Miller Brothers in Love

by Erin Wright

  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 phys
ical 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 you 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.

  “I know. It’s funny – seeing those paintings at that store made me understand why you did, though.”

  “They did?” She stared at him, trying to understand.

  “Yeah. Seeing how much talent you have – it’s a part of your soul. To be surrounded by blithering idiots who couldn’t see that talent and appreciate it must’ve slowly been driving you crazy.”

  “Well, I was also painting different stuff back then,” she said. “Maybe I wasn’t as good at—”

  “You could flip paint at a canvas and it’d be beautiful,” he staunchly informed her.

  She cocked an eyebrow at him, mimicking one of his favorite gestures. “Have you ever considered that you might be biased?” she teased him.

  “Biased? I’m not biased,” he protested.

  “Maybe the other people looking at my paintings weren’t in love with me,” she whispered, biting her lower lip and staring straight at him.

  She was done hiding. She was done being scared. She would say what she thought, what she meant, what she felt. If the world couldn’t handle the truth, then that was their fault, not hers.

  And she was starting with Austin.

  He was staring at her, hardly breathing, his heart in his eyes. “You think I’m in love with you?” he whispered softly. He began to lean towards her. Just a little. But she saw it, and she knew what it meant.

  “Yes, I do,” she whispered back. “I think you’ve loved me since I spilled that damn apple cider all over you.”

  He grinned, his eyes crinkling up in the corners. “I really should make you pay to dry clean that jacket,” he whispered.

  She felt ridiculous, whispering to him when there wasn’t anyone else in the room, but she leaned forward anyway, and whispered back, “I know how to pay you back.”

  “You do?” he asked breathlessly.

  “I do,” she murmured.

  Finally, finally, their lips touched, and the heat and electricity and sparks arced between them so bright and strong, she was sure they were lighting up the nighttime sky above Sawyer. Tears were rolling down her cheeks – happy tears, this time – as they murmured and kissed, wiping her tears away with the pads of his thumb, whispering that he did love her. He loved her so damn much.

  “Will you move in with me?” Austin asked as they finally came up for air. “I have a lot more space at my house – you could have your own art room even. I just don’t want to go home without you. Please.”

  She shook her head slowly, smiling slightly. “No,” she whispered, her tone at odds with her answer.

  “No?” he repeated, confused.

  “If I do that, I’ll never know if I could make it as an artist. On my own two feet. Without waitressing or my parents or you supporting me. I need to know this for me. I need to do this for me. I love you, I’ll date you, and if someday you ask me, I might even marry you.”

  “Might?” he asked, repeating her again.

  “A girl’s gotta keep a guy on his toes,” she said and winked. “But never again am I going to allow someone else’s beliefs about me and what I should do or who I should be control me. And I’m not saying that you’d do that on purpose, but I need to know that I, Ivy Green—” she winked again, “—McLain can stand on my own two feet. And if I end up having to take a waitressing job, well, it’ll be in Franklin—” he let out a shout of laughter, “—but you’ll know it and the world will know it. I will never lie to you again.”

  He sobered up and stared at her for a long moment. “Thank you,” and then so softly, like words floating on a summer breeze, “I believe you.”

  And in that moment, those words were the sweetest she’d ever heard. She had a long ways to go to earning everyone’s trust back, but she’d started the process, and that meant more to her than anything in the world.

  Well, except for a handsome cowboy named Austin Bishop.

  The world of Long Valley continues. Read on to see the other stories available in the Long Valley world, including a free novella only available to my newsletter subscribers…

  Author’s Note

  Well, you made it to the end, which means that you either love the Long Valley world, or you’re a masochist.

  I’m just gonna assume it’s the former, and go from there.

  a) That was a lot of reading. Like, a quarter-of-a-million-words lot of reading. Congratulations for making it through.

  b) If you’re anything like me (i.e., not a masochist), you’re probably all, “But I don’t wanna stop reading! What happened to Chloe at the diner? And Adam the vet? And why can’t I have Carmelita move into my house?”

  I can totally help you with the first question, sorta help you with the second one, and not help you at all with the third one. #sorry

  The next book in the Long Valley series (Overdue for Love) stars Chloe from the diner, and Adam makes quite an appearance too, although he doesn’t get his own book until Book 7 (Bundle of Love). Which isn’t released until May 2018, so it may or may not be out by time you read this. You should totally preorder / order it here, though. Just sayin’.

  Anyway, Overdue for Love is a story about racism and love and forgiveness and secret babies and all sorts of fun things (like sex!) If you loved the first five books in the Long Valley series, you’ll totally love the sixth one, promise.

  But before I let you go, I thought I should also say that in January of 2018, I started a new series called Firefighters of Long Valley. Book 1 in that series is Flames of Love (links here) and you’ll totally want to read that book because:

  a) Luke and Bonnie Nash make an appearance in it; and

  b) Remember Dick, the guy that Wyatt beat up at the beginning of Arrested by Love? Well, Dick just so happens to have been previously married to Sugar, the female protagonist in Flames of Love, and a lot of backstory that I didn’t show in Arrested shows up in Flames; and

  c)
There’s an adorable dog in Flames that you’ll totally love; and

  d) Gage, the new baker in town who makes a cheesecake for Iris in Returning for Love, plays a huge role in it. Is he really as drool-worthy as everyone seems to think? You’ll just have to read to find out; and

  e) Chloe is Flames also. In case you haven’t had enough Chloe time.

  Okay, you can totally turn the page now and check out Overdue for Love. I’ll let you. Because I am that nice.

  Author’s Note II

  C’mon, you totally knew that was going to happen. How could I keep from adding adorable pictures of Jasmine the Writing Cat in? What kind of self-control do you think I have??

  None, I say!

  All right, fine, here’s Overdue for Love now, for realsies…

  The next book in the Long Valley saga, this is the love story of a man who’d been led to believe he was less than because of his parentage, and the woman he hurt because of that belief.

  Second chances, a child who needs his father…everything is here, along with the chance to spend more time with Adam, the county’s vet. If you love the Long Valley world, come along for a love story you’ll never forget…

  Overdue for Love Excerpt

  Dawson

  Nine Years Ago

  June, 2008

  Dawson Blackhorse watched through narrowed eyes as Chloe Bartell sashayed toward the doors of the stable. He pretended not to notice the way she paused in the open doorway, giving him a deliberate look, and wiggled, a display that was emphasized by the short, tight denim shorts that barely encased her supple cheeks. Dawson was schooled at keeping his expression blank, but he couldn’t keep his groin from tightening at the sight. Thankfully, he was standing in a horse stall that blocked her view of him from the waist down. He allowed himself a faint twitch of his lips at her annoyed expression as she flounced off.