by Erin Wright
Ivy clutched the art supplies box to her chest, feeling a small smile spread across her face. Not having any access to art, except paper and pencil, had been one of the tougher parts about this visit to Idaho, and that was saying something. She hadn’t expected to be gone this long, or she would’ve figured out how to pack the supplies in, even if it’d meant leaving a pair of shoes behind or something.
But now…
She headed back into her bedroom and dropped the box on the bed, where she unsnapped the lockdown handles and pulled the lid off to stare down in wonderment. She’d been such a snob as a kid. She’d been so sure that she’d have amazing, top-quality art supplies when she went off to college, and as such, hadn’t packed any of her high school art supplies. She hadn’t wanted to taint her future by using inferior products.
After paying rent and tuition and books, though, she’d quickly abandoned her lofty (read: snotty) dreams and went right back to using the same brands she always had. She’d learned that she didn’t need $50 paintbrushes to make a beautiful art piece.
She pulled the items out one by one – the oils, the trays, the brushes, even a small unused canvas – and grinned to herself. She needed to do something while in Long Valley to keep herself sane. Other than go on pointless dates with handsome cowboys, of course.
Hold on…
Her hands froze over a well-worn eraser.
Why is Austin asking me out on a date?
Somehow, among everything else, Ivy hadn’t thought this through, but duh – Austin already had a girlfriend. Tiffany had made that very, very clear the night of her parent’s party. Although the irony of Austin cheating on Tiffany with Ivy would be rich indeed, Ivy wasn’t willing to be the third part of that triangle.
Let Austin cheat on his girlfriend with some other unsuspecting soul. Ivy McLain wasn’t going to have anything to do with it.
She felt the anger build up in her. Cheating, lying asshole. He deserved Tiffany. The pair would make each other very, very happy.
She grabbed her cell phone, ready to dash off an angry text message, telling Austin that he could stuff this date where the sun didn’t shine, when she stopped, staring at her phone in frustration. Not only had she failed to realize that she was about to help Austin become a cheater, she’d also failed to get his number.
Which meant she’d just have to wait to tell him off in person. Well good. And while she was at it, she could inform him of her thoughts about his taste in women. Which, aside from wanting to go on a date with her of course, was downright atrocious.
“Hey Iv, I’m heading out,” her dad said at her bedroom door, holding up Iris’ beloved teddy bear as evidence of his success. “I’ll see you tomorrow – have fun at the concert, eh?”
She nodded, forcing a smile onto her face. Her dad had enough to worry about. He didn’t need to worry about the fact that his daughter was going to miss yet another bells concert for yet another awful reason. His footsteps faded as he headed out.
Ivy turned to face her bed again, and all of her art supplies. It was time to keep herself occupied. Too busy to think was exactly what she needed right now. She could face reality later.
Chapter 6
Austin
Austin pulled up in front of the McLain house, his stomach strangely rumbly and unsettled. It wasn’t exactly happy about this state of affairs, and he stared down at it for a moment, unsure of what to attribute this case of nerves to. He was going on a date with Ivy to get Tiffany off his back. Ivy could exact revenge on Tiffany by going out with the one guy Tiffany had been gunning after for months. All would be well with the world.
Feelings, or stomach linings for that matter, need not be involved.
He jumped out of his truck and crunched through the snow, a few lackadaisical flakes still drifting down from the sky. The passing storm gave off the impression that it couldn’t be bothered to put on a real show, something that he wasn’t sure he blamed it for. It was cold. It was hard to do anything with much enthusiasm.
He knocked on the door and then stood back, an expectant smile on his face. At least going to the Methodist Church could be done with great enthusiasm. He’d always loved Christmas music, so a whole concert, played by bells, dedicated to holiday tunes…it didn’t get much better than that. He was right on time, and if they left right away, he figured they’d be able to get great seats. It was going to be a fun ni—
“You!” Ivy shouted angrily, even before she got the front door completely open. He stared at her, wide-eyed. She had paint streaked across her nose, a bit in her hair, and seemed to be in the process of spreading it around even more liberally as she shook her paintbrush at him. “How dare you!”
She slammed the door in his face. He stared at it. She yanked it open. “I’m not letting you off that easy!” she announced angrily. “Get in here so I can yell at you proper, without letting all the warm air out.”
He debated for a moment – he could just make a run for the truck. An irate Ivy wasn’t exactly a fun sight to behold, especially when that anger was directed at him, but he finally decided that the curiosity about why she was so angry would drive him crazy. He had to know.
Then he’d make a run for the truck and never come back.
Poor Declan. These McLain girls look sweet on the surface, but…
He sidled past her and her wildly arcing paintbrush, and into the house. She slammed the door and rounded on him, shaking the brush with every step as she advanced towards him.
“You asshole!” she said, her face roughly the same color as her hair. “You would take me out to the concert when you already have a girlfriend? I can’t believe you. Did you think that just because I’m from San Francisco, it’s okay to take me out for a night on the town and just hope that your girlfriend never hears about it? Well, even if you have atrocious taste in women, that’s on you, not me. I’m not going to help you be a cheater, Mr. I’m-Just-An-Aww-Shucks Cowboy. I’m not fooled by that…that…face!” She jabbed the paintbrush at him, almost whacking said face, and he darted out of range at just the last moment.
They stared at each other, her breathing heavily as she glowered, and then…he couldn’t help it. He busted up laughing.
“What are you laughing about?” she demanded, jamming her hands down onto her hips.
He wiped the tears from his eyes. “You. The paintbrush.” He doubled over laughing again. He could see her tapping her foot on the floor out of the corner of his eye, obviously not impressed by his reaction. He took a few deep breaths and straightened up. She was angry, and he wasn’t helping matters by laughing. Although he imagined he’d remember the sight of Ivy swinging a paint brush around in the air, jabbing it like a rapier, for the rest of his life.
“I’m guessing you’re talking about Tiffany?” he asked, once he’d managed to become serious again.
She nodded, just once, glaring at him through narrowed eyes. He held his hands up beseechingly.
“So I know what Tiffany made it seem like,” he said slowly, quietly. “The night of the party, right?” Ivy nodded again. “She and I are not a thing, no matter what she may think or hope for. We’ve gone on one date, and I haven’t been able to get rid of her since. I’m sorry she made you believe that I would be a cheater, but I promise, there’s nothing between us.”
She stared at him, consideringly for a moment, and then inspiration struck. He grinned in triumph. “Hey, you like Declan, right?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes, he’s just an ass who left my sister fifteen years ago without explanation and broke her heart, something I had to help her get over.”
Oh. That didn’t exactly go how he’d expected it to. Telling her that Declan would never be best friends with an asshole was not going to help his case.
Time to change tactics.
“Listen, I’m from up north – Coeur d’Alene, up in the panhandle. I moved here to become the extension agent, and I only knew Declan when I rolled into town. We’d been roommates for a year up at the U of
I, and he was the one to suggest that I apply for the extension agent position when Mr. Snow retired.
“Anyway, the first day I was in town, I met Tiffany down at the diner. She was my waitress. She asked me to hang out with her at the rodeo, I agreed, and she’s been clinging tighter to me than ivy growing up a brick wall ever since.” He studied her face for a moment, which was open and listening, but she hadn’t made a decision. Not yet.
He drew in a deep breath. Here goes nothing. He hadn’t planned on bringing this up with Ivy, since it was hard to know how a girl would take news like this, but he only had one card left to play. It was time to play it and hope for the best. “Truthfully, I was thinking you might be up for helping me out with this. Declan mentioned that Tiffany and you didn’t exactly get along in high school.”
Ivy’s pinched face at that comment told him all he needed to know. “So,” he continued urgently, “if you go to the concert with me, she’s really going to be upset. I figure, it’s great revenge, right?”
Ivy continued to study his face for a moment, and then a small smile broke out on her face, which quickly spread into a huge grin. “That, sir, is a terrific idea. I like how you think!” She laughed, leaning forward and popping a quick kiss on his cheek. “I need to go get changed and ready. I’ll be right back.”
She disappeared up the hallway to what he assumed was her bedroom. He stared down the dark corridor, rubbing his cheek idly, the skin burning where her lips had touched.
Well, he was right about one thing: A date with Ivy definitely wasn’t going to be boring.
She soon reappeared, paint scrubbed clean from her face, clean clothes instead of paint-spattered ones. She’d put on a loose sweater that draped across her body, belted into place just below a very generous chest, with stretchy jeans disappearing into knee-high boots. He wished for a moment that he could get a better view of her ass, but decided, as he watched her swaying hips from behind as they headed to his truck, that it was probably for the best that he couldn’t. He needed to be decent for this trip to a church, no matter what his brain wanted.
They made their way to his diesel truck that he’d left running while inside. It was too cold to turn his truck on and off, plus he’d need it to stay warm long enough to get through the concert without freezing up. Just this quick jaunt from the front door to the truck had bitter cold seeping into his bones, and he heard a happy sigh of relief from her as he helped Ivy up into the warmth of the truck. Her dark blue jacket looked pretty thin, and she didn’t seem to own gloves, or at least wasn’t disposed to wearing them. It was too damn cold outside to not wear gloves, in his humble opinion.
Girls were so weird sometimes.
He kept that thought to himself; instead just heading towards the church that was only a couple of blocks away. Even before they pulled into the parking lot, he could hear the Christmas music spilling out of it, the warm light and stained glass windows drawing distorted, gorgeous designs on the ground. He pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine, the sudden silence after the loud rumble feeling almost deafening. “You ready?” he asked her.
She was wringing her hands together, looking as if she were debating between bolting for home or throwing up, but she nodded. Somewhere between home and here, she’d had time to think about their plan, and realized that it meant seeing Tiffany, which probably wasn’t her favorite activity in the world. Before he could offer to take her back home, though, she responded.
“I’m ready,” she said. Her voice wasn’t exactly steady, but he decided not to mention how unconvincing she sounded, and instead just helped her out of the truck. Once her feet were on the snowy ground, she looked up at him, her soft blue eyes large enough to drown in, and he grinned down at her, trying to project his confidence onto her.
“Let’s give ‘em a show,” he said softly in her ear, and then tucked her hand into his arm as they strolled towards the doors of the church. He felt her arm tremble in his, so he tucked it closer against his side.
He wondered if she’d fought him so hard on going to the concert because not-so-deep-down inside, she really didn’t want to go. Ivy had worked hard to wipe her feet clean of this town, and never come back. He’d asked her out because she was cute and fun and he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her for four days and he needed some way of getting Tiffany off his back, but at no point had he thought about what she wanted or needed, which pretty much made him a Class A asshole.
He needed to apologize, but maybe not in the midst of a community concert. He’d apologize afterwards, while driving her home.
To be willing to face a town that had made her life miserable for years on end…
Despite her trembling, or maybe because of it, Austin couldn’t help but be impressed by her backbone. She was damn brave, whether or not she realized it.
They walked up the front steps and into the foyer of the church, the welcoming warmth of the building enveloping them like a fleece blanket next to a roaring fire. Her trembling only increased, though.
“We can go home,” he whispered into her ear, wanting to give her one last chance to make a run for the door. He couldn’t help but draw in her smell as he leaned close, letting it wash over him. Cinnamon and chocolate – she smelled like the best kind of dessert. How did she make her hair smell like chocolate?
Before he could blurt out that question though, which would’ve been horrifying, she responded, saving him from complete embarrassment. “I’m fine,” she whispered back. “Just don’t let go of my arm.”
That was something he was happy to oblige her on, and hugged it tighter against his side.
The concert was non-denominational – simply a community event that happened to be held in the Methodist Church – and so no pastor greeted them upon their entrance, although Austin saw a few farmers from around the valley that he’d worked with over the past two years in the audience. His gaze swept the chapel, looking for Tiffany or Ezzy, and finally he blew out a breath at the same time that Ivy relaxed.
They weren’t there. That meant that the purpose of the date was moot, of course – they could just turn around and go home.
But…he didn’t want to. He wanted to enjoy an evening out on the town with a beautiful woman, whether or not that date had a hidden reason for happening.
So instead of heading for the front doors like they really should have, he guided her towards a mostly empty bench where she settled against his side as he casually draped his arm across the back of the bench. They fit together, her soft curves melding against his side.
He wasn’t quite sure what to think about that. None of this was what he’d planned, and yet…it felt right.
Before he could ponder that thought further, the music piping through the speakers dropped off, and a conductor strode up onto the front dais to the podium. After welcoming them out to the 57th Long Valley Bells Concert, the musicians began filing in from either side of the church, and up to rows of tables already marching in lines across the front of the chapel. Huge bells as big as watermelons down to tiny bells the size of his thumb all gleamed in the Christmas twinkle lights and candles occupying every space possible.
As the chandeliers above dimmed, leaving the twinkling lights and flickering candles to provide most of the light, the musicians started out with a rousing rendition of Carol of the Bells, the notes echoing from the arched ceiling, swirling and surrounding them with the gorgeous sound. Ivy turned and grinned up at him, joy rolling off her in waves, and he snuggled her closer to his side. The fun of the moment was contagious, and he couldn’t help but revel in it.
Even though absolutely none of this evening was going to plan, Austin found himself on his feet, clapping enthusiastically as the musicians took bow after bow at the end of the concert. He couldn’t contain the grin that seemed permanently attached to his face. He looked down at Ivy, who was grinning back just as widely, and felt his heart thump a little harder than normal.
That felt…weird. All tingly and shit.
> He put his arm around her and guided her towards the foyer of the church, joining the stream of people headed the same direction. He decided that he needed to watch what he ate for lunch. Those jalapeños were causing heartburn. He felt a little young to need to watch his diet, but obviously something had gone wrong between his fajitas at lunch and now.
Because it couldn’t be anything more than that.
Chapter 7
Ivy
Ivy’s waist tingled where it was pressed up against Austin, as they followed the flow of the crowd back into the foyer. The bells choir had put out refreshments – coffee, hot cocoa, apple cider, and some homemade donuts – and following her nose, Ivy decided to head that direction instead of out the front doors. Those donuts looked way too delicious to pass up.
After she and Austin picked out cups of coffee and donuts, though, she quickly realized her mistake. More than a few members of the community were openly eyeing them, and the same question was written on every person’s face – was Ivy dating Austin? Had Ivy moved back to Long Valley? Had Ivy given up on her dream of becoming a famous artist and had slunk back home with her tail stuck between her legs?
She felt the burning desire to pull a chair over from the corner, stand on it, clear her throat, and announce to the world that she and Austin were not dating; they were simply attending the same concert in close proximity to each other.
Unless the story was being retold to Tiffany and Ezzy, in which case Austin was madly in love with her.
She thought back to leaning against his side as the music had swirled around them, his rock-hard muscular abs the perfect balance to her flabby, fat self, and decided that perhaps making such an announcement wouldn’t be a grand idea, mostly because she wasn’t sure she could make it sound convincing.