Wicked Reunion
Page 1
Wicked Reunion
An Ivy Morgan Mystery Book Sixteen
Lily Harper Hart
HarperHart Publications
Copyright © 2020 by Lily Harper Hart
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
Contents
1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Four
5. Five
6. Six
7. Seven
8. Eight
9. Nine
10. Ten
11. Eleven
12. Twelve
13. Thirteen
14. Fourteen
15. Fifteen
16. Sixteen
17. Seventeen
18. Eighteen
19. Nineteen
20. Twenty
Mail List
Acknowledgments
Books by Lily Harper Hart
1
One
“I have a present for you.”
Jack Harker, his hands hidden behind his back, shuffled into the living room and fixed his fiancée Ivy Morgan with a bright smile.
For her part, Ivy looked more confused than excited as she sat on the couch stroking her spoiled cat Nicodemus, and complained about the unfairness of life. “Did you get me out of my community service?” she asked hopefully.
Jack stilled. Honestly, he’d tried to get her out of it. As a police officer in Shadow Lake, a quiet hamlet in Northern Lower Michigan, the strings he tried to pull weren’t exactly ethical. When he first started on the job, he swore he wouldn’t be one of those people to use his connections to influence how a friend’s — or in this case a fiancée’s — punishment would be doled out. Since he understood why Ivy had broken the law, however, he’d gone out of his way ... and failed.
“Honey, I really tried.” He felt helpless as her face crumpled.
“It’s fine,” she said after a beat, waving her hand. “I broke the law. I have to do my time.”
He chuckled at her morose expression as he moved closer. “You’re not exactly doing time. You’re picking up trash along the highway.”
“Yes, the highway that everyone in town uses,” Ivy noted. “The highway that my mother and father use to come to and from town. The highway my brother’s business is located on.”
“Well ... .”
“Did you know Maisie and Ava are organizing a competition? They’re offering a reward for whoever gets the best photo of me in my orange vest … and by best they mean worst.”
Jack’s temper, which he thought was under control regarding this subject, flared to life as frustration threatened to drown him. Maisie Washington and Ava Moffett were former schoolmates of Ivy’s and they got off on torturing her on a good day. Her community service shifts were never going to be good days.
“Honey ... .”
Reading the shift in his demeanor, Ivy forced herself to snap out of her “poor me” reverie and take Jack’s feelings into consideration. After all, this wasn’t his fault. She was the one who broke the law, illegally entered a woman’s house, and broke a window in the process. Sure, she’d saved someone’s life that day — Maisie’s in fact — but that didn’t change the fact that she’d broken the law. If Jack and his partner Brian Nixon wanted the charges to stick against the individual in question, Ivy had to be arrested, too ... and she was still bitter about it.
“I’m going to be fine,” she announced after a beat, pasting a smile onto her face. “There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. I mean ... it’s Shadow Lake, not Detroit. I’ll hardly be working with hardened criminals, right?”
“That’s the spirit.” He leaned down and gave her a soft kiss on the corner of her pouty mouth.
“I’ll be absolutely fine,” she reassured him.
“You will,” he agreed. “I have some survival techniques to go over with you before your first day. That way I know you’ll be doubly fine. Also, I’m trying to find out whose team you’re going to be on. I might be able to get you some extra protection.”
Ivy’s mouth dropped open. “Do you think I’m going to need extra protection?” She sounded a little screechy. “I mean ... I’m not going to get shivved, am I?”
Jack stood there, blinking, for a full ten seconds before shaking his head. “No, and what have you been watching?”
“Nothing,” Ivy replied hurriedly. “I haven’t been watching anything. I’m perfectly fine.”
“Yeah, you don’t sound fine.” Jack worked his jaw. “Ivy ... you need to keep away from the television and focus on yourself. I swear that everything is going to be fine if you take a deep breath and just ... calm down.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” Ivy shot back. “You’re not the one who is going to be branded with a hot piece of metal ... or forced to be someone’s prison bitch.”
“Where are you getting this stuff?” He dropped the catalog he’d been carrying on the couch and reached for her. “Honey, you’re literally going to be spending seven hours walking next to the highway with a pointy stick and bagging up trash. No one is going to brand you. I ... why would you think that?” His frustration was on full display.
“It happened to Piper on Orange Is the New Black,” Ivy replied, refusing to back down when Jack rolled his eyes. “She was held down and they used a hot piece of metal to disfigure her for life. Now, I don’t like to think I’m Piper because she’s the most annoying character in the world, but all television has a basis in reality and that show has completely freaked me out.”
“Uh-huh.” Jack planted his hands on his hips. Under normal circumstances, his fiancée was fairly even-tempered. Sure, she could lose her head occasionally and do the absolute stupidest things, but she was often good in a crisis and he loved her beyond all else. Now, though, she’d obviously lost her mind.
“I’m being serious,” Ivy persisted. “Another character was wrestled to the ground and the guard cut off her airway by putting his knee in her back and she suffocated on the ground. They’re not going to do that to me, right?”
He resented the question ... and also realized it came from a place of terror. Ivy wasn’t exactly a good girl, but she’d never been on the wrong side of the law. She was frightened about what was to come and it was his job to soothe her. She’d only done what she’d done in the first place to save a life. She should’ve been given a pass. To keep the case from falling into disarray, though, she’d been offered up as a sacrificial lamb. He couldn’t go back and change it. They simply had to move forward and get through this.
“Come here.” He tugged her to him despite her protests and shifted so they were both sinking onto the couch. He pulled her tight against his chest as he smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Of course I’m going to be okay,” she scoffed. “I can fight with my fists if I have to.”
He let loose a tortured sigh. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”
“No. I’m just ... .”
He kissed her cheek when she didn’t finish. “You’re afraid,” he whispered. “It’s okay. I’m not happy about this either. I tried to get you put in an office setting ... or even at the county animal shelter despite the fact that I assumed you would come home with ten new friends for us. I couldn’t swing it.”
Ivy absently patted his hand. “You can’t fix this for me.” She was rueful. “I did the crime. I knew what I was doing was technically illegal. I just didn’t care.”
His fingers were gentl
e as they brushed her hair out of her face. It was a rich brown color with pink highlights woven through it. The first day he’d met her he thought the color scheme was weird. Now he loved it almost as much as he loved her. “You didn’t think it would come to this. I get it. I didn’t want you to get in trouble. I just ... I had no choice, honey. Lucy was squawking and making noise, and for you to hold up as a witness under scrutiny, you had to take your medicine.”
“I’m well aware.” Ivy shifted and rested her cheek against his chest. She remained agitated by her plight but there was nothing she could do about it. She decided not to dwell. “It’s forty hours, right? That’s basically a week.”
“If you do it straight through. You can take a break. If, for example, your first day is really difficult, you can take the next day off. I already checked.”
“It’s sweet that you’re looking out for me, Jack.” Honestly, she meant it. “I think I would rather barrel through, though. Once I start it, I expect to just keep doing it until ... well ... it’s done. I don’t want to drag it out so it’s hanging over our heads.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“We’re getting married in less than two months,” she reminded him, brightening considerably. “That’s something to look forward to, right?”
“Definitely.” He gave her a soft kiss. “That brings me back to my surprise.” He remembered the catalog and reclaimed it. “This is a honeymoon travel destination thing and there are a million places for us to consider. I want you to pick where you want to go and I’ll book it.”
The conversational shift was enough to throw her. “Oh, well ... I don’t know.” She took the catalog and tried to force her mind from the horrors she was convinced she would be facing once she was working on a chain gang ... and no matter how many times Jack told her that wasn’t what was happening, she refused to believe him.
“I want us to have the best time ever to start off our marriage,” Jack supplied. “It’s going to be two whole weeks of bliss.”
“It’s going to be two whole weeks of nudity, which is what you’re really looking forward to,” she countered, grinning when he poked her side. “I’m kind of looking forward to it, too.”
“Of course you are.” He slid his arm around her back and snuggled her in tight at his side so they could go through the magazine together. “I thought if we selected our destination before your community service that you would have something to focus on besides the mundane – and your abject fear – while you’re out there.”
“You mean while I’m out there with people taking photos for Maisie and Ava to post to Facebook?”
Jack scowled. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll handle them.”
Ivy snorted. “Yeah. They’re evil. Try as you might, they’re going to do what they’re going to do. There’s no stopping them.”
“Just watch me.” He tapped the magazine. “Focus on this, though. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. Where do you want to go?”
“Oh, no.” Jack firmly shook his head. “I want this to be my gift to you. I don’t care where we go as long as we’re together. I want you to choose.”
She slid him a sidelong look. “You’re already my gift, Jack.” Surprisingly, her voice grew thick with emotion. She wasn’t a crier, but things were piling up on her these days. “I don’t need anything other than you.”
“Oh, that’s sweet,” he drawled, tipping her face up so he could stare into the fathomless depths of her blue eyes. He didn’t know it was possible to love a human being as much as he loved her. That didn’t mean she wasn’t frustrating. “You’re still choosing.”
She snorted when he pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. He was stubborn when he wanted to be. That was something they had in common. “Fine.” She took the magazine and opened it. A white sand beach with impossibly blue water met her gaze. “Do you want to go to a beach location?”
“I want to go where you want to go.”
“Well ... what if I want to go to a place that has snow and we have to bundle up and you never see even a glimpse of my skin? Do you still want to let me do the choosing in that case?”
Jack knew exactly what she was doing. “Actually, I do. I find winter hats and gloves strangely titillating.”
Ivy’s chortle was music to his ears. The past few days, she hadn’t exactly been easy to hang around. He knew she had a reason for that, but he was over the mood swings. Just like her, he wanted the community service to be over with. Fear of the unknown was what was truly weighing her down. She would be fine after the first day.
Er, well, probably.
Okay, she was going to be a bear throughout the entire process. The quicker it started, though, the faster it would be over with.
“How about Hawaii?” Ivy queried.
“I could live with Hawaii.”
“Have you ever been?”
He shook his head. “No. What about you?”
“I haven’t. I’ve always wanted to see it, though. I think we should go someplace neither of us has been so it’s a fresh adventure.”
“I’m up for that.” He moved his hand to the back of her neck and lightly started rubbing at the tension there. “You mentioned New Orleans, too.”
“I’ve definitely always wanted to go to New Orleans,” she enthused. “That doesn’t really seem like a honeymoon destination, though. Maybe we can put that off until after the honeymoon because I’m going to want to see a lot of stuff in New Orleans, take a lot of tours. I think a honeymoon should be about the rest and relaxation.”
“And sex,” Jack added.
She shook her head but couldn’t hide her smile. “You have a one-track mind.”
“Only where you’re concerned.” He gave her a sweet kiss, internally sighing at the way she curled around him. He wished he could always keep her exactly like this, safe ... and warm ... and by his side. Unfortunately, they lived in the real world and there was only so much he could do.
“I’m thinking a nice beach ... with a tiki bar ... and a cabana ... and drinks in coconuts.”
“Honey, that sounds perfect to me.” He was prepared to sink into the next kiss, allow the afternoon to go some place else entirely, but Ivy grew distracted when she flipped a page and found an envelope.
“What’s this?”
His face was blank as he forced himself to focus on the item in question. “Oh.” He straightened. “I forgot all about that.”
It was with trepidation that Ivy flipped over the envelope. She expected to find the Michigan Department of Corrections seal on the back. Instead, there was nothing. “What is this?” She looked to him for answers. “Is it bad news?”
He immediately started shaking his head. “No, and you need to stop automatically assuming that. It’s unnecessary.”
“I’m doing the best that I can. I promise I’ll be better when I’m done with the community service and haven’t been shivved.”
He held back a sigh ... but just barely. “We’re going to talk about this negative streak of yours a little later. First ... that’s the information you asked about.”
Ivy furrowed her brow, confused. “I don’t ... .” Then everything cleared in her head. “You found Dorian.”
Jack nodded, solemn. “I did. Before you open that, though, I have to ask if you think this is a good idea. Your aunt is still reeling after what happened a few weeks ago. I don’t know that she needs more upheaval.”
“Oh, calm down,” Ivy chided, brushing his hand away from the envelope. She’d been waiting for this information for what felt like forever, ever since she’d realized her aunt Felicity Goodings was seeing the town jerk because she was lonely and still pining for an old boyfriend, Dorian Lanning. Apparently Jack had found that boyfriend. “I just want to see what you’ve found.”
She opened the envelope with minimal trepidation and immediately started perusing the information. “Wait ... he’s in Bellaire.”
Jack nodded. “He is.”
“He did move downstate. He was there for almost fifteen years. Then he moved to the west side of the state for two years before returning to this area.”
Unlike before, when she was excited about the information, Ivy felt annoyance at the news. “Is he married?”
Jack shook his head. “He is not.”
“Was he married?”
“I didn’t dig that deep, but it will be easy to find out now that I know I’ve got the right Dorian. Why do you care if he was married?”
Ivy shrugged, noncommittal. “I don’t know. I was just ... thinking. I mean, being married might be a reason for him not to seek out Aunt Felicity. She was obviously in love with him, to the point where she never got over losing him. It doesn’t sound to me as if this guy felt the same way.”
Jack made a protesting sound. “How can you say that? You don’t even know him.”
“No, but if I lost you and we were separated for twenty years and suddenly we found ourselves in the same place again, there’s nothing that could stop me from at least visiting.”
Suddenly uncomfortable with the conversational shift, Jack cuddled her close. “That doesn’t apply to us,” he said after a beat. “We’re never going to be separated. Our relationship is different.”
“I don’t disagree with that. I just ... she obviously still cares about him. I wonder if he still cares about her.”
She looked thoughtful enough that Jack knew exactly where her head had disappeared to. “Oh, man. You’re going to go see him, aren’t you?”