by Erin Wright
She’d enjoyed leaning against his side, dammit. She’d enjoyed having his arm around her shoulders as they’d sat there. It made her sound like she was in junior high all over again – excited about nothing but snuggling with a boy – but she couldn’t seem to help it.
He looked down at her, obviously noticing the same number of stares that she had, and said, “Ready to head out?” in a jovial-if-overly-loud tone of voice. He was trying to save her from embarrassment, which was…sweet.
Really sweet.
Unfortunately, he’d caught her mid-bite into the donut, jelly oozing out the sides, and so she couldn’t do anything more than just nod her agreement.
She really should stop eating jelly donuts. They were just so damn good.
A couple of older farmers in the area said their goodbyes to Austin on the way out of the church, but no one said anything to her. Hell, they might not have even recognized her. It’d been years since she’d been back in Long Valley.
Ugh. Who was she kidding? She was Ivy McLain, one of the two McLain girls in town, and her brilliant red hair, even more vibrant in color than Iris’, was not exactly easy to miss.
Ivy licked her fingers clean as they made their way back to the truck, trying to get the sticky sugary wonder that was Mrs. Frank’s Homemade Donuts off her fingers, when she heard Austin clearing his throat. She looked up at him and caught a strangled look of panic? Lust? flitting across his face before it was replaced by a smile. It was so fast, she wasn’t sure if she’d even seen it, or if she’d just imagined it. She studied his face for a moment longer and then decided that since the lighting wasn’t so great in the oversized parking lot, she was probably just seeing things.
After he helped her into the truck, he hurried around to his side, but instead of heading home, he started driving the streets of Sawyer.
“I thought you’d want to get out of there,” he said as way of explanation, as he turned down another street bedecked with Christmas lights. There went the house of her sixth grade crush. Oh, and there was her high school debate teacher’s house.
It was so weird being back in Long Valley. Every street was filled to the brim with…memories. She wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or bad, although she was heavily leaning in the direction of bad.
Memories of Long Valley were pretty much never good.
She realized she’d been silent too long. “Yeah,” she said quickly, trying to fill in the hole created by her wandering mind. “I haven’t been home in a while, so I’m sure a couple of people were wondering what I was doing there.” Not only that, but what I was doing there with you.
She kept that thought to herself. If Austin hadn’t yet noticed that she wasn’t the most gorgeous girl in town, she wasn’t about to inform him of the need for glasses.
“So what do you do in California?” Austin asked.
Ivy felt a bit of panic lodge itself in her throat. Wait tables while pretending to be a successful artist. Somehow, she was pretty sure that wasn’t a great answer, so she swallowed it whole. “I went to the California College of the Arts, where I got my Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing,” she said with an overly cheerful grin. “Iris was always the one with the athletic talent, while I was the artistic one. Iris is lucky if she can pull off a stick-figure drawing, which is only fair. I have to beat her at something, right?”
At the genuine chuckle from Austin, Ivy felt her stomach unclench just a smidge. She’d spent her entire life trying to live up to Iris’ example, and had failed on every count. Not as tall, not as pretty, not as skinny, not as athletic, not as well loved by every person who met her…
Compared to her ultra-perfect sister, Ivy was pretty much a failure. Except when it came to art. It was a world where she’d always excelled.
Until she actually had to pay her rent with her work, at which point she was once again a failure.
She pushed that thought away. No reason to focus on that. Not tonight.
“When did you decide that you wanted to be an artist?” Austin asked as they turned down yet another wintry street. This one had a home where they’d gone all out, complete with a Nativity Scene made of blow-up dolls. Ivy bit back her grin at the sight. Somehow, Baby Jesus being represented by a blob of inflated plastic just didn’t fit her idea of the Christmas season, but she obviously had different views than the owner of 437 Oak Street.
“The first time I won a coloring contest. The Shop ’N Go holds one every year, and I won my division when I was a kindergartener. I won my division every year until I graduated from high school. It started out with a prize for a candy bar of my choice, and worked its way up until I got a $250 scholarship when I was a senior in high school. At the time, I really thought $250 was a ton of money and was going to get me somewhere. It wasn’t until I got to San Francisco and enrolled in my classes that I realized that it only barely covered one textbook.”
Austin looked at her and grinned. “I’m happy to hear that colleges are just as expensive in California as they are in North Idaho,” he said dryly. “I’d hate to hear I overpaid for my secondary education.”
They laughed together, the happiness rushing through her chest as she grinned back at him. Ever since high school, she’d hated cowboys. They were assholes who broke her heart and made fun of her to other students. They were also dumb hicks who couldn’t count unless they removed their boots and socks first.
But talking to Austin…he was this totally different creature from every other cowboy she’d ever met. He didn’t chew tobacco or say “ain’t” or…
Kiss girls under bleachers while his girlfriend stupidly waited for him to come sit next to her to watch a football game.
Her eyes searched his face. Well, maybe he did. Maybe he did all of those things, and she just hadn’t seen that side of him yet. It wasn’t like she’d spent years in his company or something. She was being awfully naïve, simply believing that he was a good guy who wouldn’t pull that kind of stunt because she wanted it to be true.
What kind of proof did she have to back that belief up? The fact that he was adorable when he smiled?
That wasn’t proof. That was her hormones talking.
That was nothing but wishful thinking.
“So what kind of artwork do you do?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts. “Paint? Sculpt? Draw?”
“Oil paints,” she said, “although I always sketch out what I’m going to do beforehand. I tend to paint abstract expressionism, which is all the rage down in Cali right now.”
And then he was asking her questions and she was answering, and she realized how much fun it was to talk about art with a novice, who didn’t have any preconceived notions about what was the best kind of art, or the most sophisticated kind of art. It was such a different way of looking at art from what she was used to, what between her art teachers at college and the art gallery owners she’d finally managed to make friends with, all of whom were focused on the latest trends, the biggest names.
Austin had an earthy way of looking at art that was…unpretentious. She started laughing at one point. “I bet you think that antlers are a perfectly valid decorating style, don’t you?” she asked in a half-accusatory tone of voice.
He grinned over at her. “Have you been peeking in my living room window while I was sleeping?” he demanded. “There’s a four-point right over my couch that all the guys down at Frank’s Feed are jealous of.”
She bust out laughing. “I bet they are…”
He pulled to a stop and Ivy blinked, realizing that he’d finally made his way to her home when she hadn’t been paying attention. He hurried around to the passenger side of the truck and helped her down, tucking her arm in his as they made their way to the dark front door. She shoved her other hand into her pocket, wishing for the hundredth time that she’d thought to bring her gloves with her from California. Not that they would be a lot of use in this weather, since they were more for show than function, but they would have to do some good in this su
b-zero weather she’d inexplicably found herself in.
They reached the front steps, lit only by a string of Christmas lights marching across the roofline of the house, and Ivy paused. Was he going to kiss her? Hug her? Tell her have a good life and drive off into the night?
He pulled her against him and hugged her tight. “Goodnight, Ivy,” he said softly into her hair. “Thanks for hanging out with me tonight.”
And then he was gone, crunching his way back to his truck, and she was left alone on her parents’ front doorstep, staring after him, uncertain if she was happy or sad that he hadn’t taken a chance and kissed her.
It was probably for the best, but a part of her still wished for something more.
Chapter 8
Austin
He climbed into his truck and settled back against his leather seat, staring out into the darkness, cut through by his headlights. Small flakes continued to drift down through the beams of light trying so valiantly to penetrate the darkness.
“Austin Bishop, you’re an idiot,” he said out loud. When he’d seen her lick her fingers clean of the sugar and jam from the donuts, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever breathe again. It had to be the most innocently erotic thing he’d ever seen in his life. He’d wanted to drive her around after that, if only to calm his libido down before dropping her off at home. He wasn’t sure if he could bring her to within feet of her bed without seriously messing something up otherwise.
And sleeping with Ivy McLain would seriously mess something up. She was probably on her way back to California in the morning, or maybe even the day after that, but either way, it didn’t matter. He was staying here. Having her and then losing her would probably be worse than never having her at all.
It was fun to go on a date with her. It was a blast, actually. Her enthusiasm when it came to art, her intelligence, her beauty, her laugh…
She was a lethal combination, a drug he couldn’t let into his system. He’d tried loving a woman before. He’d loved her for years, and look at how that’d turned out.
No, it was best that he dropped Ivy off and drove away. Away from the temptation, away from her, away from a huge mistake.
Austin was many things, but a player wasn’t one of them. A one-night stand wasn’t his style.
He put his hand on the gear shift and pushed in the clutch, throwing his truck in reverse.
It was time to go home.
Chapter 9
Ivy
Ivy settled down further into the couch with a groan, wrapping her hands around her mug of coffee. She was exhausted. Anyone who’d spent two days talking sense into Iris would be exhausted.
Her sister put the stubborn in McLain.
Huh. Okay, so that didn’t make much sense. She sighed and took another sip of her coffee. She obviously needed all the help she could get.
The good news was, after two days of beating on the thick skull that was Iris McLain, Ivy and her mom had finally convinced her that it was best to tell Declan the truth. The whole truth. Even the part about how she didn’t think she could take care of kids. And the part where medical coding from home was slowly making her blind. Dr. Mor, the local optometrist, had told Iris to either stop coding, or get ready to use a cane and a seeing-eye dog for the rest of her life.
Yeah, all of it.
Ivy wasn’t always the biggest Declan fan – him leaving her sister for fifteen years without explanation, forcing Ivy to help clean up the mess left behind didn’t exactly endear her to him – but…that night of the accident? He’d come to the hospital, petrified. Upset beyond anything she’d ever seen. Declan was normally the most mellow, laid-back human being on the face of the planet, a peacemaker to an extreme. She’d heard through the grapevine that he’d gotten punched more than once when he’d thrown himself between his two warring brothers, stopping a fight with his face, and she had no problems at all believing that story.
On a normal day, he made Gandhi look like a warmonger.
But that night at the hospital? He’d been torn to pieces by what had happened, and by the fact that no one had told him anything. It’d been Iris’ call, of course – she’d been the one to insist that no one say a word to him. In fact, Ivy still didn’t know how he knew, other than the gossip chain that was Long Valley.
Seeing him in the hospital that night had told Ivy what she needed to know – that he truly did love Iris. Even if they were both too stubborn to admit it, those two were meant to be together.
So, after two days of arguing with Iris, Ivy had finally convinced her of that fact too, which was nothing short of a Christmas miracle, at least in Ivy’s eyes.
Speaking of Christmas…
She pulled her phone out and reread the form email from the airline that they’d sent her after she’d called to cancel her flight back to California. The employee had tried to talk to her at the time and warn her about fees and such, but Ivy had been so upset, she hadn’t paid much attention.
Any attention, really.
But now…
She scrolled down through the email, dread growing in her stomach. When she’d originally booked her flight up to Idaho, she’d skipped the trip insurance option because it was just one more fee that the airlines liked to tack onto flight prices, and she’d barely been able to afford the base ticket price. In hindsight, not the most brilliant choice she could’ve made.
The cost of moving her return ticket to another date was almost as much as it would cost to simply buy another ticket. The dread becoming thicker by the moment, she flipped over to the airline app and began scrolling through one-way tickets from Boise to Sacramento going out in the next week.
Thousands. It would cost thousands of dollars.
She began entering in dates further and further away. After Christmas. After New Year’s. Finally, she hit dates in the second week of January that were more reasonable, comparatively speaking, of course.
By that point, though, she wouldn’t be able to afford even the cheaper ticket price. Her boss, Barry, had let her take the weekend off for her parent’s wedding anniversary, after she’d pinky sworn that she’d be back before the rush for the holidays really hit. She’d been booked solid on the calendar in the diner’s kitchen until after New Year's.
When Iris had fallen and hurt herself again, she’d texted Barry and pleaded for another week, and he’d begrudgingly given it to her. As the restaurant manager, his focus was on fully staffing the diner for the holiday rush, not on her personal life. Or anyone’s personal life. He wasn’t exactly well-known for having a heart of gold.
But now…
She wouldn’t be able to fly back for a little over a month. Which meant no income that whole time. Which meant no job when she did return, because Barry absolutely wouldn’t forgive her being gone that long. Which meant no apartment to return to, because how on earth would she pay January’s rent without a paycheck from December?
She stared at her phone, her eyes no longer seeing anything, as the hot tears filled her eyes and then began dripping down her face. Someday, her parents were going to catch onto the fact that their darling younger daughter was not, in fact, going back to California and had, in fact, moved herself right back into their house. They would want to know why. Which means she’d have to fess up to years of white lies and gray lies, and some outright black lies.
Ivy was pretty sure she’d be willing to do almost anything to keep from having to do that, but what that “anything” consisted of, she couldn’t begin to guess. The easiest thing would be to get a job as a waitress in Sawyer at Betty’s Diner, except:
a) Tiffany worked at that diner, which automatically made it a no-go; and
b) Even if Tiffany didn’t work there, her parents would surely notice if Ivy suddenly became a waitress at a local restaurant, and they’d want to know why. Surely their uber-successful, hasn’t-worked-at-a-restaurant-for-years daughter wouldn’t get a job over Christmas simply to pass the time.
Ivy was stuck in the worst pickle of her life,
and she didn’t have a clue of how to get out of the mess she’d created.
The hot tears trailed ever faster down her face.
Chapter 10
Austin
His hand hovered over his cell phone as he debated with himself. He should call Declan to find out how Iris was doing. It’s only neighborly, right? And if the conversation just happened to drift toward Ivy, well, that would just be a happy coincidence.
Nothing more than that.
He snatched the phone up and after unlocking it, tapped #1 in his favorites – the only phone number listed in his favorites section, and didn’t that just say something about him that he didn’t exactly want to think about just then – and listened to the phone ring.
Just as he thought it was going to go to voicemail, he heard Declan’s deep voice come through.
“Hey Declan! Just calling to find out how Iris is doing.” Casual. So very casual. The only way he could be more casual was if he put on swim trunks and perched a pair of sunglasses on top of his head.
“Good, good. She’s back at home finally, and is spending a lot of her time resting up. That girl…” Austin could hear the half laugh, half groan come through loud and clear. “I’ve been thinking about buying her a donkey for Christmas. Just so she knows what it’s like to be around someone as stubborn as her.”
Austin laughed. That would really only work if Iris bought him a donkey in return. Truly, two people couldn’t be more perfectly suited for each other, at least when it came to the Stubborn Scale.
“Oh hey, before I forget: Iris has been bugging me to bug you. She wants you to attend the First Annual Miller / McLain Christmas Party. Since Ivy isn’t going back to San Francisco until after the holidays, Iris thought it would be fun to have a big get-together to celebrate. I knew with everything going on with your parents, you probably wouldn’t want to go back home for Christmas.”
