Christmas of Love

by Erin Wright

  At that, Iris let out a laugh. “Because! You say that I’m stubborn! You’re taking it to a whole new level!”

  Ivy narrowed her eyes at her sister. “At least I’m not working myself into a state of blindness,” she informed her tartly.

  “At least I’m not practically homeless!” Iris retorted.

  “I just don’t understand where you two get that from,” Mom declared. “You both are just bone-headed.”

  Dad let out a snort.

  Mom turned on him, jabbing her hands onto her hips and glaring. “And just what was that supposed to mean?” she demanded.

  Dad’s snort turned into a chuckle. “You don’t know where our darling daughters got their stubbornness from? Have you met you?”

  Ivy was the first to start laughing. Maybe it was the relief of finally telling her family the truth, and not having them hate her. Maybe she’d finally snapped. Gone ‘round the bend.

  But whatever it was, she couldn’t help herself. She bent over, sides aching, laughter spilling out of her. Iris and Dad joined in, and then even Mom was laughing. They held each other up as the laughter filled the room.

  Moments, minutes, hours later – Ivy couldn’t tell any longer – they finally straightened up as the laughter died away. Mom gave Ivy a huge hug. “I’m proud of you for telling us the truth, dear. I won’t lie and say I’m happy to hear that you’ve been hiding so much from us for so long, but I’m glad you came clean. I have to ask: Does any of this have to do with a certain handsome extension agent?”

  Ivy shook her head quickly, paused, and then slowly nodded. “I…uhhh…woke up this morning next to him—” her face flamed red at the idea of discussing her sex life with her parents and she hurried on before her mom could bring up birth control or the birds and the bees or something else equally as mortifying, “—and time had run out. I’d been telling myself ever since Iris fell that I’d deal with this later. After Christmas. After New Year’s. I knew at some point, y’all would notice that I took up residence here and hadn’t moved back out again, but I kept hoping a miracle would hit. Not only that, but…”

  She took another deep, cleansing breath. “I don’t like abstract art.” Whoosh. The stress and anxiety she’d been feeling for years disappeared.

  She’d never said those words out loud. She’d never let herself think those words. Not so bluntly. Not so forcefully.

  But it was true.

  Her dad grinned at her. “Damn girl, I’m glad to hear that,” he said with a chuckle. “I never could get into it. You are so talented, but that shit just looked like a drunk man splashing paint everywhere.”

  Ivy let out a snort of laughter at that. “Oh Dad,” she said, wiping her tears of happiness and pain away, “I love you.”

  He turned red and mumbled something that could’ve been, “I love you too,” or “Roses are blue,” or “I go achoo.” Ivy was pretty sure it was the first option, although with her dad, it was never a guarantee.

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to do now,” Iris admitted with a shrug. It was freeing to say. The shackles were falling off. She didn’t know what she was doing or where she was going with her life, but she did know that she felt like she could fly. “Truthfully, I was working hard as a waitress so I could pursue my dreams of painting abstract impressionism, and I don’t even like it! Is 32 too young to have a midlife crisis?”

  Her dad patted her on the arm. “Your mom and I can help you. We can pay for a plane ticket back down to California, and we can lend you some money. We just want you…well, you know, it’s important that…” He gulped, looking uncomfortable.

  Emotions – John McLain’s Least Favorite Thing in the World.

  Her mom gracefully jumped in, saving her husband just like she’d been doing for the past 40 years. “What your dad is trying to say, dear, is that we just want you to be happy. If that’s down in California, putting together sculptures with used pop cans, or living in your old bedroom and waitressing down at Betty’s Diner, your happiness is what matters.”

  “Considering Tiffany works at Betty’s, I’m pretty sure I’m going to skip that second option,” Ivy said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Fair enough,” her mom said with a chuckle. “Is there another kind of art you’d rather do than abstract? You could always paint handsome cowboys, you know. I’m pretty sure there’s at least one cowboy who’d be willing to sit for a portrait.” She winked at Ivy.

  Ivy stared at her mom.

  “What?” her mom asked blankly. “If you don’t like the idea, you don’t have to—”

  “Oh Mom, you’re a genius!” Ivy said, throwing her arms around her mom and hugging her ecstatically. “This is perfect!”

  She ran down the hallway, wings on her feet, leaving her bemused family behind her.

  She had work to do.

  Chapter 19

  Austin

  Austin stared at his book, the words swimming around, chasing each other on the page. It had been – he looked at his watch – 58 hours since Ivy had run out of his house like her ass was on fire, and he was no closer to understanding what had happened now than he was when it had happened.

  Girls. You can’t live with them, and you can’t live without ‘em.

  Well, actually, that wasn’t true. He’d lived without them for years. He could totally live without them again. In fact, he’d fully planned on living without them. Ivy had just been a slight deviation in those plans, but that phase was behind him. He’d learned his lesson. No girls ever.

  Except for horses. Bob needed a girlfriend.

  Oh, and Austin should get a dog. What red-blooded cowboy living in the mountains of Idaho didn’t have a dog? He could adopt one. Michelle Winthrop down at the pound was always trying to get pets into a good home. He should drive down and pick one out. A male one, though. Just to be on the safe side.

  He glanced at his watch again. Dammit. The pound closed an hour ago.

  Well, he’d go tomorrow on his lunch break and bring home a companion. Someone to love him and hang out with him and keep his bed warm at night.

  He groaned. He didn’t want a damn dog to keep his bed warm. He wanted a woman. Ivy McLain, to be exact.

  Hmmm…does she have a middle name? Austin paused, trying to remember if he’d ever heard either way.

  He shook off the thought. Never mind that.

  New plan: He was going to drive to the McLain household and he was going to demand to see Ivy and he was going to talk some sense into her, and maybe tie her to a chair until she told him what was going on in that thick, stubborn, beautiful head of hers.

  Much better than snuggling up to a smelly, farting male dog that would hump every leg within ten miles.

  He tossed his book aside and strode over to his elk antler coat rack, grabbing his jacket off one of the tines. He shoved it on, muttering as he grabbed his keys and wallet. He was done sitting around and wondering what went wrong. He was going to demand some answers. He was going to demand she tell him why she ran off on him the other day. He was going to demand that she tell him if she loved him, because he sure loved—

  He yanked the front door open and almost barreled over Ivy.

  “Oof!” he gasped, all of the wind forced out of his lungs at the impact. Instinctively, he reached out and grabbed her, yanking her to him, keeping her from falling backwards off the front porch.

  They froze, arms and legs tangled together, bodies pressed tight, staring at each other, half suspended in the air, until a snowflake drifted down and landed perfectly on the tip of her nose. She huffed her breath out, trying to blow the flake off.

  The small puff of air broke the spell surrounding them, and he quickly straightened up, taking a step back from her. He needed some breathing room. He needed to gather his thoughts.

  He needed to say something.

  Their collision had knocked more than the air out of his lungs; it had knocked all of the self-righteous anger out of his brain, too, leaving him with nothing but a big blank.r />
  Talking to Ivy was a lot easier in theory than in practice.

  He glanced down and noticed the smallish flat package in her hands and latched onto it with both hands. Figuratively, of course.

  “Wanna share with the class?” he drawled, looking down at the brown-wrapped package and then back up at Ivy’s flushed face.

  “Can I come in?” she asked. “Or were…were you going somewhere?” Her eyes flicked down to the keys he had clutched in his hand. Another lazy snowflake drifted down, landing on her right eyelid. She fluttered her lashes, trying to get the offending frozen liquid out of her eye, and Austin gently wiped it away, his frustration and anger gone as quickly as the snowflake disappeared.

  The tension that had been roiling around in his stomach like a volcano about to erupt disappeared. He felt calmer already. Being around Ivy did that to a guy. Or at least to him.

  “I was coming to talk to you,” he admitted with a pained grin. “C’mon in.” He stepped to the side to let her in, a trail of chocolate and cinnamon coming in behind her, and he shut the door, stopping the cold and snow from swirling in, too. “How do you always smell like cinnamon and chocolate?” he asked abruptly, as he shrugged out of his jacket. He hung it back up on the antler rack and swung back to look at her. She was staring at him, her mouth agape.

  “Never mind,” he said, the tips of his ears growing warm. He hadn’t meant to blurt that out. “What’s in your hands?”

  “This?” she said blankly, as if surprised to see it in her hands. “Oh yes, this! It’s your present. Christmas present.” She shoved it at him.

  He took it, staring down at it for a moment, confused. “Either you’re a little late or a whole lot early,” he said dryly. He looked up, catching her chewing on her lower lip worriedly.

  “A little bit of both,” she said with a wry smile, trying to pretend as if she wasn’t about ready to jump out of her skin, and failing quite miserably.

  “Let’s go sit down. It’s warmer over on the couch anyway.” To be honest, anywhere in the house was warmer than by the drafty old front door. He’d kept meaning to replace it before winter had hit, but somehow hadn’t gotten around to it. There were slices of Swiss cheese that let less air through than his front door did.

  He helped her out of her thin jacket, hanging it up beside his, which somehow looked a lot better than it really had any right to, and guided her towards his leather sofa snuggled up close to the fireplace. He thought about starting a fire to warm her up, but decided that a throw blanket would be faster.

  And anyway, he wanted to know what was in the package in his hands. His curiosity was growing by leaps and bounds.

  Once she was settled on the couch, a throw blanket over her lap, she was back to biting her lip again. He felt himself harden at the sight, and shifted uncomfortably on the couch next to her. He couldn’t get too far ahead of himself. For all he knew, this was a “So long, and thanks for all the kisses” kind of present.

  He flipped the package over slowly, and slid his finger under the tape, teasing the paper apart. He pulled the paper away to reveal…a cream-colored canvas?

  “Turn it over,” she said, just as he spotted a bit of wood at the edge. Oh. Duh. He was looking at the backside of an art canvas. He pulled it the rest of the way out of the wrapping and flipped it over.

  His breath caught as he stared down at it. It was the Goldfork Mountains in all their majestic glory, streaks of color emanating from behind the jagged peaks so vivid and real, he thought he could reach out to touch the sky.

  “Oh Ivy,” he murmured, and then his gaze drifted down from that magnificent sky to a cowboy on a horse, looking towards the setting sun, rays of light striking his cheeks.

  Not a cowboy. Him. She’d painted him on Bob.

  “Oh Ivy,” he repeated, stunned, his eyes taking in the tiniest details that she’d managed to capture. The way his hair curled at his nape. The light scar above his eyebrow where he’d fallen and taken a header against a bedpost as a toddler. Even the way he held his shoulders.

  It was him.

  “You painted me,” he said quietly. “I saw this when you’d first started working on it, of course, but I wasn’t in it before. Why did you…” He trailed off when the tears started rolling down her cheeks.

  “I hate crying,” she announced with a wobbly smile. “It gives me a headache, and makes my skin all blotchy and red, and I’ve never figured out how to cry in a pretty way. I always look like a disaster zone when I do it.” She sniffled through her tears, sending him a self-deprecating grin.

  He jumped up and grabbed a box of Kleenexes and brought them back for her. She took one, blowing her nose into the tissue gratefully. He didn’t think she looked like a disaster zone, although it was true that her eyes were pretty red. Somehow, she made even that look beautiful, though.

  He decided that arguing with her wasn’t going to do him any good, and kept his trap shut, waiting for her to go on.

  “I’ve hated this painting ever since I started it. I mean, I loved it because it was beautiful and fun to paint, but I felt like I was betraying my training. I went to college to learn what a real artist paints. Recreating a scene in front of you was cheating. Hell, a camera can do that.

  “But Austin?” She paused for a moment, wiping at her cheeks again. “I love this painting more than anything I’ve ever done in my life.”

  It all came tumbling out then, like the rushing of the river when the canyon walls squeezed it tight, forcing it to shoot out the other side. She wasn’t making it as an artist in San Francisco. She’d lied to him, she’d lied to everyone, because she’d wanted to pretend that she’d succeeded.

  He remembered back to the art closet and the boyfriend at the high school football game as she talked. The times she’d been shoved into a closet, or into a toilet. He understood wanting to prove to them all that she could make it as a painter, but…

  “Why did you lie to me?” he asked quietly, the hurt bleeding out in his voice. “I understand lying to your classmates – I mean, it’s not the best thing ever, but I get it. But why me? Did you think you had to pretend to be someone else to make me like you?”

  Her blue eyes looked at him, haunted. “I shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t say to myself, ‘I’m going to lie to Austin about who I am.’ I had just been telling people stories of my success for so long, I didn’t think there was any way to stop. I couldn’t confess to you, but not tell my family, you know? You would let it slip to Declan, who would tell Iris, who would tell my parents, who would lecture me on disappointing them and making poor life choices. I had to tell everyone the truth, or no one at all. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve been lying for a lot longer than I’ve known you.”

  He smiled a little at that. Just a little. His heart squeezed with the pain of betrayal as his eyes drifted back down to her painting, looking at every stroke of color, bursting from the canvas.

  She was so damn talented. And such a goddamn liar.

  “So tell me: Why did you run out of here the other day like your ass was on fire? Why are you telling me all of this? Why not go back to California and continue to lead your fake, perfect life where you’re the next Jackson Pollock?”

  She flinched like he’d struck her. “I deserved that. And also, kudos for knowing Pollock. I’m impressed.”

  He smiled again, just the tips of his mouth curving up and then disappearing as he stared at her intently, waiting for her to explain. He was surprised by how betrayed he felt by her. It wasn’t like he’d known her for years. He’d only met her the month before. But he’d trusted her.

  Just like he’d trusted Monica and his parents.

  Oh.

  It made sense. Of course. To have someone break his trust by hiding the truth from him? That was the one chink in the armor around his heart. The pieces fell into place – Monica lying so she could marry rich and lord over everyone that her husband was the biggest farmer in town. His dad lying to his mom and him,
about loving either of them. His parents lying to him about loving him more than they loved to hurt each other.

  Honestly, he wasn’t sure if there was anything Ivy could’ve done to hurt him more.

  “I don’t have the money to go back,” she admitted in a small voice. “When I canceled my return flight after Iris fell, I had expected to pay a small fee to reschedule the flight. I could’ve handled that. But the ‘small fee’ ended up being almost as much as a whole new ticket. I really had to save and struggle for months to pay for the first ticket. I couldn’t pay for it twice.

  “I knew that this whole time.” He flinched. She was admitting to intentionally lying to him, and also admitting that she was only fessing up because she had to. He felt a little sick. “I just kept hoping some miracle would come along and save me. I didn’t know what, but I figured hey, it was Christmas, right? So something could happen. Maybe I have a fairy godmother who has thus far been hiding herself from me, who pops out of my stocking and bops me on the head.” He chuckled a little at that, and then somehow hated her all the more for making him laugh. He didn’t want to laugh. He was pissed.

  “New Year’s Day, it all came tumbling down. The hope that this would somehow just go away, the stupidity of thinking that a bunch of money would magically appear in my bank account…I’d told myself that I’d tackle this problem after the new year. Well, it was New Year’s morning, and I had no idea what to do. So I ran.”

  The silence between them stretched out. He didn’t know what to do or say. After Monica, it’d been such a leap of faith to trust a woman again. Her sense of humor, her laugh, her talents, her intelligence, her beauty…he’d let his heart do what he’d known he shouldn’t have.

  He was such an idiot.

  Sensing she was losing him, the words began spilling out faster. “I’ve always fought doing landscapes, but especially landscapes of Idaho. I hated this place and never wanted to think about it again. I did this one because they were there, and I wanted something easy, but I hated it from the get-go. It wasn’t right. No matter what I did to the sunset or the mountain range itself or the pine trees, it wasn’t right. And then I realized – it’s because I needed you in it. Idaho without Austin isn’t an Idaho I want any part of.”