by Mimi Wells
“Wait!” This time he did touch her, turning her shoulder so her hard gaze raked over his face. “I’m not engaged to Katy.”
She blinked. “What?”
“I’m not engaged to Katy. Katy’s engaged to Julian, Ivy. Julian.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Katy put in. She stopped on the Persian rug just past the slate entryway in the main room, palms up. Rand shot her a warning look, but that had never deterred Katy before. “We really are just old friends.”
“Then why—” Ivy glanced from Rand to Katy, then past Katy to where Julian stood near the fireplace. Rand could imagine the gears in her head changing, shifting from personal matters to professional.
Her gaze narrowed. “You’ve known for days what I was doing in town,” she began.
“Yes.”
“You’ve been helping me,” she said, ice dripping from the words. “Listening to my strategy, dropping hints you knew were lies, driving around with me on wild goose chases you knew would never pay off.”
Rand grimaced. “I said I’d help you look around town. And I did.”
“Technicalities.”
“Yes.”
She shot him a cold look. “You should have gone into law. Nobody slices the truth any thinner.”
“Hey,” Katy said, stung. She’d gone to Duke Law after graduating from NC State.
He waved Katy silent. “I had a reason.” I wanted to be with you.
A dry, bitter laugh escaped Ivy’s lips. “Oh, I’ll just bet you did.”
She turned her gaze to Katy. “So when I saw you at the Phestival, that was all part of the game, was it? Have some laughs over the dumb smart girl?”
“Accident, I assure you,” Katy said, her words soothing as if she were speaking to a wild animal.
“I got bored out here at Rand’s, so we drove into town,” Julian put in. “Nobody recognized me. It was awesome.”
Rand closed his eyes in exasperation. Julian was a giant Golden Retriever of a man. Beautiful, wouldn’t hurt a fly, sometimes a little slow to read the room.
“Jules.” Katy hissed. “Not now.”
Ivy stared around the room, her gaze falling on the framed set of concept drawings on the wall, the first sketches of the house that would become Topnotch. Rand imagined synapses firing, facts falling into place. She turned to look at him. She pointed at the floor. “This is your house.”
“It is.”
“So the suite at the Cooper House? The one with the Do Not Disturb tag on the door?”
When had she gone upstairs? This morning, he realized. While he was sleeping. “I’ve been staying there temporarily.”
She dropped her head and chuckled ruefully. “Wow. You’ve known where Julian was the whole time and never said a thing.” Suddenly, her mouth dropped open. She stabbed that accusatory finger back toward the carport. “That’s your car out there. I saw you picking him up at the airport.”
Rand nodded, miserable.
Ivy kept going, her volume rising with every accusation. “You’ve been plotting against me since the second I confided in you. You kept dropping hints to make me think Julian was at the Cooper House when you’d hidden him up here. You watched me turn myself inside out driving all over town looking for him. You let me go on and on, babbling about my job and how worried I was about it. You let me—” She broke off to gather herself. Her voice wobbled, and her eyes brimmed with tears again. “You let me think you loved me.”
Before he could confirm that yes, yes he did love her, madly, always, she started a slow clap. “Bravo, Rand. Way to go. Excellent misdirection. You really got me this time.”
“That’s not what I was doing,” he protested.
Ivy turned to Katy, eyes narrowed. Julian’s arm curled around Katy’s petite shoulder while her hand splayed across his movie star chest, the new diamond winking in the light. “Bet there’s something he never told you, either.” She pulled her cell phone from her coat pocket and snapped a clear photo of the two of them. “I work for Scoop.” She missed their shocked faces, because she’d already spun on her heel to direct a venomous glare at Rand.
“Kiss my ass, Randall Cooper. See you on the front page.” She slammed out the door.
Rand turned to Katy and Julian, their expressions mirroring the horror he felt.
Maybe turning to stone would be better after all.
*
Ivy reversed the Jetta and peeled out of the driveway hard enough to spit gravel against the Volvo and Subaru in the carport.
How could she have been so stupid? All the signs were right in front of her. She’d just been too blind to see them. No, too distracted to see them. She’d been staring so hard at Rand she’d taken her eyes off the ball.
She flew back down the mountain, taking the curves too quickly and leaning too hard on the brakes. All the things her father had taught her so carefully not to do when she was a teenager behind the wheel for the first time. When she reached the main highway, she jerked the car to a halt, put it in park, and leaned her head against the steering wheel.
Suddenly her silent phone exploded into chirps and dings and whistles. Multiple texts from Jada. How’s it going? And, You said you were coming out here from her sisters. And smack in the middle of the screen, a Scoop exclusive notification from their app.
Add one baby and subtract one wife: Tanner Rivington’s Instascandal blows wide open!
Ivy’s stomach lurched. Well, there it was. Paris had beaten her to the punch. She could imagine a battalion of shiny new Christmas phones opening the story, forwarding the salacious details across Twitter and Snapchat, flooding Scoop’s forums and the Instamom’s pictures with comments both positive and scolding.
Now what? She potentially had the key to her future on her phone. All she had to do was write up the details and send them on to Wendy. Bam. Instamom would literally become yesterday’s news.
So what was stopping her?
She straightened and glanced in the rearview mirror, half expecting to see one blasted gray Subaru pull up behind her. What she saw, though, was glimmering at her neck. The ruby necklace. The one from Rand.
With a surge of fury, she grabbed the chain and pulled. The clasp released with a pop. She tossed the necklace into the wheel well. A gem from the mountains. Right.
The enchantment of the day seemed to dissolve from the landscape. Instead of fresh snowfall, all she noticed was dirty slush. The dinosaur on the Sinclair sign was a green blob. She glanced at the clock on the dash. She should be home. She wanted to be home, where she was sure people loved her.
She went straight through the light instead of turning down Main Street. No sense in torturing herself by driving past the Cooper House Inn, right? She worked her way home using back roads and let out a long breath when she finally turned in the front gate.
Ivy parked the car and came in the back door to the empty, dark kitchen. She fetched herself a glass of water, then leaned back against the counter and sighed. Closed her eyes.
“Hey.”
Ivy jumped, nearly dropped her glass.
Violet took the glass from Ivy and set it on the counter. “What’s wrong?”
She crumpled into her sister’s arms, finally releasing everything she’d been holding onto since leaving Cooper’s Notch. To her credit, Violet didn’t try to fix anything. She just let her cry.
After a while, Ivy pulled away. She rinsed her face, dried it off, and exhaled. “Well, that’s that,” she said. “Now all I have to do is figure out what to do until I get back on the plane to New York.”
“Ivy,” Violet said, her voice quiet. “It’s not that simple.”
Ivy turned to her. “It is right now. Let’s cook dinner. Maybe with luck, my Christmas spirit will return.”
“What about your birthday?”
Ivy snorted. “Yeah, that’s trashed. So far, being thirty sucks.”
When Laurel came in from her new apartment, Bark Ruffalo in tow, Ivy had regained her composure and shifted her anger from blazing ho
t to simmer. She still wasn’t sure what to do about the dynamite she had on the phone. Normally she’d have sent the picture to Jada the second after she’d taken it. She hadn’t. Why not type up the story and send it in? Punch her ticket and be done with the foolishness in this town forever?
It bugged her that she couldn’t decide.
A couple of hours later, the Macphersons gathered around the old walnut table in the dining room for their traditional Christmas dinner of standing rib roast. Ivy felt like she was wrapped in quilt batting, insulated from fully participating. She watched her parents and sisters trade stories and laugh while she turned over the day in her mind, from waking in Rand’s arms to slamming her way out of his house just a few hours later. Violet must have passed the word to be gentle, since nobody pressed her.
It wasn’t long before the table was cleared, the dishes washed, and everyone moved into the family room for their annual Christmas film fest. Laurel started the DVD of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Ivy curled into one corner of the sofa and covered herself with the oldest, softest afghan from the big basket on the floor.
Laurel leaned over and put her head on Ivy’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
“I’m not,” Ivy said, finally dry-eyed. She watched the Grinch drum his fingers as he surveyed Whoville below, annoyed with the fact that the Whos were breathing. If there were any time in her life that Ivy’s heart felt two sizes too small, it was tonight. She slanted a look at Laurel and muttered, “Hashtag Team Grinch.”
“Aw, come on. Bark Ruffalo loves you.”
Ivy snorted. “Bark Ruffalo loves that I sneaked him a bone from the roast when we were doing the dishes. Let’s face it, little sister. I’m just not cut out for love. Not in this town, anyway.”
“But, Ivy—”
Ivy shushed her and refocused her attention on the TV. The Grinch was complaining again.
“There’s one thing I hate—all the noise, noise, noise—”
The doorbell rang.
Five Macpherson faces swiveled to stare toward the door.
Alex looked at Holly. “You expecting anyone?”
“No,” she replied, sitting forward in her chair. She groaned. “You didn’t do anything crazy like invite people over, did you? You know my rule about a quiet Christmas after the Phestival.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
The bell rang again.
“Nobody’s going to answer that?” Laurel said. “You people are weird.” She jumped off the sofa, Bark Ruffalo leaping up from the floor along with her.
Ivy refocused on the television. The thought occurred to her that she was living the special in reverse. She’d already had her roast beast, opened presents, and thrown them away. If she could climb up in a cave somewhere so she didn’t have to deal with people or her own thoughts, she’d head out right now to do it.
A gust of cold air swept across the floor. Then Laurel shrieked, and everyone turned around.
In walked Katy and Julian.
“Lord, now would be a great time to bless me with the power of teleportation,” Ivy muttered under her breath, but of course nothing happened. She waited for Rand’s voice but didn’t hear it in the flurry of introductions. Curious, she peeked over the edge of her afghan. Julian was shaking hands with her father while Katy exchanged greetings with her sisters.
Holly bustled into the room. “Ivy, you have guests.”
“I didn’t invite them.”
“That may be, but they came to speak to you.”
She frowned up at her mother like a sulky child. “They said their piece earlier.”
Holly leaned over and gave her a soft pinch on the shoulder. “Young lady, I taught you better than that. Get up, smile like you mean it, and go listen to what they have to say.”
“I don’t mean it.”
“Then fake it,” Holly ground out. She pointed an imperious finger toward the door. “Go. Now.”
“This is another reason I can’t deal with Dogwood Mountain,” Ivy grumbled to herself as she slowly made her way around the staircase and into the foyer. “I regress.”
“Katy, Julian, would you like some dessert?” Holly asked in her best hostess voice.
“No, thank you,” Katy said.
“Is it that delicious fruitcake?” Julian asked at the same time.
“No!” came the chorus of all five Macphersons.
“We’re fruitcake-free until next fall,” Holly explained. “This is a regular old chocolate cake in honor of Ivy’s and my birthday.”
Katy blossomed into a smile. “Happy birthday! I had no idea.”
“Welcome to the club,” Ivy groused.
Katy gave her a speculative look then turned to Julian. “Jules, honey, go on in for dessert. I think Ivy and I need to have this chat alone.”
Ivy widened her eyes at Violet and Laurel in turn, but each of them avoided eye contact and followed their parents into the kitchen. Ingrates.
There was an awkward silence.
“I already sent the picture,” Ivy lied.
“We’re not here about that,” Katy said. “Well, not totally. Once we figured the cat was out of the bag, Julian called in a favor. We’re on a midnight flight back to California.”
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to the airport, then?”
“We are. At least, Rand thinks we are.”
Ivy frowned. “He didn’t send you?”
“He—” Katy pointed to one of the wing chairs in the formal living room. “Can we sit?” At Ivy’s nod, she perched on the edge of one chair and waited for Ivy to take the other. “Rand explained everything after you left. He’s devastated.”
“I’ve learned over the past couple of days that Rand talks a great game. What makes you think you can trust him?”
“Five days of complete privacy,” Katy said bluntly. “Do you have any idea how rare that is for someone like Julian? When I called to ask Rand about a room at the inn, he told us we’d probably get caught and have our faces splashed all over the media, something Julian was very keen to avoid. Guess now I know why.” She waggled the fingers of her left hand.
“Anyway, Rand gave up his own gorgeous house to us to ensure that privacy, and because of that, he got what he needed.”
Ivy couldn’t help it. She was curious. “Which is?”
“Money. The inn’s in trouble. It’s going to need a lot of expensive repairs, and even though he acts like he’s got everything under control, I know better. I lived with the man for two years.” She held out a pacifying hand. “As housemates only, I promise.” She dropped her hand back in her lap and continued. “Julian wrote him a giant check to thank him for the privacy he’d promised us, and you know Rand won’t go back on a promise. He was trapped. It was either keep you out of our way until we left or stake the future of the Cooper House.”
A burst of laughter issued from the kitchen. Laurel peeked her head around the doorjamb and called out, “Either of you two want cake?”
“Not right now,” they both answered. They traded a look.
Ivy thought about what Katy was telling her. “Then what happened at the Phestival?”
Katy rolled her eyes. “That was all Julian. As much as he claims he wants peace and quiet, he’s a people person at heart. Anything that odd is like catnip. He had to come out here.”
Ivy digested these facts, placing them on the scale that would decide her next move.
“I know it’s too late to keep us a secret,” Katy finished, “but you might think about giving Rand a second chance. I’ve heard Ivy Macpherson stories since I was a freshman in college. Whatever he told you about how he feels, it’s real.”
Ivy took a long, careful look at Katy’s serious face. Rand knew how to pick them, that was for sure. Katy Daniels was sharp as a tack and kind to boot. Maintaining her friendship for all these years was a small, new plus for him in a column Ivy had wiped clean on her way down the mountain.
“Okay,” she finally said. “Thanks for telling me.”
>
Now Julian’s voice floated out the door. “You ladies done in there?”
“Yes,” Katy called back. “Do you have a slice of that cake for me?”
Ivy followed her into the kitchen. Julian was leaning against the kitchen counter with a bowl in his hand.
“Check this out,” he said to Katy, tipping the bowl so she could see the contents. “Buttermilk chocolate cake, pecans, caramel, and whipped cream. Everything but the raspberries.”
Katy blinked, surprised, and looked over at Holly.
“The base layer of a Velocirapture is my grandmother’s buttermilk chocolate cake,” Holly explained. “I sold the recipe to the original owners of the Brontosaurus to help pay for my commercial kitchen.”
Ivy stared at her mother. She’d never known this, even after years of eating this very cake on her birthday. “I’ll be damned.”
“All of us have secrets,” Holly said, digging her fork into the slice of cake on her plate. “The important thing is what we do with them.”
“Speaking of that,” Katy put in, making eye contact with Ivy, “I have a proposal I think you’ll want to hear.”
Chapter Fifteen
Exclusive.
Ivy kept rolling the word over in her head, weighing its import as she picked up her phone and tapped open the photos file once more. The snapshot she’d taken of Katy and Julian yesterday was remarkably good, considering she’d taken it on impulse.
All Ivy’s life, she’d worked at being the best. The magnitude of Julian Wolf’s engagement would eclipse Paris Temperley’s run of the mill oops-baby story for sure, even if that story was racking up clicks faster than a Geiger counter. She imagined Wendy’s yelp of triumph at the sight of the photo alone—she, too, was competitive, always looking for ways to keep Scoop’s traffic bubbling. This picture would certainly do that.
Ivy’s email was all composed and ready. All she had to do was send it.
And yet she hadn’t.
Send the picture now to block Paris, or wait for the exclusive sit-down interview Katy had offered and possibly lose her best shot at the promotion she’d worked so hard to earn?
And none of that even touched the giant problem that was Rand Cooper.