Ivy moved to a sitting position on the couch she occupied, her body quickly announcing its dissatisfaction with her movement.
Her muscles were like meat that had been tenderized, and her head... She could use a dose of extra-strength ibuprofen. But her girls were alive and well, and nothing else mattered. They were laid out like three-year-old burritos on the floor, with lots of blankets and pillows, and Ivy’s Good Samaritan, Charlie, slept on the recliner chair across from her. She’d checked on Ivy numerous times last night and now finally slept.
Ivy could safely say she’d never met anyone like these people. Once she continued on with their journey to her parents’ house in California, she probably wouldn’t ever again.
Wrapping the blanket around her, Ivy eased off the couch. If she stayed here, she’d wake everyone else with her movements. She wandered from the den toward the kitchen, the smell of coffee overruling her awkwardness at finding herself in a stranger’s home.
Thankfully, she’d been able to find something comfortable from her own clothes to wear for sleeping. At her request, Finn had fished out their overnight bags from the Suburban before it had been towed into town.
The man who’d stopped to rescue them sat at the dining room table, some papers along with a mug of coffee in front of him. No lights were on, but the quiet glow of morning was slipping through the windows, a faint blue hue dancing off the fresh snow and illuminating the mountains that surrounded the ranch.
The great room had a stone fireplace that rose to the ceiling and was flanked on both sides by windows. With beams traversing the ceiling and dark leather furniture dotting the space, it was something out of a Western magazine. Ivy wouldn’t be surprised to find an antique gun mounted over the front door.
She paused in the doorway, unsure whether Finn knew she was there, whether to enter.
“Coffee’s in the pot. Mugs are in the cupboard above.”
“Thanks.” She followed the best scent in the world and found a white mug. From her quick glimpse around the place, she observed everything was simple with clean lines...even down to the dishes. Definitely not a woman’s touch in the house, but it was still tasteful, and Ivy felt strangely comfortable. Probably Charlie had something to do with that. When Ivy had protested staying here last night, Charlie had shut her down quickly.
Where else are you going to go?
A hotel. There has to be one in town.
There’s a motel, but then what? You don’t have a vehicle. And I’m not sure I trust that you’re truly okay. I’m the one who backed you not going to the hospital tonight. Charlie’s gaze had encompassed the girls. And I understand why. But now you have to give me this. Let me check up on you all tonight and make sure you’re okay. Otherwise I’ll be panicking that you’re having issues while you’re alone with the girls.
That argument had won Ivy over. She might not want to need help, but resisting it last night could have been detrimental to the triplets. She couldn’t risk her pride causing them harm.
Ivy poured coffee into her cup, steam rising, and lifted it to her nose to inhale. Dark roast, she would guess. God bless Finn.
“My sister left some of her little creamers here. Above the mugs.”
Ivy found them and added a small dollop. “God bless Charlie,” she murmured before bringing the liquid to her lips. Finn’s mouth crinkled slightly as if he was amused by her, and he went from stoic to appealing in a flash.
Should she sit at the table with him? Or cross over to the couch and chairs filling the great room?
She chose the table but went one seat down so that she wasn’t directly across from Finn and they weren’t forced to make awkward eye contact.
“I don’t know how to thank you and your sister for rescuing us last night.”
“You don’t need to. Besides, we both know she was the one who demanded you all sleep here so she could check on you and the girls, so let’s give credit where it’s due.”
“You were the one who saw our tracks and stopped, so...”
A slight shrug came from the man, but that was the only acknowledgment he gave. A slight shrug and another one of those almost smiles. Ivy strangely wanted to earn a full one.
His expression morphed into a scowl when his attention went back to the notes in front of him.
“I hope it’s not my presence making you that upset. I can go, drink my coffee somewhere else and let you be.”
“It’s not you. I just...” He groaned. “I’m supposed to host the local cattlemen’s dinner on Saturday night, and I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. That’s why I was in Denver last night—grabbing supplies—or I wouldn’t have driven past you on my way back to the ranch.”
Ivy had exited the freeway hoping to escape the storm and find lodging to wait it out. She’d never imagined any of what had followed. Thank You, God, for sending Finn and Charlie when You did.
“My whole life back in Connecticut was hosting dinner parties and schmoozing clients for my husband.”
“Was?”
“Yes...my husband passed away. He took his own life after he was caught embezzling from his employer.” Ugh. Ivy’s lids shuttered. “I’m not sure why I shared all of that.”
It was like standing on the side of the highway, holding up a Hot Mess sign for all the world to see.
“I’m sorry.” Finn let the silence sit, giving his condolence credit. Not filling in with drivel like so many did.
“Thank you.”
“You can probably give Doug’s body shop a call this morning to check on your vehicle, but with the damage... Charlie thought it may take a week for them to get it back to functioning.” Charlie had told Ivy that she was a mechanic. Unfortunately, she didn’t run the auto body repair shop. That would have definitely come in handy. Finn took a sip of black coffee. “It needs new tires if you plan to drive it through any more harsh weather.”
Ivy winced. She’d known the tires were on their last leg. Unfortunately, the money she’d grown accustomed to in her marriage was long gone.
“Doug will need your insurance information, too.” Finn’s eyebrows joined together, as if questioning if she even had insurance.
She did. She wasn’t delinquent on everything. “Okay, I’ll call him this morning.”
A week wasn’t bad, but what would they do in the meantime? Ivy would have to find a place for them to stay, which took more from her meager savings. Unless...unless she could work a deal with Finn that would benefit both of them. Last night when Charlie had driven her and the girls from the accident to the ranch, she’d mentioned that Finn’s property had a vacation rental on it. Ivy had wondered if that was where they would stay, but then they’d ended up at the house, in the den.
“This might sound a little crazy, but I have an idea.”
Finn eased back from the table, his spine ramrod straight. Already distancing himself. Not the best sign.
“I can help you with that.” She pointed to his notes. “I could host a dinner with one hand tied behind my back.”
His eyes narrowed. In the dark of her vehicle last night Ivy hadn’t been able to tell the color well, but this morning, with the additional sunlight now streaming inside, she could tell they were the hue of underripe blueberries. He had blond hair—definitely not as pronounced as his sister’s short red locks—and strong, defined cheekbones that would make any woman weep with jealousy. His warm skin tone carried a pink tinge as if he was uncomfortable or embarrassed or wanted to be rid of her.
And yet, she continued anyway. “Your sister mentioned you have a vacation rental on your property. What if I traded you a week of me and the girls staying there in exchange for taking over the planning and hosting for your cattlemen’s dinner?” Ivy had never made a suggestion of that magnitude before. Prior to marrying Lee, she’d been confident and carefree. She’d had lots of friends and even more dreams. She’d bee
n invincible. But each year of their marriage, she’d lost a piece of herself. Now she hardly recognized the thirty-two-year-old woman who stared back at her in the mirror every morning. But even broaching the idea gave her a surge of adrenaline—crazy and reaching though it might be.
“The unit is unfinished. The Burkes—the couple I bought the ranch from—were having money troubles, and they thought a secondary form of income would help, so they started renovating the old bunkhouse into a vacation rental. The beds are in and the bathroom is done, but the small kitchen is unfinished.”
They could live without a kitchen. If she and the girls ended up at a motel, they wouldn’t have one anyway. “That’s okay. We don’t need much. I don’t want to pressure you into this. It would be a huge plus for me because we’d have an affordable, safe place to stay for the week, but don’t consider it unless it would be a help to you. I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for a trade.”
Ivy’s world might have crumbled in the last year, but she was determined to find a way to redeem things for her girls. Determined to show them everything would be okay. And if that meant weathering a bump in the road that amounted to a week’s delay in Westbend, Colorado, so be it.
And if it meant asking Finn Brightwood, a man she barely knew, for the chance to make that happen...she would ask all day long.
“So—” she sent up a prayer that Finn would at least consider the idea “—what do you think?”
* * *
I think I can’t get involved.
Finn pushed back from the table under the guise of grabbing more coffee. He refilled his mug, accidentally clanging the lip of the pot against his cup. Hopefully, he hadn’t just woken the girls and Charlie. The den connected through the hallway behind the kitchen, but he didn’t know whether the French doors were closed or not. His sister had likely checked on everyone throughout the night and now deserved the rest.
You cannot make this deal with this woman, Brightwood. Don’t even consider it.
Before purchasing the Burke ranch, Finn had worked on an oil rig in North Dakota. A woman he’d met in town had convinced him that she’d needed to escape an ex-boyfriend. That the man was abusive to her. Finn had spent a lot of time and effort helping her, figuring out how she could protect herself. They’d fallen for each other—or so he’d thought. But after a stint when he’d been working, he’d come back to town to find she’d married the guy. Finn wasn’t even sure if the stories she’d spun about him being abusive were true. The situation had left him unsure of everything.
He’d vowed that there would be no more rescuing of damsels in distress—real or fake—and now, thanks to his sister, he was right back at square one. And Ivy’s story was...wow. Not only had her husband embezzled, he’d then taken his own life, leaving her with triplets. How could he have done that to her?
The fact that Ivy was fighting so fiercely for her girls impressed Finn, but that still didn’t make any of this his problem.
Only...it was hard to turn off the part of him that cared and rescued. That instinct was a problem. He was working on it. And taking this deal with Ivy...it would be backtracking.
Finn couldn’t dally anymore without being obvious, so he returned to his seat. Ivy had moved to the window behind the dining room table, watching as the world woke up, the morning glow illuminating her pretty features. Her blond locks were pulled back into a short ponytail. She was small-framed, but timid wasn’t the right word to describe her. She had spunk. To ask him—a stranger—to make a trade was gutsy. Strong. He respected that. Maybe too much.
The problem was...he wanted what she was offering.
This dinner was a major stress for him. He would have fought hosting it harder, but the cattlemen’s group hadn’t even entertained another option. They were amused by him being a newbie, and they’d declared him as the host before he’d gotten a word in edgewise.
It wasn’t rescuing if he was getting something in return, was it?
“I’ll show you the rental, and if you think it’s up to snuff even though it’s not finished, you’re on.”
Lord, I think I might be absolutely crazy for doing this. Prove me wrong, would You?
Copyright © 2021 by Jill Buteyn
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ISBN-13: 9781488070907
Her Forbidden Amish Love
Copyright © 2021 by Jocelyn Ord
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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