Home for Christmas (18 page)

Who was giving him a very unwelcoming glare from her corner booth. Ignoring her for the moment, Nash stepped into the café and smiled around at the people waving and grinning at him. He shook hands and asked after families and caught up with old friends from high school, but all the time he made his way steadily toward the back of the restaurant where Ivy was sitting.

When he'd finally clapped the last acquaintance on the back, Nash slid into the booth across from Ivy without waiting for an invitation. From the way she frowned, he had a feeling he would've been waiting for a long time.

“Make yourself at home,” she said, sarcasm oozing from her tone like bittersweet honey.

“I am at home,” Nash pointed out, kicking back and stretching his arms across the back of the booth. “This is where I grew up. What I don't understand is what you're doing here.”

“You said you were never going to come back to Sanctuary Island. I figured that made this the best place in the world to avoid you.”

Nash winced. “Okay, I guess I deserved that.”

To his surprise, Ivy shook her head regretfully. “No, you didn't. That was mean. Even if it was basically true, it's only part of the truth.”

“What's the rest?”

She shrugged, the quick, restless movement he remembered from all their arguments at the end. “The way you talked about your hometown, you made it sound impossibly idyllic and perfect. I guess I wanted to see it for myself, to see if Sanctuary Island was as big an illusion as you turned out to be.”

Nash ignored the jab, intent on keeping Ivy talking. “But then you stayed here. You got a job. You put down roots.”

“Don't act like me putting down roots is such a shock,” Ivy bristled.

“You never wanted to before,” Nash felt compelled to point out. “Isn't that basically why we broke up? I wanted to settle down, and you didn't.”

Two blotches of red appeared on Ivy's pale cheeks, as if she'd been slapped. She'd always hated how her skin telegraphed her emotions that way, but Nash was grateful for it. Sometimes it was the only warning he had before the storm broke.

This time, the storm was delayed for a few seconds by the ancient waitress, Flo, slamming down Ivy's order and tersely offering to refill her coffee before she zoomed off to deliver more plates.

Ivy didn't even glance down at the slice of pecan pie as big as her head. “That might be what you told yourself about our breakup,” she hissed, “but there was a lot more to it than that, and I think you know it.”

“Honestly?” Nash crossed his arms over his chest. “I don't. I never really understood why we broke up, except that you got pissed at me and stopped taking my calls. And then you disappeared and no one seemed to know where you'd gone, only that you'd left Atlanta.”

Her eyes narrowed as she leaned in, nearly planting her elbow in her pie. “And exactly how hard did you try to find me, Nash? How many people did you ask? Because I'm betting it wasn't very many. I'm betting you didn't want anyone to know I'd dumped you and moved away. That would tarnish your perfect image.”

“You're so stuck on that.” Nash shook his head in aggravation. “I don't get it.”

“Because it's a state of being for you, not something to get,” Ivy retorted. “But I'm not interested in living a life that's all style and no substance.”

“Really? You dress like you care a lot about style.”

Smoothing a satisfied hand over the fuzzy angora sweater that clung lovingly to her curves, Ivy tossed back her curls. “So I like to look good, and I like to have a good time. That doesn't mean I can't be serious about some things. The things that matter.”

“I thought I was one of those things that mattered.”

She looked away. “You made it clear, over and over, that it wasn't mutual.”

“I don't even know what that means.” Nash's stomach curdled, his chest going tight. “It was good between us, Ivy. You know it was.”

Ivy tapped her fork against the pie plate and gazed at him. There was a sheen of something like pity in her wide eyes, and it was the worst look Nash had ever seen on her expressive face. “I liked you, Nash. Loved you, even. But you weren't ready for anything real back in Atlanta, and you still aren't. Despite what your poor wife might have thought when she agreed to marry you.”

“Libby and I are separated,” Nash blurted out in a last ditch effort to salvage this conversation. “That's what I came over here to tell you. It's official—but we're still friends. We're going to get a divorce soon.”

“That's too bad,” Ivy said, heartless and firm. “Libby seems like a very nice woman. And I'd like for you to be happy, Nash. I really would.”

The only person who's ever made me happy is you.

But the words stuck in his throat, sharp as stones, and Nash couldn't force them out. Maybe Ivy was right. Maybe he was too hung up on what people would think or how it would look, but he'd learned the importance of toeing the line at a very young age. It was hard to overcome the habits of a lifetime.

“I want you to be happy, too,” he finally said, low and hoarse. “I wish I was the kind of man who could make you happy. I think I could, if you'd let me try.”

For a brief, heart-stopping moment, Ivy hesitated, as if she were wavering. But when she spoke, there was no hesitation in her tone. “We did try, Nash. And we discovered that I need someone who's willing to put himself out there, to tell the world how he feels about me—even if I don't fit his image of the perfect ladylike wife for perfect Nash Tucker.”

With that, Ivy got up and tucked a ten-dollar bill under her plate. She walked out of the cafe, leaving Nash sitting defeated at the corner booth, staring at her untouched pecan pie. Sighing, he pulled it closer and picked up her discarded fork. No point letting good pie go to waste.

But even the taste of brown sugar, buttered pecans, and flaky crust couldn't sweeten the bitter disappointment and regret filling Nash's belly. He wasn't thinking about the conversation they'd just had, though. His mind took him further back, to the night when Ivy had asked to meet his family and he'd told her he was never going home to Sanctuary Island.

“Why not?” She'd blinked those big eyes up at him from where her head was pillowed on his bare shoulder.

Twitching a corner of the blanket higher to cover their naked, entwined bodies, Nash had smoothed his hand through the tousled waves of her hair and shrugged. “It's a small town, and my family is kind of a big deal there. If I go back, I'd have to face all those people who knew me as a kid, who knew my parents—the expectations they had for me. It's too much. Too many people whispering about how I'm not living up to my potential or how they always knew I'd never amount to much. Can't we just stay here, doing our own thing, where no one will judge us?”

She'd gone still and quiet under his stroking hand, and he'd blinked drowsily into the darkness and slipped into sleep without finishing the conversation. But it wasn't long after that night that Ivy packed her bags and left the apartment she'd practically moved into with him, and now Nash wondered … did Ivy think he was ashamed of her? Did she think that was why he wouldn't take her home to meet his family?

 

Chapter Sixteen

Libby waited until the end of Caitlin's lesson only to be told by a barn worker that Owen would be catching a ride home with his sister and having dinner over there. Aching with regret and hurt, Libby climbed into her car and started the drive back to her grandfather's house alone.

She hadn't meant to upset Owen so much, but at the same time, she couldn't be sorry for pointing out that there was another path he could at least consider. One that might not let him be a hero to his men, but would make him the hero of his daughter's story … and who had more of a claim on Owen than Caitlin?

Libby was still turning it over and over in her mind obsessively when her cell phone rang. A sharp pang of foreboding pierced her chest when she glanced down at the screen and saw her boss's name flash across it.

Pulling over to the side of the narrow country road, Libby stared out over the expanse of brown cordgrass waving out toward the ocean as she steeled herself. Then she answered her phone.

“Mr. Downing? Hello.”

“Great news,” her publisher said briskly. “I've secured us some extra publicity for the Christmas article you're doing with that war hero.”

A chill skittered down Libby's spine. “Extra publicity?”

“On Christmas day, I'm bringing a camera crew from the
Good Morning Show
to your house to shoot some video of the meal, maybe a couple of sound bites from the soldier and the kid. Rhonda Friend is coming in person to do the interviews.”

He actually sounded pleased. Libby felt faint. “Mr. Downing, I can't agree to this.”

“It's only B-roll for a short follow-up piece,” Downing said, impatient. “Not an in-depth documentary or something. Just wear something pretty, smile a lot, and fake it. You're good at that.”

“I'm really not, though,” Libby protested. “Writing is one thing—I can use my imagination. But no amount of imagination is going to make this meal anything but a disaster. Having a TV journalist there to document the whole thing is going to be
terrible
publicity.”

“There's no such thing as terrible publicity,” Downing countered ruthlessly. “All publicity is good publicity. That said, I expect you to carry this off. Remember our deal. I looked into that uncle you told me about. Ray, wasn't it? With early onset Alzheimer's. A diagnosis like that, at his age—just tragic. And it means round-the-clock care for the rest of his life. That kind of thing is pretty pricey, Ms. Leeds. I would keep that in mind when Rhonda Friend shows up with her cameras.”

Downing hung up before Libby could control her quick, shallow breaths enough to answer. A camera crew scanning around, zooming in on every tiny expression and catching her every mistake—and there were sure to be plenty of mistakes. Libby had been practicing, but every time she set foot in the kitchen there seemed to be some sort of catastrophe.

There has to be a way out of this mess.
Slumping, she bonked her forehead on the steering wheel hard enough to honk the car horn. The noise startled her into sitting up, blinking and dazzled by the brightness of the fading afternoon light.

Across the amber sea of dried grasses and spiky underbrush, the sandy beach spread out in a wavy line along the shore. The sky and the water were the palest of blues, almost gray—a perfect backdrop for the band of horses grazing at the edge of the beach. Their shaggy winter coats looked soft, their tangled manes and tails blowing in the salty breeze off the ocean.

The leader of the band, a stallion who stood taller than the mares around him by at least a hand, was staring back at Libby. His regal head was pitched high, scenting the wind as if her car honking was a signal of potential danger to him and his herd.

Libby sat frozen, caught by the wild beauty of the stallion and his strong protective instincts. He'd do anything to keep his family safe, she knew it in her heart. How could Libby do any less?

Half an hour later she was standing at the door of her grandfather's study and calling up the memory of the proud tilt of the stallion's head to bolster her courage.

Deep breaths,
she told herself as nerves prickled along her hairline and down the slope of her back. Pressing her palms flat to the heavy oak door, she pushed her way into the quiet, bookshelf-lined room.

Dabney Leeds' inner sanctuary was full of antique furniture and carpeted with fading Persian rugs. Oil paintings of ships at sea and fog wreathing the Blue Ridge Mountains hung on the walls, but she had to squint to make out the lines of the art because the heavy velvet drapes were closed over the floor-to-ceiling windows. An unlit Tiffany glass lamp sat next to her grandfather's leather reading chair by the fireplace, which was cold and empty.

Libby frowned into the dim room. “Grandfather?”

Something stirred in the reading chair, and as her eyes grew accustomed to the shadows, she saw the old man huddled in his chair with a book open on his lap and a dark wool plaid blanket covering his legs. “Yes. What is it?” he asked, his voice creaky as if he hadn't spoken in a while.

Worry clutched at Libby's chest and she forgot her nerves. “Is everything all right?” she asked, hurrying into the room and pulling a spindly, straight-backed chair over to sit beside her grandfather.

“Of course.” He scowled irritably and picked up his book, as if he wanted to make sure she saw that he'd been reading.

Except Libby was willing to bet he hadn't turned a page in ages. “It's dark in here. Can I turn on your lamp for you?”

“I can manage it myself,” he said crossly, reaching across to the side table with a trembling hand. “I'm not an invalid, you know.”

“I do know that,” Libby assured him, sitting on her hands to keep herself from fussing with his blanket or trying to help with the lamp. “You're amazingly self-sufficient, and you've done so much to take care of me since I got here. Won't you let me take care of you, even a little?”

A tiny bit of softness relaxed Dabney's pinched mouth, but it tightened up into a dissatisfied purse as he said, “I haven't done the best job of it so far, hiring that French lunatic. What a disaster! Nearly ruined the whole thing.”

He pressed a fist to his sternum as if he didn't realize he was doing it. Concerned, Libby inched her chair further into the circle of mellow, warm light cast by the stained-glass lamp. “You thought she would help, though. The fact that you tried means a lot to me.”

“There's no point to trying if you fail.”

The harsh words shoved Libby back in her chair like he'd pushed a hand against her forehead. “Do you really believe that?”