closed for the afternoon.”

  “Huh.” He didn’t figure Kit Gallagher for a festival type, given the nonstop ribbing he’d directed at Ivy since he was old enough to realize it bothered her. But just as soon as he thought it, he caught a glimpse of Kit, baby daughter peeking out from a sling across his back, cheering on his twins in the sack race.