by Regina Kyle
Ivy snickered as she fixed her camera to the tripod. “A hero? Isn’t that stretching it a bit?”
“How quickly they forget.” He cast a sympathetic glance at his leg. “I was injured in the line of duty.”
“Rescuing a cat.”
He puffed out his chest. “Par for the course for us brave firefighters.”
“You’re a walking cliché.” She focused the camera on the brightly painted backdrop and clicked off a couple of quick test shots.
“Ten bucks says this walking cliché gets you over a thousand dollars in the cash box by lunchtime. Two if I call Sykes to bring my turnout gear. Chicks dig the suspenders.”
“Another dare?” Her hazel eyes flashed an unspoken challenge.
“Not a dare. A bet.”
“You’re on, hot stuff.” She waved in their first customers, a pair of giggling girls who bypassed Cade for the costume trunk and its assortment of feathered hats and boas. “Call your friend and tell him to get your stuff over here pronto. The school needs every cent we can scrape up.”
Three hours later, with a line that stretched down the block and almost twice what he’d predicted in the cash box, Cade declared himself the winner. Sweltering in his turnouts and worn out from posing with what seemed like every woman in Stockton between the ages of eighteen and eighty, including Maude from the diner, who’d pinched his ass, and the librarian, Mrs. Frazier, who’d tried to stick her tongue in his ear. But the winner nonetheless.
“I bow down to you.” Ivy gave him a low, overexaggerated curtsy and escorted a besotted teenage couple into the booth. Unlike him, she seemed fresh as a daisy, laughing and chatting with the lovebirds as she positioned them.
He gave a weary smile to the next person in line, another octogenarian who eyed him hungrily.
What had gotten into these old broads? Were the Knights of Columbus spiking the lemonade at the concession stand?
He muttered a hasty “excuse me” to the latest bawdy biddy and ducked into the tent for a breather. How did Ivy do it? He’d always thought taking pictures was easy. Just point, click and shoot. Anyone with a cell phone could do it nowadays, right?
Wrong.
If there was anything he’d learned watching Ivy all morning, it was that photography was as much about people as it was about pixels. And Ivy was a people person. Cajoling toothless toddlers into smiling, convincing middle-aged matrons they looked like movie stars, conning reluctant husbands to wear ridiculous getups.
He was in the presence of a master. A master whose talent was wasted in Stockton.
Maybe Gabe was right. Maybe she would stay if Cade asked her to. But did that give him the right to ask?
Cade’s stomach grumbled, reminding him he’d skipped breakfast. He had at least a couple more weeks with Ivy. Time to plan his next move.
“Hungry?” he asked her when she’d gotten rid of Romeo and Juliet.
“Famished.” She peeked around the tent flap and eyed the line, still half a block long. “But it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to take a break anytime soon.”
“I’ll go get us something. What do you feel like? Funnel cake? Corn dog? Cotton candy?” Just the mention of food made his stomach grumble again. “All of the above?”
Her eyes flicked to his bum leg. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I’m not an invalid.” He reached down and tapped the brace under his turnout pants. “They call it a walking cast for a reason. And you’re not the only one about to pass out from starvation.”
“Well, in that case...” She raised herself up on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. “Surprise me.”
Her warm breath on his neck made him instantly hard. He could think of a million ways he’d like to surprise her, not one of them appropriate for a school carnival. He subtly adjusted himself through his bulky gear. “As you wish.”
She smiled at the reference from The Princess Bride and he dropped a quick kiss on her forehead. That would have to satisfy him until he could get her alone. He didn’t dare risk anything more or he might wind up bending her over and taking her right there in the tent.
With a frustrated groan, he shrugged off the suspenders of his turnout pants and reached for his T-shirt, which he’d shed at the request of a group of coeds for an extra twenty bucks.
“Not so fast, sonny.”
He froze with his hand halfway to his shirt. The elderly woman at the front of the line must have gotten tired of waiting because now she was standing in the entrance to the tent, blocking his exit. “You’re not getting away that easy. I’ve been standing out there for almost an hour. No easy feat when you’re as old as I am.”
She took another step into the tent, looked him up and down through her granny glasses and smacked her lips. Uh-oh. “But it’ll be worth it to get up close and personal with a handsome young buck like yourself. Maude says you let her pinch your ass.”
“So that’s how you won the bet,” Ivy said, coming up behind him. He could hear the smile in her voice. “Sacrificing yourself for the cause.”
“That reminds me. You owe me ten dollars.”
“I’ll pay up.” Her eyes lingered on his bare chest. “Later.”
“I’m counting on it.”
“Are we doing this or what?” A surprisingly strong, gnarled hand rapped him on the arm. “I want me some of what Maude got.”
Help me, he mouthed to Ivy.
Not a chance, Ivy mouthed back.
Cade grinned at the woman through gritted teeth. The food would have to wait. Again. “Tell you what, Mrs...”
“It’s Miss.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “Bartholomew. Letty Bartholomew.”
“Okay, Miss Bartholomew. How about we skip the ass pinching and I give you a kiss on the cheek instead?”
Her already wrinkled forehead creased even more in thought. “Did Maude get a kiss?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Good.” She stuffed a crumpled wad of bills into his hand. “I want to have something to brag about at bingo.”
* * *
“IVY, COULD YOU come in here for a minute?” Her mother’s voice wafted out the screen door onto the porch, where Ivy and Cade sat in the old wooden swing, too full of manicotti and meatballs to move. “Now.”
“Uh, sure, Mom.”
Cade gave her a sideways glance, eyebrows raised. “What did you do this time? Put syrup in the soap dispenser?”
“Not since high school. But I’m on her black list for some reason. I wonder if it has anything to do with all the phone calls.” Her parents’ landline had been ringing off the hook since dinner.
She’d barely finished speaking when it rang again. “See what I mean? I’d better go find out what’s going on before the you-know-what hits the you-know-where.”
“If it hasn’t already.”
“Thanks for the support.”
“I do what I can.”
“Wanna come with?” She stood and straightened her shirt.
“Thanks, but no thanks.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll go check on your dad. He’s been out in the greenhouse for a while—probably to escape the telephone.”
“Chicken.”
“You got that right.” Cade rose gingerly, still favoring his injured leg. “I’ll take your father’s orchids over your mom’s outrage anytime.”
She watched him cross the yard, appreciating the way his shorts pulled tight across his ass and how the muscles in his thighs, like steel cables, contracted and relaxed as he walked. Even with one leg encased in plastic, the man was lethally sexy.
“Ivy,” her mom called again, her voice tinged with impatience.
“Coming.”
She found her mother in the kitchen, still on the phone.
“I understand the board’s concerns, Mr. Whitledge, and I’ll speak to my daughter.” She motioned for Ivy to sit. “I’m sure she was only thinking about the children and the new computers they so desperately need.”
Ivy slumped into the high-backed k
itchen chair, dread rolling over her like a cold, damp fog.
“Yes, I realize that’s no excuse,” her mother continued. “But I’d hardly call it pornography.”
Pornography? What had she stepped in this time?
“No, I wouldn’t call it public indecency, either. I’d call it a politically correct overreaction to what was clearly intended as a little harmless fun for a good cause. And I’d appreciate it if you called off your dogs. My husband is recovering from a heart attack, and these constant phone calls certainly aren’t helping any.”
Ivy’s mother slammed the phone down and pulled the plug out of the wall. “Stupido. That’ll show him.”
“Ma.” Ivy drummed her fingers on the table. “What’s going on?”
“Self-righteous stronzi, every last one of them.”
“Ma. Please.”
“I’m sorry, topolina.” Her mother pulled out a chair across from her and sat, wiping her hands on her apron.
“I repeat—” Ivy rested her chin on her hands and stared at her mother, trying to emulate her lawyer brother’s cross-examination glare “—what’s going on?”
“The board of education. Stronzi!” She started spewing Italian faster than Ivy could understand.
“I get it, Ma.” Ivy cut her off. “They’re assholes. That’s a pretty strong word for you, and you’ve used it twice in the past minute. You’re scaring me.”
“They’re a bunch of prudes. You and Cade raised twice as much money as any other booth. So what if he took off his shirt?”
“Is that what they’re upset about?”
“Apparently they got a few complaints.”
“A few?” Ivy sat straight up, her foot tapping a nervous tattoo on the tile floor. “From who?”
Her mother shifted in her chair. “They wouldn’t say.”
“So all those phone calls were from the board of ed?”
“Not exactly.” Her mother avoided her gaze, pretending a sudden fascination in a string hanging from her apron. “We’ve gotten some complaints directly, too.”
The tapping ended in a stomp. “You mean people are calling you to bitch about me?”
“Ivy. Language.”
“For Christ’s sake, Ma. You just called the board of ed assholes. Twice.”
“That’s different.”
“Saying it in Italian doesn’t make it any more acceptable, you know.”
“Everything sounds nicer in Italian.”
“What a nightmare.” Ivy buried her head in her hands. “I knew this would happen if I came home.”
“Knew what would happen?”
“Knew they’d find some reason to go after me.”
“They?”
“This town. Everyone.” Ivy groaned and dropped her head onto her forearms. “It’s like high school all over again.”
Her mother reached across the table and put a hand on her arm. “Was it that bad, topolina?”
“Worse.” She hadn’t told her parents the half of what some of the other kids did. Calling her names. Tripping her in the hall. Pushing her down the stairs. Stealing her books.
But she wasn’t Jabba the Mutt anymore. No, now she was a pornographer. A pervert. A purveyor of smut.
The hand on Ivy’s arm squeezed. Tight. “You are not a purveyor of smut.”
Damn. She hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud.
“Isn’t that what all the callers said?”
“Not all.” The hand withdrew. “I’d say it was about sixty-forty.”
Ivy raised her head. “For me or against?”
“Against.”
“I’m surprised I got forty percent.”
“Maude can be pretty persuasive.”
Ivy blew out a long, tortured sigh. “I should never have come back. I don’t belong here. I’ve never belonged here.”
“How can you say that?” Ivy’s father was standing in the doorway, his expression hard, an equally stern-faced Cade behind him. “You’re family. Of course you belong here.”
Open mouth, insert foot.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that I didn’t belong with you guys. It’s just this place.” She looked around the kitchen, taking in everyone’s stony faces. “Well, not this place. I mean...”
Ugh. She was babbling. Again.
Cade looked from Ivy to her mother and back again. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” Ivy shot her mother a warning glare, which was totally ignored. Instead, her mother proceeded to tell the entire sordid tale, complete with liberal use of the word stronzi and a whole host of other Italian profanities.
When it was over, Cade rolled his eyes. “Your mother’s right. They’re idiots. You can’t let a handful of old dudes stuck in the 1960s run you out of town.”
“Easy for you to say.” Ivy huffed a stray lock of hair off her forehead. “You’re Stockton’s golden boy. Why do you think your phone’s not blowing up even though you were the one with your shirt off?”
Cade leaned against the doorjamb and crossed his arms. “Good thing it was me. Just imagine the trouble we’d be in if you went topless.”
“Not funny,” Ivy grumbled, eyeing her father, who, surprisingly, appeared to be fighting off a smile under the thick, white beard he refused to shave even in the summer.
“It’s a little funny.” Her father lost the battle, the corners of his mouth curling upward.
“But the nursery—”
“Has been here for almost fifty years,” her father interrupted. “God willing, it will be here for fifty more.”
“What if people boycott? All those phone calls—”
“Were from a few disgruntled...” Her father looked to Ivy, his brows knotted. “What did your mother call them?”
“Stronzi,” Cade, Ivy and her mother said in unison.
Ivy’s father nodded. “That’s it. Stronzi. No one with half a brain thinks what you and Cade did was inappropriate.”
“Including you?” Ivy’s eyes darted from her mother to her father.
“Of course, including us.” Her mother’s soft eyes widened. “Why would you think otherwise?”
“I don’t know.” Ivy stared at her Chuck Taylors. “You’ve never really said how you felt about my work. Some of my stuff is sort of...racy.”
She winced, thinking of the swimsuit models she’d shot with dangerously low-slung bikini bottoms. Or that Vanity Fair cover of a very pregnant—and very naked—movie star. And the parade of shirtless men she’d photographed for high fashion ads...
“Your mother and I are nothing but proud of you, min kära flicka.” Her father came and stood behind his wife, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You’ve built an entire career from the ground up, just like we built this nursery.”
“We just wish you’d come home more often.” Her mother reached back to cover her husband’s hand with hers. “We miss you.”
“I miss you guys, too.” Ivy blinked back a tear. For the first time, the fallout of her lengthy absence hit her full force. Staying away from Stockton had kept the bad memories at bay. But it had kept her family at arm’s length, too. Something she needed to change ASAP. Her parents weren’t getting any younger, something her father’s heart attack had driven home. Hard. “And I promise I’ll visit at least once a month after I leave. Even if it’s only for a day or two.”
“That would be nice.” Her mother sighed, her warm, brown eyes as watery as Ivy’s. “I’m sure your brother and sisters would appreciate seeing more of you. And you’ve got a baby niece to consider now.”
“Among others.”
Ivy had almost forgotten Cade was there until he spoke up, still lounging in the doorway, a panty-moistening grin splitting his face. Her pulse went from trot to gallop, and heat spread up her neck to her face.
“It’s late,” she said, ducking her head to avoid her mother’s all-seeing, all-knowing gaze. “We should get going.”
“Thanks for dinner, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson.” Cade pushed off the door frame and held
out his hand to her father, who enveloped him in a bear hug instead.
“How many times have we asked you to call us Nils and Elena?” Her mother stood, opening her arms for her hug.
“Every other week since I graduated high school,” Cade said, returning her embrace. “But old habits are hard to break.”
They sure are, Ivy thought as she hugged her parents, said her goodbyes and followed the man she’d loved for as long as she could remember to her car.
15
“I CAN’T TIE this damn thing.” Cade frowned at his reflection in the mirror. “And I don’t see why I have to wear a monkey suit in the first place.”
He swore under his breath and pulled both ends of the bow tie, unraveling it for what was probably his tenth attempt to get it right. He could wake from a dead sleep and have his PPE on in seconds, but give him a harmless little piece of silk and he was all thumbs. He adjusted the ends so one was longer than the other and started over. Cross the long over the short, bring it up through the loop, double up the short end...
“Technically, you don’t. But I never could resist a man in a tux.”
He looked from his reflection to Ivy’s and gave up on the tie. The sleeveless navy dress she wore was simple, but it hugged her curves like a Lamborghini on a switchback, ending midthigh and showing off a decent expanse of her shapely legs.
“Need some help?” she asked, taking him by the shoulders and spinning him around to face her.
“Wow, that dress...” His gaze roamed from her long neck, over the lush mounds of her breasts, down her smooth legs and back up again, and he swallowed hard. “You look stunning.”
“Thanks.” She finished off his tie with a flourish and stood back to admire her handiwork. “You clean up pretty good yourself.”
“So whose wedding is this anyway?”
“The niece of some bigwig on the school board. I’m doing it gratis to smooth things over from the whole carnival fiasco. Practically the entire town’s going to be there, including Maude and her cronies. So prepare to have your ass pinched. A lot. But try to keep your shirt on.”
He sat on the bed and reached for one of the black oxfords he’d borrowed from Gabe for the occasion. He’d drawn the line at the shiny patent-leather shoes the guy at the tuxedo rental place had tried to sell him on. Bad enough he was still in the walking cast. He wasn’t about to make himself even more uncomfortable by stuffing his one good foot into something stiff, squeaky and rented. “I’m your assistant. Aren’t you’re supposed to protect me?”