The Ivy House (A Queensbay Novel) (11 page)

Phoebe put her foot up on the ladder and then stopped. “What is it?”

Chase chuckled. “Don’t worry, this isn’t going to bite you.”

Somewhat reassured, Phoebe started up the ladder, entering the low enclosed space.

“Wow.” Phoebe emerged into the dim light of the attic. It ran the whole length of the house, unfinished, rough wood, with nails sticking through the sloped roof.

“Watch your head,” Chase said over his shoulder. He was ahead of her, his flashlight moving this way and that, illuminating an attic full of…stuff. Boxes, trunks, battered suitcases, coat racks filled with clothes, even an old dressmaker’s dummy.

“The mother lode,” Phoebe whispered. There were dormers along the length of the roofline, and the small leaded panes of glass provided some more light. Through it all, swarms of dust filtered and danced, caught in the sunlight.

“Is this her stuff?” Chase turned, the flashlight almost catching Phoebe full in the face before he lowered it.

“Savannah’s?” Phoebe walked over to a stack of boxes. In magic marker, the words, “
Mystic Moon
,” were written. It was the name of one of her movies. Phoebe ran a hand along a dress hanging on one of the coat racks. It had once been white, but now it was creamy, yellowed with age.

“She wore this in
Scott’s Peak
,” Phoebe said. “And these boxes all have the names of different movies on them. Her movies. So, yeah, I would say this is all of her stuff.”

“A whole career,” Chase said. Phoebe looked up at him. He had an almost reverent look on his face as he scanned the collection.

“You’re a fan,” Phoebe said, the realization hitting her suddenly.

“What?” The flashlight jumped and Chase caught a hold of it, before he turned to look at her.

“You, you’re a fan of the late great Savannah Ryan,” Phoebe said, a teasing note creeping into her voice.

Chase smiled, with a slow cat-that-ate-the-canary grin, and said, “Of course I’m a fan of her work. Savannah Ryan made sex sexy back when I was a kid. I think there was only one movie where she took her clothes off, but even as a kid, you could see the sex appeal oozing through the screen. I saw every one of them. Even the bad ones. And she made some real lousy ones.” Chase shook his head.

“Those were to pay the bills. She had expensive tastes and money poured like sand through her hands,” Phoebe explained.

“So Savannah Ryan really didn’t have a heart of gold?” Chase said.

“She was complicated,” Phoebe said, and it was a relief to admit it, even to Chase, who had probably believed it all along. She realized Chase had moved close to her so that there were only a few inches between his chest and her, and once again, she could feel the heat, the palpable pocket of warmth between them, like a current of live electricity snaking through them.

“You were saying?” Chase asked, and Phoebe remembered that she had been saying something.

“About a heart of gold…” Chase prompted. They were close again, just as they had been before in the master bedroom, the space between them just a fraction of an inch. She turned her head up so that their lips were almost ready to touch. Her heart skipped a beat and her breath hitched, knowing how badly she did want this—want Chase Sanders to kiss her—even though it was wrong on so many levels.

But for the life of her, she could not think of a good reason why she should pull away when his lips brushed hers. She moved into him, and his arms came around her, crushing her close to him, his lips finding hers, his hands strong and warm against her back.

Phoebe lifted her arms, her hands finding the back of his neck, brushing up to find his thick, dark hair, while his lips crushed against hers, exploring, inviting. A sound escaped, a moan, which she might have been embarrassed about if she hadn’t been enjoying herself so thoroughly, all her senses engaged, feelings and need coursing through her.

Her lips parted, an invitation, and he took it, his tongue exploring, his teeth nibbling her lips, while his hands pulled her tighter and closer into him so she was possessed, so she couldn’t have moved even if she wanted to. His tongue took hers and his arms brought her closer, and she slid into him, one leg in between his so she could feel his desire, hot and hard for her.

Phoebe lost all rational thought as his hands cupped her backside and then one came around to skim the edge of her waistband. Then, it was gone and his hand found her left breast, his fingers pulling gently at her nipple, which sprang to attention at his touch. His mouth moved down her neck, while one arm braced her back and she arched into him as his lips and teeth slid slowly down her neck, to the v of her t-shirt and then nipped lightly at her nipple, which puckered and pebbled under him.

She felt her knees go weak and a flash of heat and wetness between her legs. Chase stopped for a moment, his eyes darting wildly around, and then his hands picked her up and she was on something hard, a steamer trunk, while he kept kissing her, and she could feel that he was just as aroused as she was.

He looked at her for a moment, his gaze intense, lust darkening his eyes. She couldn’t say anything, but just nodded at him to keep going. Not waiting for more, he kissed her again, and she rose up to meet him, as his hands traveled down the length of her shirt.

Chase pushed up the thin fabric of her shirt and found the sensitive skin. Hot hands brushed against her and she moaned again, arching into him, wanting him, wanting more.

Phoebe couldn’t remember how long this went on because there was another crash and then a shout, loud and hearty.

“Chase, where are you?”

She sprang away from him, but his arms still held her, and he looked down at her, his eyes hazy with want and she felt her lips stinging from his attack.

“And that would be my floor guy.” His voice was hoarse, ragged.

“Floor guy?” Phoebe repeated, glad he still had his arms around her, since her knees were shaky.

“This isn’t over,” Chase said, his voice a low, sexy whisper, and Phoebe almost felt herself sway so that Chase straightened her, brushed a finger along her jawline, before shouting to the intruder below.

“Up here. I’ll be down in a sec.” Chase took a moment to gain control of himself, while Phoebe sat up, straightened her shirt, and tried to fix her hair.

He turned and started down the ladder.

“Are you coming?”

Phoebe shook her head, hoping that it would shake the lust out of it. It did, but barely.

“I’ll be down in a minute. I just want to look around some more.”

He threw her a smile and said, “Take the flashlight. We’ll just be talking shop.”

She watched as his head disappeared down the ladder and then let herself sag against a stack of boxes marked
Trafalgar Square
while she let her heartbeat return to normal. She closed her eyes. She had almost just had wanton sex with Chase Sanders on a steamer trunk belonging to her grandmother. What had she been thinking? And she had wanted it, desperately wanted what Chase had started. Or had she started it? Oh God, Phoebe thought, what was she thinking?

Phoebe tasted a handful of popcorn kernels, deciding it needed just a bit more salt.

“Are you ready yet?” Lynn’s voice echoed from the other room where a gigantic flat-screen TV was set up, the DVD player primed with a string of old Savannah Ryan movies.

“Just a minute.” Phoebe added the salt and carried the popcorn into the family room. With Lynn’s parents away, they had the house to themselves and were set up for another girls’ night in.

It had been four days since Chase had come to Ivy House and found her. He had left soon after Jake, the floor guy, showed up. Jake was good to his word and promised her “the friend of a friend’s” discount. What’s more, he could start immediately. Until then, Lynn had offered a place to crash. Within the week, Phoebe would be able to live in Ivy House while fixing it up, and it was starting to dawn on Phoebe that this was it. The rest of her life was starting to unfold before her. It was unsettling and so the comfort of spending some time with a girlfriend, in a real house, was strangely appealing.

“Wine and popcorn. Who could have thought of a better combination?” Lynn said, grabbing a handful and taking a sip of the wine. She had traded her scrubs for a pair of cotton pajama pants and a faded sweatshirt. With her dark hair up in a ponytail and her glasses on, she looked more like a college student than a resident just a year or so out from being a doctor.

“I know, genius.” Phoebe agreed. The Masters’ family room was comfortable: a two-story space with a fireplace, overstuffed leather couches, and plenty of blankets to curl up with. Family pictures, including plenty of Lynn and her brother Kyle, decorated the shelves along with books and a few knickknacks, keeping the room simple and uncluttered.

“So which one are we going to watch fist?” Lynn held up two DVD cases.

“
Mystic Moon
, definitely,” Phoebe said. “I think that one is my all-time favorite.”

“Oh, good. Mine too.” Lynn got up, popped it into the DVD player and flopped back down.

“I just love the costumes in this one. And Roger Dailey was such a hottie.”

“She slept with him, you know? Before Leland, of course.” Phoebe couldn’t resist.

Lynn turned to her, her brown eyes big. “Really. That’s so cool. I mean that you know all this stuff. It’s like sitting here with Leonard Maltin, or that guy who runs the Actor’s Studio and getting the blow-by-blow account.

Phoebe smiled. Even though Lynn was two years younger than she was, Phoebe was already feeling like she had made a true friend, something that had proved a bit elusive in her harried life in Los Angeles. Sure, she had colleagues and girls she went out with, but it seemed like there was always an undercurrent of competition with them. Whose design was going to get picked, which guy at the bar would take an interest in them, who had gotten the best purse or designer shoes.

At first, it had been exciting to be part of such a whirlwind and it had seemed to feed her creativity, but Phoebe had come to feel that it was more draining than energizing, and she’d felt that her inspiration had begun to suffer because of it.

“Well, you wouldn’t believe what I found then.”

Lynn’s nose twitched while she thought about it. “The hat she wore in
Ghost Ship
.”

Phoebe smiled as she explained what she and Chase had found in the attic of Ivy House.

“Wow, oh wow,” Lynn breathed. “Do you realize how cool that is? Cool and valuable.”

“Valuable?” Phoebe tensed a little.

“Yeah, to movie buffs. Not to be morbid, but since Savannah died, the online auction sites have been going crazy with her stuff—you know, autographs, movie posters. But there isn’t much of it out there.”

“Probably because she kept it all in that attic,” Phoebe said.

“Well, I bet it’s filled with cool stuff. Let me know if you want any help going through it.”

Phoebe nodded. She hadn’t thought much about the attic because she’d been busy working on her designs for North Coast Outfitters. And not to mention the fact that every time her phone rang or an email popped up, she had hoped it was something from him. Not a word from him, not unless you counted the crews of workmen he kept sending her way. Someone to haul the junk, the floors, even a lawn guy. Still, there hadn’t been any presence of Chase himself for days.

“My favorite part,” Lynn breathed a few moments later as Savannah Ryan and Roger Dailey kissed for the first time onscreen. Actually, the scene that had made it into the movie had been their tenth take. Savannah had confessed that she’d kept messing it up because she enjoyed the way he kissed. It had been before Leland Harper, if Phoebe remembered correctly, and Savannah had made a practice of sleeping with all of her costars.

“Chase kissed me.” Phoebe didn’t know why she said it. Perhaps it was the glass of wine she had already finished or watching the kiss on the screen that forced her to say aloud what she had been remembering for days. The bruising passion of Chase and his lips on her.

“What!” Lynn took the remote, paused the movie, so that Savannah and Rodger were frozen mid-kiss, and looked at her.

“Umm, why didn’t you lead with that? So amazing. Is he a good kisser? I mean, he must be. He’s just sex on a stick, isn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Phoebe sighed. She looked into her wine glass. There was no denying it. The kiss had been hot. Even now, at the memory of it, her whole body tingled, reliving the surge of electricity and lust that had shot through her while she was in his arms. She’d barely been able to think, glad that he had left her, but disappointed when he had finally gone.

“So it was amazing. Are you going to do it again?” Lynn was looking at her eagerly, her nose scrunched up, her face happy.

“I don’t know. It’s complicated.” How do you explain the fact that kissing Chase was a bit like reliving someone else’s history?

“What’s so complicated? You think he’s hot, he thinks you’re hot. Shouldn’t you just get together, you know, do the horizontal mambo?”

“Lynn.” Phoebe threw a pillow at her, felling the flush crawl up her skin.

Lynn caught it neatly. “Ahh, I get it. You’re not the type.”

“What type?”

“You know, the casual, hot-sex type. And he probably is. I mean he’s gorgeous, rich, has a boat. And not to mention all the women he’s been linked with. Arm candy, every one of them.”

“I know.” Phoebe had come to that very same conclusion herself, after flipping through several websites devoted to the East Coast’s social bigwigs. Chase Sanders had been a regular, a sailor with a girl in every port…or a different one for every occasion. He was a player plain and simple, and Phoebe, after being used for her personal connections all of her life, had no intention of becoming someone’s arm candy again. No matter how delicious he might be.

“Still,” Lynn continued, “there’s always room for a fling. You know, the once-in-a-lifetime fling before you find Mr. Right.”

“What makes you think there’s a Mr. Right?” Phoebe asked.

Lynn smiled, looking completely self-assured. “Because there is. Everyone has a Mr. Right. Maybe you’ve just been dating the wrong guys, but you, especially, Phoebe, will find Mr. Right.”

“You’re such a hopeless romantic,” Phoebe said, thinking that love was too complicated. Perhaps arrangements, with chemistry were a better way to go. Still, even casual flings took too much energy, energy that could be better put into her work and career.

“Love makes the world go around. Or at least hot sex keeps it rolling. You should totally go for it. You’re not dating anyone. What do you have to lose?”

Everything, Phoebe wanted to say. Lynn had her pegged. There was nothing casual about her and from the moment she had seen Chase, she’d been attracted to him, with just a look from him sending her body into somersaults. And since he had flown out of Ivy House so fast that he’d barely said goodbye, she didn’t even know if the kiss had meant anything to him at all.

“I don’t even know if he meant anything by it,” Phoebe said.

Lynn rolled her eyes. “Girl, you always know.” With that, she resumed the DVD player, and Savannah and Roger Dailey’s passionate embrace was interrupted by the sound of a gunshot.