Christmas of Love

by Erin Wright

  It stung. It stung because it was exactly what he wanted to hear, and yet, now…it was tarnished. How could he trust her?

  His throat closed a little, which just made him angry. He’d only cried once as an adult, and it was the day his parent’s divorce was finalized. He hadn’t even cried over Monica Gold Digger Klaunche.

  He wasn’t about to cry over a girl he’d only met a month ago.

  Not

  Happening

  The anger at her betrayal, her lies, welled up in him. At the fact that he cared so damn much about what she chose to do with her life. None of it mattered to him. Not anymore.

  “Thanks for the painting,” he gritted out, past the lump in his throat that only seemed to be growing exponentially, dammit. “I’ll be sure to treasure it always. You can leave now.”

  Her expression broke his heart. She smiled tremulously, always trying to put a brave face on things, and said quietly, “I deserve that. Every bit of that. I’ve done nothing to earn your trust, and everything to break it. I love you, Austin Bishop. And if you ever decide to give me a second chance, I’ll be waiting for you.”

  She stood up then, hurrying to the front door, drawing on her coat, disappearing into the darkness and cold, leaving a heartbroken shell of a man behind.

  Chapter 20

  Austin

  ~ March 2018 ~

  He officially hated winter.

  He didn’t used to. He used to like sledding and walks in snowstorms and ice skating with beautiful red—

  Not going down that road.

  “C’mon, Chip,” he said, tugging at his chocolate lab’s leash. She’d started sniffing at a trashcan, no doubt hoping she’d be able to knock it over and eat whatever was inside.

  She was this ball of brown fur and pink tongue, always busy, always moving. He’d adopted a lab so she could help him when he went birding, retrieving ducks and geese out in the field.

  He’d adopted a female chocolate lab because she just had so much personality. She was more lovable than all of the other puppy dogs in the litter combined together. A female dog wouldn’t hump people’s legs, another bonus in his mind, although the jury was still out on whether Chip let one rip whenever she felt like it.

  He hadn’t decided yet if he loved having a dog in his life for the companionship, or hated her for making him laugh. He’d already lived through another female in his life who’d made him laugh despite her destroying his life around him, although he had to give it to Chip: At least she only chewed up couch legs. She didn’t chew up and spit out his heart.

  Which was an improvement.

  Probably.

  Although his leather couch was starting to look a little worse for the wear.

  He spotted Once Upon a Trinket, a stationery / gift shop at the corner of Main and Second and started tugging Chip towards it. He’d taken to loading Chip up into the truck and driving her all the way to Franklin to go for walks, because Franklin reminded him less of that…other woman. It wasn’t quite as painful to walk around in it, although he was studious about avoiding the street where the ice skating rink was located. He wasn’t sure if he would ever put on another pair of skates.

  “Stay out here, girl,” Austin said gruffly, tying her leash to the bench outside the front door. “I’ll be right back.”

  His secretary’s birthday was coming up next Monday, something she’d been sure to repeatedly “casually” mention to him about 73 times per day. He was sure if he didn’t get her a card and a box of chocolates, she’d leave for lunch and never be seen again.

  Like some other females he knew.

  Of course, he was happy about that. He wanted it, in fact. Had demanded that it happen.

  He pushed the front door open, the tinkling bell alerting the clerk at the checkout counter to his presence. “Hi!” the girl said, all chipper and friendly.

  Austin hated her already.

  “Do you have birthday cards?” he grunted.

  “Oh sure, right back this way!” she said, heading to the back of the store. He watched her hips sway slightly as she walked, trying to drum up some sort of enthusiasm for the sight, but found himself yawning instead.

  Literally yawning.

  Well, it was a good thing he hated her, right?

  “Down this side and halfway up the other,” the gal said when they stopped at the end of an aisle. She sent him a bright smile, and then froze. She stared at him in shock.

  “What?” he growled.

  “Nothing. Nothing.” She sent him another smile, this one overly bright, and scurried back up to the front of the store.

  With a grunt, he headed down the aisle, picking up and putting down cards at random. He needed a nice card, without being overly sentimental – this was his 53-year-old-going-on-54-year-old secretary, not his girlfriend or his mother – but also not crude. There were a few cards that made him blush, and he shoved those back quickly. He glanced up front, hoping the clerk hadn’t been able to spot what he’d just picked up, and caught her staring at him again. She quickly whipped her head away, picking up a piece of paper and studying it carefully.

  He was pretty sure it was blank.

  He wandered further down the aisle. He had to hurry. Chip would be getting cold, out in the blustery, winter air. He grabbed another card at random. A yellow rose, simple wording…it was perfect.

  He’d have them put together a box of handmade chocolates out of the chocolate case upfront, and be set to go. He was rather proud of himself, really. In, out, and on his way. Mission accomplished.

  He had the clerk put together a small box of chocolates for him, making sure to get all white chocolate ones since that was his secretary’s favorite, but the gal kept sneaking glances at him.

  “What?!” he barked. “Do I have something on my face?” He scrubbed his hands across it, trying to knock the offending dirt off.

  “No! I…I’m sorry. I just…I never expected to meet you.”

  He cocked an eyebrow at her. He was an extension agent for Long Valley County, not a rockstar.

  “I didn’t know you were real, actually.”

  Okay, this was only getting more strange.

  “She did such a good job of painting you, though. Wow. I knew she was talented, but seeing you in real life…it’s kinda creepy.”

  His eyes went wide. She.

  There was only one she he could think of who would be painting him.

  “Paintings?” he got out. It was all he could manage.

  “Yeah. Over there.” She pointed up at the front, at a huge display of oil paintings. How had he missed it on his way in? It was large and colorful and full of life and…

  And full of him.

  He left his purchases on the counter, forgotten. He walked over to the display, with a large placard off to the side, a smiling picture of Ivy beaming out at him. Long Valley artist…recently moved back home…local scenery…

  He looked at the paintings spread out in front of him in a daze, taking in colors and mountains and a black bear in a stream, and a cowboy.

  Him.

  On a horse.

  Kneeling by a mountain stream.

  Smiling out at the world. Looking sternly at the world. Closing his eyes and sleeping.

  He wasn’t in every painting, but he was in most.

  After he’d thrown Ivy out that day, or rather, she’d run out on him after he told her to, he’d told Declan that they weren’t an item anymore, and he’d appreciate not talking about it. Declan had given him one of those one-armed hugs that men gave each other when trying to console each other without actually losing their dignity, and told him that he understood. Ivy’s name hadn’t crossed Declan’s lips since. Or Austin’s.

  He’d thought she’d left. He’d thought she was headed back to California, back to trying it again. She hated Long Valley, she hated Idaho, she hated the cold, she hated the truth.

  She couldn’t handle living in Long Valley.

  And yet, here she was.

  �
��How often does this…uhhh…Ivy McLain come in?” he asked loudly, trying to project his voice across the room to the clerk without actually having to look away from the paintings. Maybe she just dropped all of the paintings off and then disappeared to California. Or had them shipped up here. It was possible. Just because her paintings were here didn’t mean she was.

  “About once a week to drop off another painting.” The girl was at his elbow when she said that, and he jumped. He hadn’t heard her move. “I didn’t know someone could paint so quickly, especially not at such a high quality. She must spend all day, every day, on these. Do you know her?”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes and no,” he said softly. Yes, he knew her name and how she liked her coffee and how she wrinkled her nose when she was trying to be tactful, but no, he didn’t know her. Hadn’t believed she could lie so thoroughly and so completely about who she was, to everyone in her life.

  “Well, next time you see her, tell her how talented she is. We try to talk to her when she comes in, but she never seems to hear what we’re telling her. She’s a quiet one.”

  Ivy? Quiet? If he’d had to pick a hundred adjectives to describe her, quiet wouldn’t have been on the list. She was vivacious and friendly and funny and smart and thoughtful and…a damn liar.

  “I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but whatever’s going on in her life, it’s tearing her apart. I don’t know her, so maybe I’m wrong in this, but look at the picture of her, smiling.” She gestured at the large advertisement set in the midst of the paintings. “I’ve never seen her do it. If I wasn’t looking at this with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe she knew how to smile.”

  Not…

  His brain stopped. Broke. Quit processing. An Ivy who didn’t smile wasn’t Ivy.

  In a cloud of doubt and hurt and pain and surprise, he spun around and headed to the front door. He had to get outside. Get some fresh air into his lungs.

  “Hey, you forgot your stu—”

  The door closed behind him, cutting off her words. Austin didn’t care right then. His secretary would have to go without this year. He needed to grab Chip and go home. Maybe inside the four walls of his house, the world would start making sense again.

  Chapter 21

  Ivy

  She dipped the brush back into the oil paint and then rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands. A blob of paint dropped to the ground.

  Whoops.

  After the first dozen paint splatters on her bedroom carpet, her mother had not-so-tactfully suggested that working over a drop cloth might be a good idea, and then made her lay one down before she’d allowed her to continue working on her paintings.

  Well, at least it kept Ivy from feeling guilty every time paint splattered on the floor. That was good, right?

  She shoved her frizzled hair out of her eyes. She needed to get the line of Bob’s neck just right. It looked droopy right now. Bob’s neck did not droop. Clenching her tongue between her teeth, she began working on the neckline. This one would be due at Once Upon a Trinket in just a couple of days, and she still had a long ways to go. She’d screwed up when she’d first started painting it; the look on Austin’s face hadn’t been quite right. It was his eyebrows, she’d finally figured out. They hadn’t been thick enough. They were perfect now.

  In the distance, she heard a knock on the front door, and then the muffled sound of her mother’s voice.

  Yes, she lived at home with her parents. It was embarrassing, when she took the time to think about it. She mostly tried not to, hence the frenetic pace of her work.

  Well, that and so she didn’t think too much about how she’d messed everything up.

  It would take a while to build up her family’s trust in her again. Ivy didn’t blame them; she deserved their questions and probing, every bit of it and more. At least they were letting her try to win their confidence again. Aus—

  No.

  She wasn’t going to focus on that. She couldn’t control the actions of others; she could only control her own. That was one of the biggest lessons she’d taken away from her counseling sessions so far, courtesy of her parents. She was starting to get over the pain and hurt that she’d been carrying for years, and was starting to realize that by focusing so much of her life on Tiffany and Ezzy and Fredrick, she was giving them power over her.

  All she could focus on was making herself a better person. In the end, that was what mattered.

  “Ivy?” her mom called through her bedroom door.

  “Yeah?” she said, distracted. Bob’s neck still wasn’t quite right. She wasn’t sure why she hated it, but she did. She’d just have to keep staring at it. It’d come to her.

  “Someone’s here to see you,” came her mom’s muffled reply.

  That pulled Ivy out of her staring contest with her canvas. See her? Who would be coming to see her? She hadn’t made friends when she was here in school, and nothing had changed since she’d moved back. Iris was her only friend, and her mom sure as hell wouldn’t announce her like this.

  She carefully laid the paintbrush down and sidled around her bed. After moving all of her art supplies up from the Bay area, her childhood bedroom had become quite crowded. Thankfully, she was used to living in small spaces. Just a few more months of steady sales, and she’d have enough to pay first and last month’s rent, plus a cleaning deposit, on a small apartment of her own. Turns out, tourists visiting the area loved buying her paintings and bringing them back home with them, so as to not lose their little slice of Long Valley.

  This time, her independence would be paid for by her paintings. Not a lie in sight.

  If she wasn’t so damn tired all the time, she’d be more jubilant at the idea.

  She pulled her bedroom door open. “I’m almos–oh!” she squeaked.

  Why was Austin standing there in her bedroom doorway? His eyes swept up and down her, taking in her appearance, but she was too flustered to care. She was a disaster – she probably had paint in her hair and on her nose – but whatever; she was too busy drinking in Austin. Did he have a few more wrinkles around his eyes? He looked tired. Haggard. Like he’d aged ten years in three months.

  Her mom disappeared, murmuring something, but Ivy didn’t hear her. Everything had narrowed down to just Austin, the rest of the world disappearing.

  Wordlessly, she stepped back and let him in, and then closed the door behind him. He stood there, unsure of where to go. There wasn’t much room in her overstuffed bedroom. She finally gestured to the end of the bed. “Take a seat,” she rasped. She cleared her throat.

  She could talk. She could totally talk.

  She crawled past him and up onto the bed itself, sitting cross-legged in the middle of it. Austin had taken his cowboy hat off and was moving it restlessly in his hands, twirling it endlessly as he looked around her bedroom.

  She wanted to demand what the hell he was doing in her bedroom, but decided to keep quiet for a moment. She’d let him talk when he was ready.

  The silence stretched out between them like a rubber band, the tension growing stronger, and she stared at him, losing her resolve to keep quiet. If he was just coming in to stare at her walls, he could just leave again.

  “I saw your paintings,” he said quietly. Finally. Although, as soon as he said the words, she wished he’d take them back. A small part of her had known that he might see her paintings someday, but since she’d planned on never seeing him again, that had been perfectly fine in theory.

  But now that he was sitting in front of her, the whole thing was embarrassing as could be. It was like those awful dreams where you’re naked at school and everyone is laughing at you.

  Having him see those paintings, a physical and obvious sign of how much she still loved him…

  Her soul felt naked.

  “I’m sorry if you didn’t like—”

  He held up a hand, stopping her. “Not like them?” he finished for her. He smiled for a moment at that. “You’re amazing. Ivy McLain–hold on, do y
ou have a middle name?”

  Slowly, she nodded.

  “Which is…?”

  “Green,” she whispered.

  “Green. Your parents named you Ivy Green.”

  She nodded. It wasn’t something she’d ever admitted out loud to anyone, ever, in the history of humanity. She’d planned on taking that one to her grave. She’d long ago stopped even writing a middle initial when filling out official paperwork.

  But she’d lied enough to Austin. She couldn’t lie again.

  “What’s Iris’ middle name – Blue?” he asked, laughing.

  “Ummm…yes?” Ivy said.

  “Oh Lordy!” Austin said with a shout of laughter. He dropped his cowboy hat onto the bed beside him so he could wipe at his eyes with both of his hands. “Your parents sure are somethin’.”

  “I noticed,” Ivy said dryly. She waited for him – not so patiently – to straighten up and stop laughing and start talking. Finally, he did.

  “Ivy Green McLain,” he snickered a bit when he said her middle name and she glared at him and he stopped snickering and hurried on instead, “you are the most talented artist I’ve ever seen in my life. You make the world around you come alive. Bob, me, that bear, the mountains, the sky, the way the wind bent the wildflowers on top of the hill…I was there. I could smell and feel and taste it all. Not having you paint would be a cruel joke to play on this world.”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears. She tried to snuffle them back. She hadn’t cried in months. Three, to be exact. But having him here, close enough to touch if she was so brave, meant the world to her. She could breathe again. She could smile again.

  She could cry again.

  The cold, gray haze she’d pulled around herself to shield herself from the world dissipated.