He couldn’t seem to tear her from his mind any more than he could train his body to not respond to her.
God, he wanted her.
Every time he saw her, he remembered what they’d shared on that one amazing night. But whenever he thought about reawakening the passion between them, something held him back. Maybe it was that last conversation. She’d made it clear enough she wasn’t interested in another bout of hot, sweaty sex. And damned if he’d coerce a woman into his bed, for God’s sake.
Plus, there was something else.
She’d been damned secretive about why she was turning away from him. He had to wonder why. As much as he desired her, admired her, Tanner couldn’t get past the fact that she was an unknown variable. He liked order in his life for the simple reason that, as a child, his life had been chaos. With rules, order, there was no room for disarray.
No room for pain or betrayal.
But you got a dog, his mind argued.
Hairy was different, he assured himself. A dog learned the rules and mostly kept them. But a woman like Ivy? Hot then cold? He couldn’t count on what she’d say or do from one moment to the next. She didn’t even believe in rules. Life with Ivy would be nothing but disruptions.
He thought about the feel of her skin, the taste of her mouth, the heady sensation of claiming her body with his and told himself that maybe chaos had its place. Then he’d come back to his senses and realize that sex would only cause problems. Better to maintain an even keel. Keep their relationship as platonic as she seemed to want it.
“Probably best all the way around anyway,” he muttered.
He just wished he could stop thinking about her every damn minute.
Reaching down to pat the dog, Tanner then leaned back in his office chair and fired off an e-mail to the programmers at his company. He was almost finished with the preliminary sketches of the characters for the new game and as he thought it, he glanced at the woman he’d drawn only that morning. Ivy’s face stared back at him from the page. Her eyes, her nose, her mouth, swollen from his kisses. Her image held a flashing sword in the air and the wings that spread from her back were alive with power.
First, she had become Lady Gwen. Now, he mused, she was Aurelia the Avenger.
He was in bad shape.
“Damn it,” he muttered, shaking those thoughts and more from his mind. He was starting a new game. Something he usually thrived on. Building characters, creating scenes, devising the ins and outs of the rules to be followed. Rules. Games, like life, needed rules. But Ivy kept shattering his.
He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand and grumbled under his breath. He’d met Nathan’s deadline, his company was about to become the hottest thing in computer gaming and still, he was sitting here like he was in mourning.
What the hell was going on?
Why, Tanner wondered, did he feel as if there was something left undone? Something…wrong.
Ivy put the finishing touches on the chocolate cake she’d made for Tanner and told herself that this just couldn’t go on. The last few days had been so hard, she simply couldn’t let it continue. She had to tell him the truth. Had to get everything out into the open. She was walking around with what felt like two hundred pounds on her shoulders. On her heart.
She just wasn’t built for lying.
Her grandfather had been so right, she thought, suddenly wishing Pop were sitting in his favorite chair at home, so she could go and talk this over with him. But he and her mom were both in Florida, happily building the new Angel Nursery. She’d talked to them both a day or so ago and had managed to hide her own misery in the face of their happiness.
She didn’t need to worry her family long-distance. Besides, she’d dug this hole for herself, it was going to be up to her to dig her way out. Ivy only wished she knew if Tanner cared for her. Heaven knew the man was so shuttered and closed off, it would take an act of God for him to admit it, but if she could believe those feelings were there, she could live without the words if she had to.
Maybe.
But even if he did care for her, would it last once he knew the truth? From what little he’d told her about himself and his family, she knew that he didn’t trust many people. So when she admitted to tricking him deliberately, she couldn’t imagine that he’d take it very well.
Understatement.
She groaned and set down the frosting knife. The last few days had been so hard, being around him and not touching him. Desire flared inside her every time he came anywhere near her. To be so close and yet so far away from him at the same time, tore at her in a way she’d never imagined possible. But it was more than just the wanting, she told herself grimly. It was Tanner himself. Loving him and not being able to tell him so was the hardest thing she’d ever done.
She remembered that last heated conversation and the words she’d said kept haunting her. I’m a coward. She hadn’t liked the sound of that. Or the way it felt. She’d never run from anything in her life, damn it and she wasn’t going to start now.
Ivy had thought this all over for days and she had finally reached a major decision. She was through lying. She was through playing games and keeping secrets. It was no way to live.
She loved Tanner King. After David died, Ivy had never expected to fall in love again, but now that she had, she refused to hide from it. Refused to chance losing it because she was too afraid to admit that she’d made a mistake.
She’d seen from the first day that Tanner had a trust issue. Why else would he shut himself off from everyone and everything? Work in a small room in his house and never get involved with anyone? It was all about trust. And how could she expect Tanner to trust her when she was lying to him every moment she kept quiet about the truth?
“So, no more lies,” she said softly, liking the sound of it. No matter what happened to her and Tanner now, she would at least know that she’d been honest with him.
When her cell phone rang, Ivy was grateful for the respite from her own crazed thoughts. She glanced at the caller ID, then flipped the phone open and said, “Hi Dan, what’s up?”
Her farm manager said, “Didn’t want to bother you while you were at King’s place, but Ivy, there’s a problem with the decorative bridge you wanted across the creek in time for the Harrington wedding.”
“What?” she asked, barely managing to stifle a groan.
Dan Collins started talking fast and Ivy frowned as his words sunk in. There was a huge wedding scheduled for the coming weekend and everyone at Angel Christmas Tree Farm was working hard to make sure it came off without a hitch. The happy couple was from San Francisco and the bride was the daughter of a very wealthy man.
The wedding was bound to make the society pages of the city’s largest newspapers and with that kind of word-of-mouth, Ivy’s neophyte wedding business could really take off in a hurry. She couldn’t afford to have any mistakes.
“Okay, so you’re saying the lumberyard ran out of white cedar?” she repeated. “How is that possible? Having wood available is their job!”
“Well, they’re not out, so much as they’re behind in their deliveries.”
“Great.”
“Not too bad,” Dan told her. “Most of the bridge is completed. It’s only the railing the crew hasn’t finished.”
“Yes, but we still have to get it painted and let it dry before the wedding.” She rubbed her forehead as a headache began to erupt. “So when can they get it to us?”
“Friday,” Dan said.
“Friday?” Ivy’s voice broke on the word. “That’s impossible. We need that bridge completed and ready for photos by Saturday afternoon.”
“Yeah, I know, and I think we’ve got it covered,” he said quickly. “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to send a couple of the boys out to Tahoe to pick up the load and get it back here today.”
“Of course it’s okay with me.” Ivy slumped against the counter as relief coursed through her in a thick wave. “You scared me to death, Dan.”
/> He laughed. “Sorry, but since you’re the boss I’ve got to run this stuff by you.”
“Well, as your boss,” she retorted, her voice teasing, “I’m ordering you to stop giving me heart palpitations. Or Angel Christmas Tree Farm is going to have to find a new manager.”
“I’m not worried,” Dan told her. “You can’t fire a man who used to give you piggyback rides.”
Ivy laughed at the memories he awakened. “Fine, fine. Get the guys on it right away though, okay? Will the crew be there to finish this up tomorrow?”
“You bet they will and they’ll have that bridge built, sanded and painted by Thursday. I guarantee it.”
“Thanks, Dan. Don’t know what I’d do without you.” She hung up, tucked her phone into her pocket and froze when Tanner’s voice boomed out into the otherwise still room.
“You own Angel Christmas Tree Farm?”
Ten
She whipped around and her gaze locked with his. He was standing in the doorway, hands braced on the jambs, glaring at her as if he’d never seen her before. This was not how she’d planned for him to find out the truth.
“Oh, God. Tanner…”
“You are the owner of the Christmas tree lot.”
It wasn’t a question this time. It was a statement, said in a cold, hard voice, that sounded nothing like the man she’d come to know. This was going to be much harder than she’d thought it would be.
Hairy trotted past Tanner and went straight to Ivy. He sat down at her feet, looked up at her and whined a little as if in sympathy.
“Answer me.”
“Yes,” she said. One word and it couldn’t possibly convey what she was feeling. Ivy’s heart sank. She finally completely understood that old saying, as an icy hole opened up in the pit of her stomach and her heart dropped right into it. The look on Tanner’s face chilled her to the bone.
She was so used to seeing a flash of humor in his eyes or even that shuttered look he got when he felt she was getting too close. The expression on his face now was one she’d never seen before. This wasn’t hot fury, this was cold rage. His features were taut and his eyes were eerily blank as he gave her a look usually reserved for bugs under a microscope.
“You’ve been lying to me since the day you walked in here.”
Stomach churning, eyes filling with tears she refused to shed, she nodded. “Yes. I have.”
“Look at that,” he mused in a sneer. “So you are at least capable of honesty.”
That stung. Until he’d entered her life, she’d always been honest. “Damn it, Tanner. I didn’t mean—”
“Please. Of course you did.”
“Okay yes,” she admitted, feeling a frantic rush inside to get out everything she wanted to say. “I did lie to you deliberately. I wanted to try to make you—”
“Horny? Well, congrats. It worked.” He pushed off the doorjamb and folded his arms across his chest in a silent maneuver that told her plainly that he was already shutting her out.
“No,” she argued. “That wasn’t it.”
“And I should believe you?”
This wasn’t what she’d wanted, but maybe it was no more than she deserved. She had set out to trick him. To lie to him. To seduce him into not only liking her, but the town, the valley, so that he’d stop making trouble for her farm. She hadn’t exactly gone into this with the best of motives. Was it any wonder that she was now getting kicked in the head by her own maneuvering?
“I only wanted to get to know you. To let you get to know me,” she told him, words tumbling from her in a wild rush. “You were so determined to make trouble for the farm and you stayed locked up here so no one could talk to you, so—”
“Ah,” he said, moving into the kitchen with a panther’s deadly grace. Every move was quiet, contained and only defined the fury she felt pumping off of him in thick waves. “So your lies were my fault. You were forced to come into my house and lie to my face because I gave you no other choice.”
Afternoon sunlight speared through the kitchen windows. The wall on the clock ticked so loudly, it echoed the heavy rhythm of Ivy’s own heart. Hairy’s whining crept up a notch in volume as if he sensed the tension mounting in the room.
She looked into Tanner’s familiar eyes and read only anger churning in those depths. Her heart ached and the cold that had a grip on her insides only deepened. She’d waited too long, Ivy told herself. She should have confessed all to him days ago.
“Tanner, you can at least listen to me,” she said, never taking her gaze from his, despite how much it hurt to look at him and see nothing of the man she loved looking back at her.
“Why should I?” he countered, closing in on her. “You have more lies for me?”
“No.” She sighed a little, then took a breath and said, “I was going to tell you today. I’d made up my mind that I couldn’t pretend anymore.”
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “The strain must have been hard on you.”
Through her misery, through the pain, her own temper started to flicker brightly. Yes, she had been wrong to lie to him. But she was apologizing, wasn’t she? Standing here in front of him, letting him take potshots at her without firing back. Didn’t that count for anything?
Oh, Ivy had been dreading this confrontation. She’d known it was eventually coming. How could it not? He couldn’t live in Cabot Valley and not find out the truth about who she was. But somehow, she’d hoped to find a better way of telling him than this.
Why hadn’t she confessed all after their night together?
She knew why. Because she loved him. Because she had known even then that when the truth was finally out, she would lose this time with him.
Now she had to pay the price.
She lifted one hand to reach for him, then let it fall to her side, an unfulfilled wish. “It was. I hated lying to you. After that first day, I knew it was a mistake. But I couldn’t find a way to tell you the truth, either.”
“That’s a lie, too, Ivy,” he said quietly. “You didn’t want to tell me. You were too busy trying to win me over.”
“Okay yes,” she admitted. “That was part of it. Sure. When Mitchell—”
His eyes went wide and a fast rush of color filled his cheeks. “Mitchell? Damn it, I hadn’t thought. Of course Mitchell was in this with you. He’s the one who hired you! He had to know who you really were.”
“Don’t blame him,” she said quickly, wishing she could pull her own words back. She hadn’t meant to spill the beans on Tanner’s friend and lawyer. That part had slipped out. “He called to talk to me about the complaints you’d been making and we started talking and things…” she threw her hands up in the air helplessly, “…just took off from there. I don’t even remember whose idea it was originally.”
“That’s perfect,” he muttered. “My best friend is in this with you. Both of you lying to me.”
“You didn’t give us much choice, Tanner,” she snapped, feeling the growing edge of temper beginning to boil within.
He laughed. “So this is my fault?”
“No. I didn’t say that,” she said. “All I’m saying is that you don’t make it easy, Tanner. You won’t talk to people. You shut yourself away in this house and—”
“You’ve been here two weeks, Ivy. Every damn day for two weeks. You’ve had plenty of chances to talk to me. You just didn’t.”
“I knew going into this that I shouldn’t lie to you, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
“Talk to me? Tell me the damn truth?”
“Oh, because you were so easy to have a conversation with,” she retorted, feeling the sting of his accusation even as she admitted he wasn’t that far wrong.
“You’re really something,” he said and his voice was low and tight. “You had me fooled. I really bought it all—hook, line and sinker. Have a good laugh every night when you went home, did you?”
“It wasn’t like that,” she insisted, wondering how she could salvage any of this.
“
Then how was it?” His eyes narrowed on her as he chuckled darkly. “Must have panicked you when I showed up over at the farm.”
“Yeah,” she said. “It did.”
“Now that I think back on it, you did look more than surprised to see me. But I’ve gotta hand it to you. You recover fast.”
Temper and misery were warring inside her and they were so tangled up now, she couldn’t even separate them. His jaw was tight, his full mouth flattened into a grim line and his eyes were practically throwing off sparks.
“You took me on a tour,” he said, with a slow shake of his head. “Introduced me to the owner, or who I thought was the owner…” He stopped, tipped his head to one side and waited for her to fill in the blank.
“My grandfather. Mike Angel.”
“Right.” He nodded. “So the family that lies together stays together?”
Okay, he could say what he wanted about her, maybe she deserved most of this. But her grandfather was off-limits. Mike had been against this from the beginning and damned if she was going to stand there and let Tanner King insult him.
“Pop had nothing to do with it,” she told him. “He tried to stop me.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.” His eyes were so dark now, Ivy couldn’t even read the anger there anymore. He was locking himself away even as she stood there and watched him. Shutting her out. Shutting himself down. And there was nothing she could do to prevent it.
Seconds ticked past and the only sound was Hairy’s tail thumping against the floor as if he were somehow trying to reach one or both of them.
“What about the sex, Ivy?” Those words were whispered, but the force behind them was clear enough. “All that a lie, too? You turn yourself into a martyr for the cause?”
Insulted now, she straightened up, lifted her chin and looked him dead in the eye. “No, it wasn’t a lie. None of it was.”
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