“Wow,” Ivy exclaimed as the regular lights blinked back on. “This must have been meant for one of the conference VIPs.”
“How do you know I’m not one of the VIPs?” He laughed and selected a bottle of sweet red wine to open. “You up for a drink before bed?”
Ivy dropped into one of the over-stuffed chairs. “You bet I am,” she sighed. “You bet I am.”
5
The annual Tulsa Realtor’s Conference had to be canceled due to storm damage in the city of Tulsa. No other hotel could be found in a pinch to transfer the event to. Carl and Ivy enjoyed their lovely suite until the next morning when housekeeping came in and interrupted their shower. They packed up the complimentary fruit basket, a box of Swiss chocolates, and terry robes. They left the key card with housekeeping and took the reopened elevators to the lobby.
The Lexus still sat parked under the canopy, and Ivy had to admit she was happy to be back inside the sturdy car. Carl packed the suitcases into the back and joined her with a smile. He was overjoyed the vehicle had been spared damage by the hail, eyeing the many deep pits in vehicles in the parking lot as they buckled their seatbelts.
“How does dinner in Branson sound, baby?”
“Sounds great to me as long as we stay someplace without an indoor pool,” Ivy said with a smile.
“Absolutely, but I need some coffee. How about you?”
“Do you think there’s a Waffle House anywhere close by?” Ivy hated giving away her hillbilly roots like that, but she was hungry, and a pecan waffle and sausage patties sounded good.
Carl took out his phone and typed. “Just up the street if the storm didn’t take it out.” He started the car and pulled out onto the mud-caked street.
Ivy saw signs everywhere of last night’s storm. Hail had pock-marked cars in driveways, people had boarded up broken windows with plywood, and curled sheets of metal roofing littered the ground along the streets.
Ivy really had no desire to see it, but Carl drove around the Clarion to where the haunting structure over the pool stood. They couldn’t get too close because the downed limbs of trees blocked the entrance. The hum of chainsaws filled the air as county crews attempted to clear the way.
To Ivy’s utter pleasure, the Waffle House stood intact and open for business. With a twenty-four-hour schedule, the staff, on duty since the night before, looked haggard but still met them with smiles as they entered.
“Sit anywhere you like,” a thin, older woman with white roots attesting to her dyed-black hair, told them. “Were y’all here for the storm last night?”
“Yes, ma’am, at the Clarion,” Carl told her as they sat at a booth being cleared by a dumpy young man in a Waffle House shirt.
She looked at Carl a little closer. “I think I saw you on Channel 6 this morning. Were you in that sunroom that fell in around the pool?”
He took Ivy’s hand. “Yes, we were. There’s not much of it left now, I’m afraid.”
“I heard a bunch of folks got hurt.”
“A few cuts and broken bones.”
“The news made out like that little gal from the office was a real hero,” the young man said as he poured them coffee and handed them tall single-sheet menus with color pictures of steaks, waffles, and sandwiches printed upon it.
“That she was,” Ivy said with enthusiasm. “She took us down to that pool area when the manager told her to and stayed there with us when the roof started falling in while the manager hid out in the kitchen’s walk-in cooler.”
Ivy noticed others in the full restaurant watching her as she spoke. “That girl shielded children with her own little body while the roof caved in, and that fat jerk hid in a cooler.”
People around them shook their heads in disgust. “She should get a medal from the city for her bravery, and the company should reward her too. Carl and I are surely writing letters.” Ivy saw heads nodding in agreement.
“Joanna Kingfisher is my late husband’s niece and a member of our tribe,” the old waitress announced proudly. “The tribal council will certainly see to it that she gets the recognition she deserves.”
Ivy took a business card from her wallet and handed it to the woman. “If you’ll write down who we should write, we’ll be happy to supply first-hand testimony to the girl’s bravery and heroism.”
The woman took Ivy’s card in her claw-like fingers and read it. She flipped it over and scribbled something. “Send your letters to this man. He’s our tribal president. It says here you’re a book writer? You write something good about our Joanna and make it sound good.”
“We promise that we will.” Ivy smiled and tucked the card back into her wallet. “I’d love a pecan waffle, two eggs scrambled with cheese, and two sausage patties.”
“I’ll have the same,” Carl told her.
Their excellent breakfast continued to be interrupted by people wanting to hear the whole story about their night in the storm. Carl and Ivy laid it on thick, hoping the hotel’s fat, white, cowardly manager would have to bear the brunt of malicious gossip. At the same time, they thought, the young Native American girl should be recognized as the hero of the dreadful night’s business.
According to one customer, the little girl Joanna had rescued remained in the hospital recovering from her broken arm and the after-effects of shock. Child services were investigating her parents for running off and leaving her as well.
She and Carl found that bit of news enjoyable. How could two adults run off and leave their innocent seven-year-old child the way they had? As a mother and grandmother, Ivy could not fathom it. If she’d lost hold of her child in that melee, she certainly wouldn’t have kept moving forward without her.
Back in the car with coffee in to-go cups, they made their way to the highway over litter-strewn streets, past work crews in bright orange jumpsuits, and around downed power lines. As they drove north toward the rolling hills of Missouri, the signs of storm damage disappeared.
Ivy reveled in the cloying green all around her. Mist hung in the hollows between the Ozark Mountains, giving the place an ethereal feel. The Ozarks were one of Ivy’s favorite places in the state, and she always enjoyed the drive through the area when she was on her way east to visit family and friends. She stared out the window soaking up the verdant green.
“What you thinking about, baby?” Carl cracked the window and lit a cigar. “Are you still freaked out about last night?”
“No, I’m just enjoying the trees. It’s so unbelievably beautiful here with all the green around us.” Ivy picked up her coffee cup but returned it to the holder when she noted it was nearly empty. “Are we due for gas soon? I could use a pee and a refill,” she said as she smiled and shook the empty cup.
“It is pretty. Reminds me of home.” Carl had come from Wisconsin, while Ivy had grown up in southern Indiana. She smiled when John Mellencamp came on the radio. Unlike other Hoosiers, Ivy had never been a fan, and she’d caught grief for it in the past.
“Can we lose the ‘Pink Houses’?” she asked, and he switched the channel to the news station where the announcer droned on about storm damage sustained in Oklahoma overnight.
“This isn’t much better,” he laughed and found a classic rock channel playing Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Free Bird.’ “Here we go.”
It was just after two when they got into Branson, Missouri, where the main street teemed with men, women, and children in summer clothes and flip-flops. They flocked into the many tourist traps lining the street.
Carl pulled into a Howard Johnson’s, and they went in to register. The building was old. Ivy suspected it had been initially erected in the early seventies when Branson had come into its own as a Midwestern tourist destination. While Carl registered, Ivy went through the brochures advertising music events at the various theatres and boating excursions on Lake of the Ozarks, the town’s original big draw. The music halls had sprung up as enticement for the fishermen to include their wives and children on their visits to the lake or the Current River.
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“They had to put us on the third floor,” Carl grumbled. “The place is practically booked up.”
“Tourist season,” Ivy chided. “You probably should have called ahead and made reservations.”
“You’re probably right. You should be my travel coordinator.” He laughed and took Ivy’s hand as they entered the elevator that took them slowly to the top floor. The carpet smelled musty with stale tobacco smoke. Ivy noted how dated the room looked with the mauve and blue wallpaper popular in the mid-eighties, the matching drapes on the window, and bedspreads on the two queen-size beds. Narrow brass frames surrounded prints of irises and lilacs, confirming Ivy’s dating of the décor.
“You’d think they’d update these rooms more than every forty years,” Carl complained as he picked up the square plastic ice bucket and headed to the door. “Gonna get some ice. You want a Coke from the machine?”
“Sure, but make it a root beer or something fruity. I’m overloaded with caffeine.”
“Okay, I got ya.”
He left, and Ivy began shaking out her clothes to hang on the rack by the door. She shook them out well before hanging them as they’d gotten damp in last night’s storm. She hoped they wouldn’t smell musty after being trapped in the damp bag overnight and most of the day.
Carl returned with the plastic container filled with ice and two cans of Orange Crush. “Thanks, sweetie.” She took one of the cans of soda, popped it open, and took a drink. “You better get your things out of the suitcases. Mine are a little damp.”
“Good Lord,” he sighed, “I never even thought about that.” He unzipped his bag and began leafing through his neatly folded clothes. “Mine are dry,” he said with relief.
“My bags are just cheap shit,” she said, embarrassed, and hung her final skirt. “These will be fine in an hour or two with the ceiling fan on.”
6
They enjoyed a lazy afternoon watching television and making love. Carl ordered a pizza from the local Papa John’s and got more sodas from the machine in the hall.
“Do you want to go to a show tonight?” he asked as they finished their pie. “I think I saw Donnie and Marie on one of the marquees.” Carl laughed when he saw Ivy grimace. “The Oak Ridge Boys, then?”
“That’s alright. I’m enjoying spending a quiet night after all the driving and the excitement of last night.” Ivy swallowed the last of her soda. “Let’s just stay in tonight and start fresh in the morning.” She watched him leaf through a local real estate magazine he’d picked up in the lobby. “You planning to mix some business with pleasure?”
“I noticed a few vacation condos and properties listed in here that I thought we might take a look at while we’re here. Are you interested in getting into the real estate game?”
Ivy snorted a soft chuckle. “With what? My stunning good looks and witty charm? I don’t think I could manage financing with that.” She laughed, let her robe fall from her shoulders, and strode through the room to the bathroom where she turned on the hot water in the shower.
“I’m going to soak for a bit. I ache all over.” Ivy stepped into the white porcelain tub and let the hot water drench her hair and aching body. She reached for the bottle of shampoo and lathered her brunette waves. The hot water felt marvelous. She rinsed the suds from her hair and added cream rinse. While she let the conditioner do its thing, Ivy lathered her body, attending to all her crevices until she felt clean and refreshed. She put her head back under the jet and rinsed out the creamy conditioner until her fingers ran smoothly through her shoulder-length hair.
As she was about to turn off the shower, hands pulled open the plastic curtain, and Carl joined her. “You all clean now, baby? Ready to get dirty again?” He bit her playfully on her exposed shoulder and reached for a breast. Carl pulled her hand around to rest upon his firm erection. “I’m ready again.”
“You’re a horn-dog.” She laughed and squeezed his stiff erection. “You sure you’re up for another round today?”
“I am if you are. You keep me up, baby.” He nudged at her behind with his hard cock, and she backed up into him, the water washing over them from above, beginning to cool.
Carl ran his hands over her wet body, massaging her sore back and shoulders. “That feels so good,” she cooed.
“I have something that’s going to feel even better.” He chuckled and nudged her behind with his erection. She rolled her eyes, knowing what he had in mind for her. Ivy braced herself with both arms upon the wall below the shower nozzle while Carl rubbed the head of his erection into the crack between her ass cheeks, looking for the point of entry there. It wasn’t Ivy’s favorite position, but she knew how much he enjoyed it and obliged him.
“You know what I like, baby,” he whispered into her ear under the running water of the shower. His hands kneaded the cheeks of her shapely behind, slowly pulling them apart and inching his cock into place over her tight anus. “Ease it up now, baby, and let me in,” he breathed into her ear.
She winced as he entered but moaned ever so quietly to make him think she enjoyed his attentions there.
“Is that okay, baby? I’ll stop if it hurts,” he whispered, but he continued pushing into her. Ivy knew that regardless of his quiet words, Carl wouldn’t have stopped if she’d said it hurt. Once he’d gained entry into his favorite orifice, there was no stopping him.
“Go ahead, sweetie,” she said, pushing back into his thrust. “Give it to me the way you like it.”
“Oh, baby, you’re too good to me.” He pushed into her until Ivy could feel his heavy balls bouncing off her wet ass cheeks with every ardent thrust. She bit her lips with the pain as he stretched the orifice but allowed him to finish and have his pleasure. It never took long that way, and Ivy enjoyed hearing his moans of delight in her ear. “Oh God, baby, here it comes.” He bellowed and thrust deep one final time with his release.
His hands slipped from her cheeks as his wilting erection slipped from her anal embrace. He rested his head, panting, upon her shoulder. “I need to get under the water now, baby.” The water had cooled, and Carl let the cold spray wash over his sweaty body and bright white hair. “You treat me like no other woman ever has, Ivy Chandler. You’re amazing.”
Ivy rolled her eyes at his empty words. “Thanks, sweetie.” She used a soapy washcloth to wipe him from her tender crack gently then stepped out of the tub to dry her body with one of the flimsy, motel-issue towels. She wrapped her head in another and moved a dry, folded towel on the rack for Carl to quickly grab on his way out of the shower. She stepped from the cold tile of the bathroom and cringed as her bare foot stepped onto the stiff old low-pile carpet of the bedroom. The place needed a serious makeover.
Ivy heard him turn off the shower, and the plastic curtain was pushed aside. A few minutes later, the toilet flushed, and Carl joined her back on the bed in front of the television buzzing with an old Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western.
“That was awesome, baby.” He fell back upon the pillows piled in front of the headboard bolted to the wall above the mattress. “We’re gonna do this more often.”
“You promise?” Ivy asked, hopefully.
“I promise.” He bent and kissed her mouth. “I think I’m gonna nap for a bit now.” He snuggled into her shoulder, and soon, Ivy heard his soft, even snores.
He promises, but I’m not going to be holding my breath. After last night I bet this is a one-and-done trip.
Ivy picked up the discarded real estate magazine Carl had been reading before their shower. She looked at the different ads he’d circled. One was listed as a hunting retreat on twelve private, partially wooded acres for four hundred thousand dollars; another was a two-level log cabin on five acres next to Forest Service property that promised unlimited turkey for two hundred and fifty thousand.
The one that piqued Ivy’s interest was a two-bedroom single-level log cabin on two acres with a working fireplace for one seventy-five. It sat in a picturesque clearing with an Irish setter in the manicur
ed green yard. Ivy was certain the dog was not included in the price and smiled. She saw a few condos on the lake marked, as well.
It looks as though he does have a big day planned for us tomorrow.
From the nightstand bolted to the wall, Ivy picked up her laptop. She booted it up and checked her e-mail. She rolled her eyes when she saw ninety-nine plus marked for her inbox. Most would be junk, but she needed to check because she expected word from the editor for her first round of edits on her latest romance novel. Historical fiction was Ivy’s passion, but the erotica she had published by a small press actually paid a little.
Ivy hated this part of the process. Editors always wanted her to change things. Sometimes the changes made sense, but other times they were stupid changes like the color of a character’s hair or eyes. Continuity changes made sense, but why change having the character come from Irish ancestry to Norwegian? Take out this word or that because a reader might find it offensive. She had written it to be offensive because the situation or time period called for it. Ivy tended to make the changes without much fuss but griped and grumbled about it privately.
Ivy scanned the list of mail. There was nothing from her publisher, but she did have a message from an agent she’d queried. Another rejection, no doubt. She opened it with trepidation.
Dear Ms. Chandler,
Thank you for your interest in our agency. While we seldom represent your genre, we found your first few pages and your synopsis intriguing. Please forward us the first three chapters of your manuscript for further review.
The Strider Agency
Well, that was encouraging. Ivy had yet to get that far with a literary agency before. She had a whole file filled with cordial rejection letters to prove it. Hurriedly cutting and pasting the first three chapters of the first book in her series into an e-mail, Ivy replied with thanks for the agency’s kind consideration of her work. On impulse, she went back and added the first three chapters of the second book, as well. It couldn’t hurt. Then she went to her blog and passed along the happy news to her few followers.
Promises: Do You Know Where the Poison Toadstools Crow? Page 4