by Mimi Wells
He turned around, and Ivy cursed. He was movie star handsome, all right, but this guy was an Idris Elba, not a Julian Wolf.
Muttering, she put the car in gear and drove around to verify the rest of her list. She found tons of SUVs and plenty of gray cars, but not the one she was looking for. After an hour’s worth of frustration, she gave up and returned Laurel’s car to its reserved spot behind Joy’s.
The wind outside the warm cocoon of the car made her teeth chatter. Coffee, she decided. She pocketed the keys and headed up the sidewalk toward The Daily Grind, willing herself not to look over at the Cooper House Inn. She lasted about ten steps.
An old blue Volvo wagon passed her then slowed to a stop on the corner. It idled on the street for a while. The man and woman inside were deep in conversation. Then the woman in the passenger seat leaned over to hug the driver, and that was when Ivy recognized her. It was Rand’s friend from yesterday. Katy.
But wasn’t she supposed to be in Asheville?
The passenger door opened, and Katy popped out onto the sidewalk, obvious now in her white puffy jacket and micro-braided hair. She waved at the driver as she closed the door, then blew him a kiss. The light changed, the car turned right, and Ivy saw Rand behind the wheel. She jerked as if she’d been doused with water. What in the world?
Katy crossed Main Street and headed up the hill while Rand disappeared around the corner and out of sight.
Ivy blinked for a moment. She hadn’t imagined yesterday. Last night’s dream, which started with her and Rand in their underwear and was progressing to her and Rand out of their underwear when Bark Ruffalo’s insistent let me out yip woke her, was a natural progression from what happened yesterday on the Macphersons’ front porch.
So what did she just see?
She looked down the block, where Katy’s white coat was receding into a mini-marshmallow in the distance. Ivy set her jaw and followed.
It didn’t take long for her to catch up. Katy ducked into one the shops along the hill, and Ivy peeked past the well-dressed mannequin in the window. Katy pulled a handwoven blue and green tartan scarf off a wooden display rack and exclaimed something to the saleswoman. The saleswoman nodded, took the scarf, and headed to the register.
Ivy turned away from the window. That scarf would look amazing next to Rand’s russet brown curls. Something possessive and ugly gnawed at her middle. It took a lot for her not to barge in and start asking questions.
“You’re acting like an idiot,” she muttered to herself. She took one last glance at Katy, who was handing over a credit card and chatting animatedly with the saleswoman, and went to fetch her coffee.
The warm, scented interior of The Daily Grind was a balm on her sore nerves. She fidgeted in line until it was her turn to order. She asked for her usual macchiato with a double shot of both espresso and caramel and shifted out of the way to check her phone.
What’s cooking? she texted to Jada.
Three dots appeared.
Not I, said the little red hen. Christmas dinner prep is where I stay out of the way and wash whatever they hand me.
House full of relatives?
OMG. Cousins on top of cousins. I swear I don’t know these people.
Ivy chuckled in spite of her current roiling emotions. Hang in there.
There was a pause. Three dots appeared, disappeared, reappeared.
How’s the story coming?
Ivy grimaced and typed, Slowly. Or not. I don’t know. It’s been a weird couple of days.
There was a lag. Then Jada finally answered. Keep at it. Paris as a boss will not make for a happy new year. *angry emoji*
*scream emoji*
Ivy resisted the urge to scream for real and tucked her phone in her coat pocket.
“Good morning.” Rand’s husky voice curled into her ear, causing goose bumps down her arm.
Stupid arm.
“Hey,” she said. She fixed him with a pleasant expression, one she hoped didn’t reveal the churning she felt inside.
She noticed the tiny pinch of his brows. Rand wasn’t a stupid man. He could tell something was up. “Surprised to see you in town,” he said. “I thought all of you would be resting up after yesterday.”
“Last-minute shopping,” Ivy admitted. “Shouldn’t you be at the inn or something?”
“I have some pull with the boss.”
It was on the tip of Ivy’s tongue to say something, but the barista called out her name. She picked up her coffee and said, “Feel like scoping out the lobby of the Mountain Rest for a while?”
Rand grimaced. “Not really my idea of fun.”
“Mine either, but I do have a story to write.”
He sighed and looked at the ceiling. “You’ve been here for how many days now with nothing? What if your Julian Wolf hunch is wrong?”
She poked at the whipped cream with a wooden stirrer. “Then I’m screwed.” She looked up and saw concern and something else warring in his gaze. What was it? Disdain? Pity?
“I’ll be fine,” she said with more confidence than she felt. “It’s not the first time I’ve been against the wall.” She squared her shoulders—more for herself than for him—and eyed him steadily.
The moment broke when the barista called for Rand. He took his coffee and gestured toward the door to the street.
They stepped out into the cold morning and kept close to the windows to avoid the crowds on the sidewalk. Shoppers darted in and out of stores, hands full of swinging bags.
Rand gestured with his coffee cup down the block. “So, what are you buying?”
“No idea,” she admitted. “I guess I’ll know it when I see it.”
They walked along, the silence stretching between them until they reached the corner across from the Brontosaurus.
Rand turned to her. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
She resisted the urge to blurt what she’d seen, tamped down the scream wanting to ask him about his real relationship with Katy, smothered the desire to fling her arms around him and kiss him again.
She took a breath. “Nothing. I’m just preoccupied.” She shrugged and smiled.
“Okay.” He watched her steadily. “I have to get back to the inn. But listen—I could use your help with something later if you have the time.”
“Sure,” she said. She gave herself an interior smack for sounding like a too-eager middle schooler.
“Then meet me at the inn at three.”
She nodded. He gave her the barest kiss on her cheek and left her on the cold sidewalk.
*
Ivy spent an hour in the lobby of the Mountain Rest Inn making small talk with the young staffers streaming in and out and keeping a sharp eye for every car that pulled under its expansive portico before she abandoned the idea as hopeless. Nobody admitted anything. The parking lot out back was as barren as it had been the first day she’d arrived in town. Two ideas, two strikes.
It wasn’t like her to whiff a story instinct. Her gut had served her well throughout J school at UNC and helped her make the leap from a well-regarded small-town paper to New York and the online craziness that had grown into Scoop. She knew, deep down, that she was right. Julian Wolf was probably ducking out of the Inkwell right now with a book, or checking out some outdoor equipment at one of the outfitters sprinkled around town. For all she knew, he was enjoying a beer across the street at the Brontosaurus right now. But knowing and proving were two different things. And she couldn’t go to Wendy with a hunch, not when Paris had a confirmed scandal already waiting in their boss’s inbox.
Ivy sighed and trudged over to the Brontosaurus herself. The crowded pub—no Julian in sight, she noted with a groan—was noisy. Big band arrangements of Christmas songs floated down through the din. Kit Gallagher gave her a wave when she settled on a stool at the end of the bar.
“Hey,” he said, tossing a paper coaster down at her seat. “What can I get you?”
It was a mark of how down she felt that she couldn’t muster her normal a
nnoyance with Kit’s entire existence. “A shovel between the eyes,” she said, propping her chin on one hand.
He laughed. “Can’t be that bad. Something for what ails you?” He indicated the row of brass taps.
“You pick. And an order of nachos, okay?”
Kit gave her a thumbs-up and bustled off. She heard a whine and looked down at the same geriatric Labrador she’d seen the other day. She bent down and gave his white muzzle a scratch.
“You too, huh, buddy?”
The Lab sighed into her hand and settled down with a whoof on the concrete floor at her feet.
“I know just how you feel.”
Kit returned in a few minutes and set a chocolate milkshake on the coaster. She shot him a questioning look.
“That’s a brown liquor face if I’ve ever seen one, but if I recall correctly, you Macphersons don’t usually indulge in day drinking.”
“It’s like thirty degrees outside.”
“Milkshakes are 365-day beverages. Or so my kids tell me.” He thumped the counter and said, “Happy to listen if you need an ear.”
Curiouser and curiouser. She actually considered unburdening herself for a moment. “That’s okay. But thanks.” She lifted the glass to him and took a sip. Chocolate malt. Despite her mood, she smiled.
Well, whaddya know. Kit was right. A milkshake was potent medicine. She sipped for a while. When the nachos arrived, she dug in until her brain settled down.
Ivy checked her watch. It would be one by the time she finished eating, so that gave her two hours. She fished out a pen and a small notebook from her tote and began to annotate the list she’d made that morning.
Presents. She studded the word with stars and arrows.
She crossed out Airbnb locations, making a deep groove in the paper with the tip of her pen.
Investigate closed wings at Cooper House
She put down her pen. The last one might be the most difficult to accomplish, but more and more it looked like the key to figuring out everything.
She pondered the idea while she polished off the excellent nachos—more than she could finish on her own, really—and gulped down the rest of the milkshake. She signaled Kit for a glass of water and plotted her shopping route. Might as well be thorough. Julian might not be in the Brontosaurus, but she knew he was somewhere. If she had to walk the whole town to verify her hunch, she’d do it.
“Feeling better?” Kit said when he came to whisk away her decimated plate.
“A little,” Ivy admitted. “I have a plan now.” She tapped the list with the tip of her pen.
“Unsurprising. That was kind of your whole vibe in high school.”
She looked at him. Given all the jokes, she’d always assumed Kit knew nothing about her except that her family sold fruitcakes and she killed the curve on tests.
“It was intimidating for someone like me, you know? You always knew what you wanted and how you’d get it. Me, all I knew was the next game. Blew my knee out in college, and without football, I just came home. But it worked out. I mean—look at this place.” He gestured wide, his pride and contentment obvious on his broad face.
She nodded. She had to admit, Kit fit in perfectly at the Brontosaurus. “I see your point,” she said. She laid some cash on the table and bent down to smooth the dog’s head again. “Thanks.”
“Anytime,” Kit said. He grinned and headed down the bar.
Emerging into the cold afternoon, Ivy tightened her scarf. Presents. The breeze stung her cheeks and burned her ears, but she was determined. At least today’s cold wasn’t accompanied by a low-hanging gray curtain of clouds, as so many days had been in New York lately.
She found a Victorian silver brooch for her mother in a tiny shop on Antiques Row, a curio box made of applewood for her dad, and a first edition of The Little Prince for Violet at the Inkwell. The one present she’d brought with her from New York was for Laurel, a signed cookbook from Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, waiting to be wrapped back at the house.
Now she stood in front of Annie’s Cafe, staring down the block at the peaked roof of the Cooper House Inn. What should she do about Rand? This was new territory. Weird territory. And even though she wasn’t exactly sure how to think about what she’d seen earlier on the sidewalk, what was going on between her and Rand left her unsettled. Should she ignore it? Confront him? Storming the Cooper House would feel great, but would it answer all her questions? She knew better. She shrugged off the little voice whispering “coward” in her head and focused on her plan.
She checked her watch—just a little before three.
Might as well get one answer today. She headed toward the Cooper House.
*
Rand stood on the back stoop in his shirt and sweater, welcoming the cold. Maybe it would help clarify the tangle his life had become in only a few short weeks.
Nana and Gramp, bless them, would be horrified to discover exactly what their plea for help had cost him. He’d been careful not to tell them how the cut in salary made paying the construction loan on his new house so tough. How his plan to live at the inn and rent out the house had been upended when they’d confessed that they let Jessica stay in the innkeeper’s apartment rent-free as part of her compensation. How their penny-pinching over the years was going to cost real dollars now.
He scrubbed the back of his neck and groaned. After he’d returned this morning from The Daily Grind, his phone had rung with a call from the structural engineer he’d asked to look over the joist so he could get Hank moving on the repairs. More bad news, which would involve shutting down the entire wing for at least a month. No first-floor rooms meant no available ADA accommodations. Plus, he’d have to relocate Jessica for the duration.
Even if he could get a lightning-fast crew moving, he didn’t have the money to pay for it without taking out a loan on the inn itself. Julian’s generous compensation for staying at his house would barely dent what it would take to get the inn back in the shape it should be.
Thinking of Julian brought on a guilty twinge. The past few days with Ivy had been the one bright spot in the mess. But once she found out that he was personally standing between her and her dream job, he could kiss that goodbye, too. Julian was getting bold. Sheer luck—okay, and Rand’s well-timed kiss—were the only things that had kept Ivy from identifying him during his surprise appearance at the Phruitcake Phestival. And it wouldn’t have been Rand’s fault. It was as if someone had a finger resting against the first domino of doom. One nudge, and his whole life would collapse.
The cold finally drove him inside, where he headed to the lobby so he could warm up. Might as well brood in front of a fire.
His fingers had just begun to thaw when the bells hanging on the back of the front door jangled and in walked Ivy. His joy at seeing her deflated at the look on her face. Something was up. Yesterday’s open expression, the surprising intimacy they’d shared—both gone. In their place was the Ivy he remembered from the past two decades—focused, businesslike, impersonal. As if yesterday hadn’t actually happened.
He quelled his rising disappointment and offered to take her coat.
“Depends on why I’m here.”
Again he thought of a deer, ready to bolt at the idea of danger. Go slow. “I wondered if you could help me with a little project.”
“What’s that?”
He motioned and she followed him through the kitchen onto the inn’s expansive utility porch. Propped against the wall was a ten-pound bag of playground sand. On a card table in the center of the space were boxes of votive candles and a package of brown paper bags.
Ivy’s faced relaxed into a genuine smile. “I’d forgotten about the luminarias,” she said.
“Usually the grands do this, but since they’re in Florida, I could use some help.”
There was a moment, a held breath, and then she said, “Okay. Sure.” She took off her coat.
They spent a minute working out a procedure, Ivy leading the way as s
he always did, and soon they fell into a rhythm of shaking open a paper bag, folding down the top edges, filling the bag with a scoop of the sand, then placing a candle in the center before setting the filled bag along the wall.
Rand watched her work for a while. He smiled at what he used to call Ivy’s “concentration face,” one he’d come to know intimately all those years they spent together in class. Furrow between the brows? Check. Lips pursed to the side? Check. Leaning forward so her glorious dark hair brushed the tabletop? Check.
“So who is she, really?” Ivy asked out of nowhere.
“Who?”
“Your friend from yesterday.”
Rand hadn’t expected the question, so it took him a moment to answer. “Katy? We were housemates in college. Why?”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I saw you today.”
Now it was his turn to frown. “When?” Then he remembered. Katy had come by earlier to confirm her Christmas surprise for Julian tomorrow. She’d gone with him to pick up the supplies for the luminarias and spent most of the time gushing over Julian, who was back at the house doing hot yoga in the basement, and worrying whether he’d enjoy her present. He’d dropped her on the corner so she could go over details with Daphne Broussard over at Stitch and Thyme, and that was it.
“I didn’t see you.”
“You wouldn’t have,” she said with a shrug. She shook out another bag and began folding down the top. “You were a little preoccupied at the time.”
Then it hit him. Katy’s usual tight hug and a huge kiss. Great.
He set down the bag he’d just finished and picked up the trowel to fill the next one. “We’re just friends.”
One of Ivy’s dark brows raised toward her hairline. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
He shoved the trowel into the bag of sand harder than he’d intended. “Ivy.”