Cinderella & the CEO

by Maureen Child

  Scowling, he pushed out of the chair and walked to the back door. He threw it open and as he was slapped by a vicious wind, Hairy raced outside into the early night.

  Moonlight spilled out of a clear, star-studded sky and painted the ground with shadows. The trees in the yard whipped and danced in a gale that had been growing steadily for the last hour.

  He listened to Hairy’s excited barks as the wind howled around him, but Tanner’s thoughts were too busy churning to pay much attention.

  “Why is she bothering to come and walk Hairy while at the same time she’s deliberately avoiding running into me?”

  He shook his head and tried to make sense of it all. He didn’t understand what she was thinking or what she was doing. If she wasn’t trying to hook him, then why bother with the dog who loved her? None of this made sense.

  He’d been waiting for her return since the moment Ivy had left. And now, he suddenly realized why. Because that’s what his mother would have done. What his mother had done again and again in her all consuming quest for a fairy-tale ending she had never found.

  His mother wouldn’t have dreamed of announcing her love and then walking away. She had always found a way to stick around a man who didn’t want her, trying to change his mind.

  “Apparently,” he mused aloud, “Ivy and my mother are two very different kinds of women.”

  Hairy’s barking became more frantic and Tanner bolted from the porch to see what was wrong. The wind pushed at him, as if trying to shove him back into the house and he wondered where the hell the storm had come from. The sky was clear, but the wind was howling. Then, as quickly as it had kicked up, the wind was gone. As if it had never been.

  Tanner finally reached the dog and it was then he heard what Hairy had. Voices. Shouting.

  At Ivy’s place.

  Then he remembered the big wedding that Ivy was counting on to keep her farm safe was tomorrow. The windstorm had probably played havoc with all of her preparations.

  Hairy barked again as if asking him what he was waiting for.

  Tanner’s brain shouted at him that this was the answer to all of his problems. If Ivy couldn’t hold the wedding, she couldn’t make the loan payment. If she couldn’t do that, she’d lose the farm.

  If that damn farm was gone, he’d have the peace and quiet that had once been so important to him. This was, in effect, the answer to everything.

  Cursing under his breath, he sent Hairy back into the house.

  Ivy was running through the meadow, shouting directions to the crew that had stayed late to make the final arrangements for the wedding.

  “Good thing they stayed,” she muttered under her breath as she looked around at the chaos created by the sudden wind blowing through.

  Already, people were racing around under the soft shine of moonlight and the harsh glare of spotlights arranged around the meadow. Tables were turned over, neatly stacked umbrellas had taken flight and were lying every which way across the grass and into the trees. The delicate archway where the ceremony would be held was on its side and the ribbons streaming from it lay limp on the ground.

  “Great,” she said, reaching for the umbrella at her feet. It was heavy and cumbersome, but she managed and carried it to where the guys were already stacking the others they had gathered. “All that work and it’s torn down in half an hour.”

  “We’ll get it back up,” Dan assured her. He glanced at the clear sky spreading overhead and shrugged. “At least it’s not raining.”

  “God, bite your tongue,” she said quickly. “Have the guys set the tables back in their spots. With any luck, the wind’s gone for good. We should be able to have most of this put back together before morning.”

  “On it,” he answered and stalked off, shouting orders at a few of the men.

  After that, Ivy just worked. She kept her head down and her mind blank as she busily set about fixing what Mother Nature had wrecked. As Dan had pointed out, it could have been worse, she consoled herself. If that wind had been accompanied by a summer storm, the meadow would be a sea of mud and they’d have had to come up with an alternate wedding site fast. As it was, this could be fixed and the bride and groom would never know anything had gone wrong.

  Running across the meadow to join Carol in reattaching the bows to the arch, Ivy caught movement out of the corner of her eye. When she took a better look, she recognized Tanner, striding up the lane connecting the farm to the meadow. He stopped dead, met her gaze for a heart-stopping moment, then moved off without a word to join the men gathering up the fallen tables and chairs.

  She took a deep breath as she watched him pitch in and help. She wondered what he was doing there, but couldn’t afford the time to stop and ask him. A part of her wanted to believe that Tanner’s being there might mean more than just a neighborly act. After all, when had he ever been neighborly? But at the same time, she remembered the distant expression on his face as they’d stared at each other, and she realized that whatever his reasons for being there—nothing between them had changed.

  “What is it?” Carol asked, handing Ivy a length of white satin ribbon.

  Her gaze fixed on Tanner until he was lost in the crowd of men working under the moonlight. Then she turned to her friend and forced a smile. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Let’s get this done, Carol.”

  Two hours later, Ivy was exhausted, but the crisis had been averted. Under the pale moon, the meadow lay lovely and perfect, as if it had never been disturbed. All was ready for the big event in the morning.

  The dozen or so people who had worked so hard stood in a circle congratulating each other on a job well-done. They lifted cans of cold soda provided by Ivy in a toast to their efforts and laughed together over the night’s activities. Tanner was on the periphery of the group and his gaze was locked on her.

  His expression still unreadable to her, she watched as he took a long drink of the soda and then laughed at something one of the men said to him. If things were different, she thought sadly, she would walk up to Tanner and give him a big kiss as a thank you for all of his work tonight.

  Instead, she was forced to remain quiet and still, uncomfortable under his steady regard. When Dan spoke up, she was pathetically grateful for the interruption.

  “Did you guys see King there, climbing that tree to get the umbrella down?”

  “Hell yes,” someone else said with a hoot of laughter. “Don’t know how the damn thing got that high, but King scrambled up that old oak like a monkey.”

  Tanner smiled at the men and said, “Couldn’t have been as funny as Tony falling off the bridge into the creek.”

  “Too true,” Dan agreed.

  Tony D’Amico grinned, despite his soaking wet clothes. “I thought I could lean far enough over the bridge to snag that damned thing. Turns out I couldn’t.”

  “You were all great,” Ivy said, speaking to them all, though her gaze fixed on Tanner alone. “I really appreciate everything you did, so I’d like to propose a toast.”

  Everyone lifted their cans of soda and waited. Tanner’s gaze burned into hers and Ivy felt a rush of something hot and wicked pouring through her. Still, her voice was even and steady as she said, “To Angel Christmas Tree Farm and Cabot Valley. May this wedding be the boon we all need. And may we all remember tonight and what we accomplished…together.”

  “Together,” everyone repeated and took a sip.

  Tanner waited until the rest of them had drunk their toast before he lifted the canned drink in his hand toward her. Together, he thought solemnly. Tonight, he’d been a part of something. He’d belonged in a way he never had before. He’d worked with a group of people he never would have met if it hadn’t been for Ivy and he’d helped them accomplish a task important to all of them.

  It was an odd feeling for him.

  And now it was over.

  With his gaze locked on Ivy’s, Tanner took a slow sip of the too sweet soda, then deliberately turned away. He couldn’t look at her, awash in moonligh
t, without wanting to hold her, lose himself in her. But that time had passed. Now that the situation was resolved, there was no place for him here.

  Still holding the can of soda, he walked down the dirt path that led to the front of the farm and the road to home.

  The wedding was a huge success.

  Not only for Angel Christmas Tree Farm, but for the town. The catering, flowers and decorations had all been wonderful. The guests who had driven out from San Francisco for the wedding had enjoyed themselves immensely and the bride and groom couldn’t have been happier.

  Still reeling from the number of people who had asked for her business cards at the event, Ivy sighed. Business would soon be booming, she knew. As soon as the article about the wedding hit the city newspapers, she knew Cabot Valley would experience the kind of success they’d all been dreaming of.

  So why wasn’t she happier?

  She’d done it. Made a name for herself as an event destination. Salvaged disaster and created perfection. She’d seen to it that her hometown succeeded as well as she had and her plans for the future were brighter than ever before.

  She should be blissful.

  But then, how could she be really happy without the man she loved?

  Without even the hope that they might one day straighten everything out? Yes, he’d come to her rescue and worked alongside her and her friends the night before the wedding, but since that night, she hadn’t seen him. Not even a peek. Oh, she didn’t expect to run into him in the early morning when she went to his house to take Hairy for a walk. After all, she went in the morning because she knew he’d be sleeping. But couldn’t he have come by the farm again? Couldn’t he have said something to her before he left that night?

  “But then, what’s left to say?” she asked herself glumly as she walked into the Cabot Valley bank. Her steps echoed on the polished linoleum and she sighed a little as she noted at least five people in line for one open teller. No quick trip for her this time.

  She pushed thoughts of Tanner to the back of her mind to torture herself with later. For now, she had the final payment for the wedding in hand, and she wanted to pay off a big chunk of the loan she’d taken out to make all of this possible.

  Ivy nearly groaned aloud when she spotted Eugenia Sparks in line. The woman was the biggest gossip in town and never had a kind word to say about anyone. The fact that Eugenia was even now talking to Rose Doherty in a voice that carried clear across the bank only irritated Ivy more because of the subject of Eugenia’s venom.

  “That Tanner King is a snob, if you ask me,” Eugenia was saying, her voice carrying through the room to bounce off the high ceiling. “Too rich by half. Thinks he’s too good for us is what,” she continued with a sharp jerk of her head. “Imagine, the man’s lived here in Cabot Valley for months and he never so much as shows his face at one town gathering. Thinks he’s too good for us small-town folks. Not natural, if you ask me, a man staying to himself that way. Who knows what he’s up to in that big fancy house of his.”

  Rose’s eyes were glazed and Ivy thought she looked like a rabbit hypnotized by a snake, unable to look away.

  Ivy, though, wasn’t.

  Spurred on by the emotions swirling inside her, Ivy forgot all about making her loan payment. Instead, she walked right up to Eugenia and looked her dead in the beady little eyes.

  “Don’t you talk about Tanner King that way,” she said and had the pleasure of seeing the older woman’s eyes widen and her mouth drop open in shock. But Ivy wasn’t through. In her peripheral vision, she caught Rose’s smile and encouraging nod, but Ivy would have continued anyway. “He’s not a snob, either. Did you ever think that maybe he’s lonely? That he doesn’t know anyone in town?”

  “Well…” Eugenia puffed up her chest and tried to speak, but Ivy was on a roll and not to be denied.

  “You say he’s never been to one town function in the months he’s lived here? Did anyone invite him? No.” Furious and hurt on Tanner’s behalf, Ivy defended him hotly and didn’t have to ask herself why. She just kept talking. “Maybe it’s not easy for someone to just show up unannounced when he doesn’t know a soul. Maybe if someone had gone out of their way to invite him, he might have attended.”

  Eugenia huffed an outraged breath and narrowed her eyes as if for battle. Ivy met the woman glare for glare and refused to back down until her opponent did. Finally, Eugenia marched off to the teller when it was her turn and Ivy was left standing in line, practically vibrating with insult.

  In the stunned silence of the bank, Ivy suddenly realized that she might as well have painted a sign over her head that read Foolish Woman in Love. Now, the town wouldn’t be talking about Tanner, they’d be talking about her.

  Fine, she thought as she turned and stalked out of the building. Better her than a man who couldn’t defend himself against small town cats.

  “I’m, er, sorry you had to hear that,” the bank manager said in a low undertone. “But you shouldn’t pay attention to what Eugenia Sparks has to say. No one does.”

  The man needn’t have worried. Tanner hadn’t given a good goddamn what the old woman with the sharp tongue had had to say. He’d been too busy watching Ivy and listening to her outraged voice as she defended him to her friends and neighbors.

  He stood in the glass-walled office and looked out at the lobby without really seeing it. Ivy’s words echoed over and over in his mind. He saw her eyes, glistening with tears she refused to let fall and he heard her voice, furious and hurt. And as he relived every moment of that little scene, the hard, icy shell around his heart cracked painfully.

  He drew a deep breath and let it out again as his mind raced and his heart began to heal. He’d spent years hiding himself away, cutting himself off from anything that might connect him to another living soul. He’d been determined to protect himself from betrayal and yet, that was the biggest lie of all.

  Living an insular existence wasn’t really living. So what was the point?

  The only question was, was it too late for him to change his life?

  “Mr. King,” the manager said softly, “is everything all right?”

  He turned to look at the man in the crisp business suit. “Not yet. But if I have anything to say about it, it will be.”

  Ivy was still furious the following morning when she sneaked across Tanner’s yard to collect Hairy for their walk. She never had gone back to the bank to make her loan payment, so she’d have to do that as soon as she was finished here. But she couldn’t ignore Hairy. She knew darn well that Tanner would get involved in his work and forget all about the little dog that needed some exercise.

  She walked up the porch steps and turned the knob. The man never remembered to lock his doors, so it was no problem to let herself in. She quietly stepped inside and shrieked when she saw Tanner standing in the kitchen, clearly waiting for her.

  She slapped one hand to the doorjamb to brace herself and took a deep breath to ease the pounding of her heart. Hairy barked a greeting and she leaned down to pet him even as she glared up at Tanner. “Why do you keep scaring me? Is it personal?”

  He smiled. A gorgeous, make-his-eyes-sparkle grin that made her knees wobble and did some truly amazing things to the pit of her stomach.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

  “Yeah, I can see that,” she told him and realized that he’d known all along that she was coming here every morning to walk Hairy. “Why?”

  “I have something for you.” He pulled an envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and handed it over.

  It was thick and white and had the logo of the local bank in the upper left hand corner. “What is this?”

  “Open it and see.”

  She did and when she unfolded the sheaf of papers inside, her heart nearly stopped. It was the deed. To Angel Christmas Tree Farm. And across the top, in bright red ink was stamped Paid In Full.

  Ivy swayed in place and instinctively shot out one hand to the jamb again, to help her maint
ain her balance. Stunned beyond words, she only stared up at Tanner in complete shock.

  He was still smiling.

  “Surprise,” he said with a shrug. “The tree farm is yours, free and clear.”

  He looked so pleased with himself. Ivy shook her head, staring wide-eyed at him. It was the diamond watch all over again, she thought. He was still trying to buy her. To use his money to make an impact. And now he bought her home?

  “You son of a bitch.” Her voice was low and filled with the tears clogging her throat. “How could you do that?”

  “What?” Confusion settled on his features but his eyes looked suddenly worried.

  More furious than she’d ever been, Ivy couldn’t believe that only yesterday she’d been defending him to the town. “I told you before, Tanner. I don’t give a damn about your money. You can’t buy me. Not with a watch. And not with a paid off loan.”

  “I’m not trying to—”

  “Who gave you the right to stick your nose into my business?” she demanded and threw the loan papers at him. They hit him square in the chest, bounced off and landed unnoticed on the floor. “You don’t own me. You never will.”

  She turned and sprinted down the steps and across the yard. Ivy heard Hairy behind her, yipping excitedly as he chased her.

  Tanner was just a step or two behind the dog. Damn it, he’d been up all night, waiting for her and trying to find the words he wanted to say to Ivy. But he hadn’t come up with a thing. Instead, he’d just handed her the loan papers, hoping she’d understand.

  Clearly, that was a mistake.

  “Ivy, wait!”

  She didn’t even slow down, but his legs were longer than hers and desperation fueled his every step. He caught up with her at the base of an ancient oak tree. Hairy raced in delighted circles around them while Tanner grabbed her arm and spun her to face him.