Love Blooms on Main Street (13 page)

“Or you could end up stranded in the dead of winter on an empty country road. In the dark. Probably without any cellular reception.”

“Well, aren't you just the angel of death? I intend to get it fixed, once I have the money for it. It hasn't broken down on me yet, I'll have you know. Sometimes it works just fine, and sometimes it's just slow to warm up, but after—”

He held up his hand. He couldn't hear it one more time.

He stood back, inspected the car. He hadn't seen wood paneling since the eighties. The thing probably didn't even have air bags. “You might drive this car all over the state seven days a week, but tonight, you're not driving it.”

She blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

He reached through the window and, before she had a chance to react, turned the key and removed it.

“What did you do that for? It could take another half an hour for me to get it running again!”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Then you've proved my point. We're headed in the same direction. I'll drive you.”

“I'm not getting in a car with you,” she exclaimed, seeming horrified at the mere thought of it.

That stung, but he didn't show it. Instead, he held the car door open and waited patiently for Ivy to climb out. Her keys were tight in his grip, and there was no way he was relinquishing them tonight. Not when he'd feel responsible if she broke down on the side of the road or the engine cut out while she was driving.

She glared at him and then, with a huff, pushed herself out of the car and strode past him, chin high, shoulders squared, leaving him with a slack jaw in the trail of her soft, sweet scent.

He slammed her car door closed and then, when he heard the rattle, wished that he had been a little more gentle.

“I was just running into the grocery store for a bottle of wine.” He shoved his hands into his pocket, locking Ivy's blazing gaze. Even though she said she was fine with it, it still felt awkward to bring up alcohol around her. He supposed it was the same way people felt mentioning the c-word around him. And he'd rather they not dance around the subject. It only made him feel less normal, made him remember things he'd rather forget. He decided to loosen up and have the same approach with Ivy. “Do you think I should bring white or red?”

“White,” Ivy replied simply. “It's hot as heck out here, and something chilled would be nice.”

If he had any last trepidations about broaching the subject, they were now gone. He pushed the door to the store open and motioned for Ivy to pass through. Her long hesitation told him she wasn't going to be charmed so easily, but just the same, he felt a little lighter in his step as they walked to the back of the store and she slipped him a smile as he selected the bottle. He couldn't say he'd ever been grocery shopping with a woman before. A friend, maybe. His mother, of course. His cousins didn't count. But a girl like Ivy, a girl he was attracted to? Never. It made him think of how it could be to live life with someone else, to share the small duties that married couples did.

He didn't need to think about things that would never be.

I
vy didn't know how she got through the fifteen-minute car ride to Jane and Henry's house. Sheer willpower alone had kept her from glancing over at the perfect slope of Brett's chin, the curve of his lips, the memory of them pressed against hers, grazing down her neck. Once, she had dared to slide her gaze over to his denim-covered thigh, but the quiver that had ripped down her spine and straight to the space between her legs put a quick stop to that.

She stared out the windshield, gritting her teeth and counting down the minutes as she told Brett where to turn. If he hadn't snatched her keys, and if Henry wasn't counting on her showing up tonight, she never would have agreed to ride in his car. Even if it was a very nice car, compared to her own—not that she would admit she missed air-conditioning, especially in late June, when the muggy heat sometimes made her worry the flowers would wilt before they got to her destination—and even if the man driving it was ridiculously attractive. Being here like this with him stirred up all those childish fantasies she'd played over and over all through her adolescence and, sadly, beyond. But it was nothing like in her dreams. It was instead just a hint of what could have been, had Brett been a different man than he'd turned out to be.

She thought of the way he'd snuck his hand through her window and turned off the ignition before she even realized what he was doing. She'd been so damn lost in those dark eyes that she'd been disarmed. She couldn't help but smile at the effort. She might just call it chivalrous, if she wasn't so furious. She supposed it was… nice.

But no. No. Brett couldn't be nice. He
was
nice, as a kid, but not anymore. Brett the nice guy was the Brett she had crushed on for way too long. Brett the egotistical jerk was the guy she could see as attractive and nothing else.

It was probably some part of his doctor's oath. He probably felt he had some civic duty not to let her drive her car, even if it was perfectly safe, even on these empty back roads.

Ivy unhooked her seat belt as they pulled into Jane and Henry's driveway, eager for a quick getaway. Jane was standing behind the screen door with Sophie as Ivy scrambled from the car, looking surprised but pleased when she saw Brett step out of the driver's seat and much more calmly close his door.

If this had been a dinner at, say, Rosemary Hastings's house, Ivy would have been suspicious, but Jane and Henry had no motives when it came to her nonexistent love life. All they cared about was her health. And they cared entirely too much about it, if anyone asked her. Which of course, no one ever did.

“I have a loose tooth!” Sophie announced proudly, bringing her finger up to her mouth to demonstrate.

Jane pushed her hand back. “Let Mother Nature run its course.”

“I have two wiggly ones,” Sophie continued, ignoring her mother. “See?”

Ivy watched as the child moved the two front teeth with her tongue and tried not to laugh. “Impressive!”

“Do you have any wiggly teeth?” the little girl asked as Ivy stepped into the hall.

Ivy laughed. “I hope not, or I'm in real trouble.”

“Thank you for having me,” Brett said, coming up to stand behind her in the too-small entranceway. Had it always been so cramped? Ivy hadn't noticed before, but now she felt like the walls were closing in on her, and there were entirely too many people stuffed into such a tight space. She could feel the warmth of Brett's chest behind her, feel the heat radiating off his body and onto hers in a way that was much too intimate and altogether too tempting, as if they were a couple, arriving for a routine weekend dinner.

She tried to inch forward, but at the same time Brett extended his arm, brushing against her bare arm and sending every hair on end. She rubbed her skin with her hand, cursing herself for not having worn a jean jacket or something to protect against the inevitable drop in temperature once the sun went down. If Brett noticed their touch, he didn't show it, other than to drop his gaze to hers for a hint of a second before grinning back at Jane.

“You shouldn't have!” Jane exclaimed, taking the gift. “But thank you.”

“It's not every day I get a hot meal. Cafeteria food gets old, and I'm not much of a cook.”

Ivy frowned, wondering if this hermit lifestyle he was describing meant there weren't many restaurant meals, either. The thought of him eating his dinners alone, at work or in his bachelor pad, perked her up a bit. So maybe he wasn't going out on dates, wooing other women.

Stop right there, Ivy.
Just because he wasn't wooing other women didn't mean he was wooing her.

“Well, Anna is the cook in our family,” Jane said, “so I guess between the two of us, we don't stand much of a chance.”

“Here,” Ivy said, reaching into her bag to retrieve the cookies Kara had given her that morning. “I brought dessert.”

“Cookies! Are these the ones Kara made?” Jane asked.

Ivy frowned in confusion. “Yes. How did you know?”

“There was a school bake sale last week I completely forgot about. I stopped by the restaurant to see if Anna had anything I could purchase, and she said she had a box of cookies from Kara on hand.”

Ivy considered this information and tucked it away to relay to Kara later. “They're the very same,” she said, then turned to Brett, grinning. “In fact, Brett is going to be giving them away at the hospital fundraiser.”

His gaze dropped to hers, his smile slow and secret. It set a tingle down her spine, as if they were in on something together.

“Well, I'm glad you brought them,” Jane said. “They were gone before I could have a bite last time, and I've been dying to try them.”

“That makes two of us,” Henry said, coming over to greet them. Ivy couldn't help but notice the nervous flick of his eyes from her to the cookies and back again. She brushed away the twinge of annoyance she felt, despite how valid his concern may have once been. He was just being overly cautious, but she'd put his worries to rest as soon as they had a private moment.

Of all people, he knew when to back off and just let her have a good time.

And she intended to have a good time tonight.

She slid a glance at Brett, and her heart did a little jumping jack. Well, not
too
good of a time.

“Cookies! I love cookies!” Sophie was already reaching for the bag excitedly.

“Not until after you've eaten your dinner,” Jane said.

“Awww.” Sophie folded her arms across her chest in a huff and pushed out her lips.

All the adults in the room burst out laughing, which, by the low growl Sophie then released, was not the reaction she had been hoping for.

Still, it broke the ice, and therefore it was just what Ivy had been hoping for.

“Come on,” Jane said brightly. “Let's go back into the kitchen. I set out some appetizers.”

The appetizers consisted of carrot and celery sticks surrounding a bowl of what Ivy knew to be yogurt-based dip. In other words: rabbit food. Jane and Henry did their best to support her diet, even if sometimes their effort went a little overboard.

“I had a patient the other day who could learn a thing or two from you, Jane,” Brett said, helping himself to a few carrots. “His wife was hysterical, convinced he was having a heart attack. Turns out he'd engaged in an afternoon eating contest with one of his other retired buddies. Spent the entire day wolfing cheeseburgers, onion rings, mozzarella sticks, nachos with extra jalapeños, and beer.”

Ivy laughed. “Sounds delicious, actually.” Sighing, she reached for a carrot stick herself. “How's work at the hospital?”

See, she could do this. Simple chitchat. Just like she would do with anyone else. She'd show him she didn't care. She'd show herself, too.

“Eh.” He shrugged.

“Not as exciting as an inner-city emergency room, I gather,” Henry said, hoisting Sophie so she could reach the tray.

“You could say that.” Brett's expression seemed to darken. “But we still get some serious cases coming through the door. Just not as frequently,” he added.

Jane shuddered. “I don't know how you do it. All those people. Hurt.”

Brett gave a modest shrug. “I like to help them.”

Ivy thought of the way he looked that day she'd come in for the fundraiser meeting, like some doctor straight off a medical drama. Even though she knew he was a doctor, somehow seeing him in scrubs, in his element, made the fact that he actually had the ability to spring into action, call out orders, and potentially save a life… terribly attractive.

And that is just plain terrible, Ivy.

“How 'bout a beer?” Henry asked, opening the fridge. He took out a bottle and held it up to Brett, opting for a soda for himself. Ivy watched as the two men went onto the deck to start the grill, Henry carrying a plate of shrimp Jane had pressed into his hands.

Unlike herself, Henry had a very different reason for never drinking, and it saddened her to think that to this day, he was still haunted by their childhood. She knew he shielded her from the worst of it as much as he could. He was more in tune with the warning signs and triggers, more capable of suggesting they leave the house or that she spend the night at Grace's house. She let him have that role, even when she was finally able to see what was going on, too. It made him feel better to have the sense that he was doing something, when so much was out of their control.

It was why he was so protective of her again now, she supposed. Henry had left town after college, and it was Ivy who had taken over the role of dealing with their mother. She didn't mind—she hadn't had the chance before, and she saw it as a way of making it up to her brother. It felt good to be needed for a change, to be able to care for him in her own silent way the way he had done up to that point. But she knew that Henry felt guilty about not coming back sooner.

“I don't plan to eat those cookies, you know,” she whispered to Jane. She'd always played a big-sister role with Jane, but in recent years Jane had felt like more of an adult than she was. After all, Jane had a house, a kid… What did Ivy have?

Petals on Main, she reminded herself. Her pride and joy.

Jane leaned across the breakfast bar. “You know we don't mind skipping dessert when you're here.”

“But you shouldn't have to! All my life I've watched people eat everything I couldn't. It never bothers me.” She met Jane's knowing look. “Well, not much.”

“I just know how I felt when I was trying to lose that baby weight after I had Sophie. I'll never forget the time Anna showed up to our mother's house with the most decadent brownies I had ever seen and then proceeded to polish off six in front of me, not even thinking of the fact that I was practically whimpering inside.”

Ivy laughed softly. “I've gotten used to it. But you have to tell Henry to stop worrying so much.”

“Yes, but you're his sister. He's always going to be protective of you. Would you rather he wasn't?”

Ivy sighed. “Of course not.”

“It's one of the things I always loved about him,” Jane admitted with a secret smile. “He's always looking out for the people he cares about. Even when I didn't want to hear what he had to say sometimes… about Adam… I knew he had my best interest at heart.”

Henry had loved Jane all his life, and he stood by and watched as she married his best friend—and the most undeserving man alive, if anyone had asked Ivy. “I'm really happy you guys ended up together.”

“Me too.” Jane bit into the end of a carrot. “Now what about you? Any knights in shining armor hanging around the flower shop lately?”

“You've been there this week,” Ivy said, even though Jane's hours had been cut back a bit.

“I seem to recall you mentioning at some point that you're looking for someone tall, dark, handsome. Stable. Settled. Family oriented.” She tipped her chin to the sliding glass doors that divided the kitchen from the deck. “What about Brett?”

Ivy felt her cheeks warm. “Oh, I don't think so.”

“Why not? He's cute. Smart, too.”

And completely unavailable. But she couldn't exactly tell Jane that without offering up how she knew this information.

“Well, he seems like a catch to me,” Jane said. “And I bet a lot of other girls feel the same way.”

Jane was right about that part, Ivy thought. But as for Brett being a catch… once she might have thought so. Now she knew better.

It was nearly eight by the time they finished their meals, having languished over the grilled shrimp and salad Jane had prepared. The conversation was light, mostly centered around everything Brett had missed around town, and they'd all shared a good laugh about Rosemary's near miss with renting out the dance studio to a local art center in need of space.

“When I think of the look on her face when she realized paint was involved!” Jane burst out laughing. Fondly, she patted Henry on the arm. “It's all because of Henry that things turned around for the studio.”

“Oh, not entirely,” Henry said with a modest shrug. “All I did was suggest a few ways to improve the place.”

“Well, the write-up you did on Briar Creek didn't hurt much either,” Ivy pointed out. It was the last article Henry had written for the travel magazine before taking over the town newspaper and officially ending his wandering days.

“I'd like to see that article,” Brett mused.

“You should,” Jane said, standing up to fetch him a copy from the stack she kept on hand on the lower shelf of the hall console. She tapped the picture on the cover. “Your brother's restaurant is front and center, and even Hastings is mentioned.”

“Really?” Brett flipped through the magazine, until he came to the centerfold of Main Street covered in a blanket of snow. “It looks so picturesque.” He seemed baffled by the idea of it.