All of Me (14 page)

Relationships weren’t like hitting the pause button and resuming again. Even though it felt that way at times—like no time at all passed. Like the whole separation had been a mistake.

Was Ivey right about the fact that they couldn’t do this again? Did Ali make sense when she thought he ought to stay away? No matter what his head said, his heart seemed to have other ideas. He’d never let it lead before, but maybe it was time.

Ivey’s long dark hair caught a glint of the moonlight, but there was a slight problem with the picture. Mr. Williamson’s boy Jimmy, who had to be all of eighteen-years-old, sat with her on the blanket. Jimmy had hopes of touching heaven too, and Jeff almost felt sorry for him as he prepared to dash those dreams.

“Hey, Jimmy. So, your mom is calling you. Something about watching your sister while they pack up,” Jeff lied as he emerged from the shadows. Something told him that Mrs. Williamson wasn’t going to object to some help with her youngest, and Jimmy would only look like a good son thanks to him. No harm, no foul.

Jimmy’s face fell as he rose from the blanket.
Ah yes, so close and yet so far. Sorry, buddy.

“See you later, Ivey. Don’t forget my band is playing tomorrow night.”

“Okay, Jimmy, I’ll be sure to clap the loudest.”

Jimmy smiled as though he’d won the lottery.

Jeff sat down beside Ivey. “How dare you? He’s a child.”

“What? I didn’t do any—” Ivey protested. “Oh. You’re teasing me.”

“I’m sorry, but you make it easy sometimes.”

“That was a mean thing to do today. Do you know how hard it was for me to stand there looking like the town wench while teenage boys ogled me?” Ivey slapped his shoulder.

“I know how hard it was for me,” he said.

“You and your ten-dollar kiss.” Her words scolded, but her eyes were smiling.

“You can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Ivey turned her head toward the music again, as the band broke out into Lionel Ritchie’s song
Truly
. Couples began to slow dance to the song. Jeff sucked in a breath through clenched teeth, and his gut pinched with envy. He was so tired of being alone, so weary of the temporary nature of every relationship he’d had since Ivey.

“So what made you go online to find the perfect love match?”

She turned to him, her posture suddenly defensive. “Why would you ask me that now? Don’t you believe me?”

“Believe what?”

“That I found someone online.”

“Why wouldn’t I believe you? My question is why. Isn’t that supposed to be the move of the desperate?”

Ivey fingered the threads of fringe on her blanket. “Leave it to you to make fun of people who need a little help in the love department. You probably never had any trouble getting a date.”

“I didn’t think you would either.”

“Shows you how much you know.”

“All right, fine. I’m not judging you or anyone else who uses those services. It takes all the fun out of it. Doesn’t it?” Sure, he believed in planning, but even he realized you couldn’t plan who you fell in love with.

He’d known that the first time he met Ivey, who’d nearly chopped off her finger in a high school Home Ec cooking class. He’d been the one tasked to take her to the office for first aid, which he’d administered himself when the health clerk had been otherwise occupied.

“Don’t you know how to hold a knife?” He’d asked, his bedside manner at the time sadly lacking.

“I guess not,” She’d answered as she smiled at him through watery eyes. “Thanks for helping me.”

He’d looked at her, really seen her for the first time. He didn’t see Beth Lancaster’s daughter, the dyslexic girl who’d been placed in an at-risk group early on. He only saw Ivey, and something in his heart had pinched and constricted. He’d never been the same again.

“As someone who plans, you should try online dating. You can pick the qualities you want in a mate.”

He supposed that was a dig, but a person didn’t get an MD after their name without some preparation.

“I’ll pass. But if I’d been able to pick from a list of qualities, I might have picked someone who could cook.” Unless it came out of a can or a box, Ivey would have starved to death.

“Funny.”

“Is that what you did? Looked at a list of qualifies you wanted and checked them off one by one?”

She sighed. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Well if they weren’t going to talk, he had some other ideas of how to fill the time. He stood, taking his chances, and held out his hand. “Dance?”

Ivey rose to meet him. “You want to dance? But you don’t know how. Have you learned?”

“All right, you got me. Not really, but I want to hold you tight.”

“At least you’re honest.” She didn’t resist when he took her in his arms right there on the blanket and pressed her against him. He held his hands near the small of her back, and her arms rose to his neck, as she gazed right into his eyes. He swallowed hard.

He couldn’t still love her. Could he? Love didn’t stay in a suspended state of animation for years and then suddenly surge to the front. This was lust, pure and simple. He had it bad for Ivey. Always had.

“Hey, do you remember when we used to listen to concerts here?” Ivey smiled up at him.

He did. And if he didn’t stop thinking about that, he would soon be too hard to continue this slow dance of torture. “Yeah,” he managed to say.
He’d forgotten his brain stopped working when she was this close.

He ran a hand through her hair, the silkiness making his fingers feel like sandpaper. Ivey gazed up at him, but he couldn’t figure out if what he saw in her eyes was desire or plain confusion. Still, he took his opening and bent down and covered her mouth with his own. He tried not to groan as her mouth opened in welcome and he deepened the kiss. She tasted like vanilla and memories, the best ones—long summer nights by the river when the choice between her and
Gray’s Anatomy
had been a no-brainer. Funny how the pain she had caused him faded into the background now.

He could feel her hands clinging to him like she used to when she’d been filled with need, but her fingers shook as they wrapped around his arms. “You’re trembling,” he said, stroking the curve of her face.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You do that to me.”

“Yeah? Totally flattered.” It took him a minute to realize the song had ended and the rest of the crowd danced to a different one he didn’t even recognize.

Still they stood holding each other like maybe they were trying to make up for lost time. He leaned his forehead against Ivey’s and heard her sigh. A warm summer night, the hint of honeysuckle in the air, Ivey in his arms at last. It was too perfect.

Which is why it shouldn’t have surprised him when Ali walked up and almost wedged herself between them. “Hi, Ivey. Welcome back.”

“Ali,” Ivey said, taking a step away from him.

“So this is embarrassing. Looks like I might have interrupted something.” Ali glanced from Ivey to him, and pierced him with her Big Sister look.

He and Ivey spoke at once.

“You didn’t interrupt anything,” Ivey said.

“Yes, you did.”

“Mom and Dad are around here somewhere. Have you seen them?” Ali continued, despite his do-you-want-to-die stare. The look had worked when he was fourteen and she had made it her mission to make sure he stayed on the straight and narrow—otherwise known as tattling—but the glare wasn’t working for him now. He loved Ali, but he already had a mother.

“Nope, but I’ll catch up with them later.”

Ali turned to Ivey. “So what’s this I saw on the news about your aunt’s condo being repossessed? Wow, that’s some excitement, huh? We don’t get the FBI much in little ole Starlight Hill.”

The unspoken message seemed to be: “leave it to you and your aunt to bring the FBI to town.” It took great effort to remember that his sister was only looking out for him, and that she didn’t want to see him hurt again. Without thinking, he reached for Ivey’s hand and squeezed it. “This all has to do with Ben Cartwright, and making restitution to his investors. It has nothing to do with Ivey or her aunt.”

Someone or something slammed into his knees, and he looked down to see Becky. Bob followed behind her, holding a sleeping Liam.

“Hey, squirt.”

“Uncle Jeff! I saw a clown! He painted my face! And I have a balloon!” Becky babbled. The kid was so filled with excitement he half expected her to levitate.

“She’s had too much sugar,” Ali said, by way of explanation he assumed.

“Becky, this is my friend, Ivey.” Jeff introduced two of his favorite girls. Once Ali would have qualified too, except that right now he wanted to kill her.

“Hi! I’m four! How old are you?” Becky asked, reminding him of a spinning top.

“You don’t ask grown-ups how old they are,” Bob the Saint corrected with a sigh.

But Jeff couldn’t help notice that Ivey smiled at Becky like she’d seen the sun set in gold, red, and orange. “That’s okay. I’m old, too old to count.”

“No, you’re not!” Becky laughed, and climbed out of his arms. “My Grandma’s old.” She started running in the general direction of the street, Bob following quickly behind.

“I better go too,” Ali said with a conciliatory look in her eyes. “Nice seeing you.”

Jeff turned to Ivey when they’d left. “That’s Ali’s family. Becky isn’t usually wound up like that. She’s smart as a whip though.”

“And adorable.”

“Thanks. I am rather partial to her.” Someday if he were lucky enough to have children, he hoped they’d challenge him as much as Becky did. She made him see things in new ways, in different colors and shapes. Ali said kids had a way of doing that.

He took Ivey’s hand, and she went willingly with him away from the crowds and closer to the creek that ran in the back of the park. “I’m sorry about Ali. She’s worried about me.”

“Worried about you?” The tone in Ivey’s voice suggested that she couldn’t fathom a reason why Ali would worry about big, capable Jeff Garner. “Surely she knows you left me.”

He cleared his throat. This was the hard part. Not the way he worked, but maybe it was time to make some changes. He would have to let his heart take the lead, because his brain was currently disengaged. “Yeah, of course she does. But here’s the thing. She also knows what I haven’t told you yet.”

By the creek, a slight breeze kicked up and he instinctively pulled Ivey closer.

“What haven’t you told me yet?” He could feel it as her tiny frame tightened in expectation of another blow. Not surprising, since she’d lived her life recovering from a series of small shocks.

He let go of her and dragged a hand through his hair. “This isn’t easy to say.”

“Say it.”

Right. “What you don’t know is that after I said I needed a break I regretted it. Instead of calling you, I planned a surprise. You like surprises, I know that. Anyway, I asked for my grandmother’s wedding ring, came home right after finals and picked it up. But you weren’t home because you went to meet up with the guy you met on a dating service. And that’s the truth.”

Humiliating though it was, the truth felt liberating. And now he didn’t feel like such an asshole. Yeah, maybe he’d made a selfish mistake, but he’d tried to correct it. He expected Ivey to be happy now, to know that he too had regrets. And that the joke had been on him.

But of all the things he expected, not one of them was to watch her burst into tears.

“Before I apologize, I need to know what I did wrong.” Jeff pressed his forehead to hers.

The strong beat of his heart pulsed under her fingertips. With a slight push she turned away and faced the creek, trying hard to swallow a sob. “You did nothing wrong.”

Every star winked back in the inky black night, but she had no words. No words for the unfairness of it all. For the irony. If she’d only waited one lousy month. She wouldn’t have even been showing, so she would have had the pleasure of a proposal knowing it hadn’t been born out of necessity. But beyond that, not much else would have been different.

He still might have had to drop out of school. They would have still wound up hating each other. No, she’d done the right thing.

She’d fixed it. Fixed everything. Only problem, she’d never had what she wanted. Maybe now it was finally her time.

Perhaps from this point forward she wouldn’t cheat herself anymore. Stop making excuses and believing she didn’t deserve to be happy. Tell the truth and let people deal with it. Take what she wanted, and try like hell to be happy. Life was too short.

And this man happened to be all she’d ever wanted from the moment she’d first laid eyes on him. Granted, most people didn’t discover the love of their lives at sixteen, but she wasn’t most people.

Neither was he, for that matter. He happened to be—everything. And for once in her life, she deserved him.

Jeff came up behind her, his arms encircling her, head bent low to her neck. “Tell me you’re okay.”