Love Blooms on Main Street (6 page)

As he approached, he watched as Sophie spilled her hot dog on the ground. Her face crumpled with tears, and Jane and Grace both sprung to their feet.

“I'll make you a new one, honey. There's plenty more.” Jane bent to pick up the mess.

“But my dress!” the child said, wiping her eyes with her fists. “It's my favorite.”

Grace took her hand. “Come inside with me. We'll get you a fresh one while your mommy gets you a new hot dog.”

The little girl sniffled, as if considering the offerings. “Okay,” she said hesitantly.

Brett smiled as he watched Grace lead Sophie into the house, but his shoulders immediately tensed when he noticed that Ivy now sat alone at the table, her auburn hair glistening with gold in the warmth of the setting sun.

No use dwelling on that, he told himself. Now was as good a time as any. Pulling in a breath, Brett circled the table and slid onto the bench. Her eyes slowly narrowed on him.

“Nice party,” he tried, feeling her out. God, he could use a drink right about now. Something to take the edge off. Something to temper the inconvenient urge he had to lean across the table and wipe that surprise off her lips. He hadn't dared to properly look at her the other day in the hospital. Hadn't wanted to. He'd been so shocked to see her, and even more so to be reminded of how damn pretty she was, how his body still reacted all on its own to that face… that body. Now, sitting here, with the evening shadows softening her already delicate features and bringing out the green flecks in those clear blue eyes, he struggled to stay firm.

Then he thought of his father—a man who had promised more than he could give—and the three bystanders who had paid for it dearly. Ivy didn't deserve the same fate.

No one did.

“I heard you moved back to town,” she said after a brief hesitation. Her tone was pleasant enough, but he detected a slightly defensive edge.

Damn, word traveled fast in this town. And from the steely glint in Ivy's eyes, she'd taken the news personally. “For now,” he commented, and immediately wished he could take back the words. No doubt that would get around, too, and everyone would wonder what was meant by it, where he was going, why he would leave again.

He studied Ivy, relaxing a bit. Ivy kept things to herself. She clearly hadn't told anyone about their kiss. God knew he would have heard about it if she had. Mark would have never let that one pass without a comment or jab, especially now that he'd traded in his bachelor days for domestic comfort.

“I'm filling in at Forest Ridge. One of the emergency room doctors is on maternity leave, so I'm the replacement. I was late for my interview when I ran into you on Monday.”

Her smile seemed a little easier. “No wonder you seemed a little harried.”

Brett eyed her warily. He knew that look, the sweet way her plump lips curled at the corner, the way she tucked her hair ever so carefully behind her ear and then fiddled with the lobe. She probably didn't even know she was doing it, but the effect it had on him was as intense as it had been the first time. He gritted his teeth. He had to remember the plan. Stick to his rules. Keep focused. Get back on track.

“Yeah, I…”
Just say it, man. Let her down gently. You know what to do.
“I felt bad I had to run off.”

“Oh?” She tipped her head, unimpressed.

Brett swept his eyes over the party, making sure they wouldn't be overheard, before leaning into his elbows on the table. This close he noticed the flecks of turquoise around her pupils. The faint dusting of freckles on her nose. And those lips… His groin stirred. Had they always been so pink, so… soft looking?

He inched back. He wasn't offering anything. Not to her. Not to anyone. “That kiss. I feel bad about it.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Bad about it…” She seemed to mull over the words.

“My life is really complicated right now. I'm not looking for a relationship at this time.”

She now hadn't blinked in an alarming amount of time. Finally, she said with a strange little smile, “Neither am I.”

He frowned. He hadn't seen that coming. Normally when he got to a point of having to be direct with a girl, he had to sit through a half hour of listening to her list all her qualities, try to convince him she was flexible, that she didn't mind a doctor's hours, that really, they could make this work. He'd watch as her eyes become all watery, and he'd patiently hand her a napkin or tissue or, once, even his sleeve. He'd kindly tell her she'd find someone better suited, someone to give her the attention she deserved, that she was a great girl, that it was him, not her, and reluctantly agree that maybe someday he'd find a way to balance his life. He'd give her a hug, put her in a cab, and then shake off the guilt he felt, reminding himself it was a necessary evil, that he hadn't promised her a damn thing and that it was better for her that he hadn't. Just like he'd never promised Ivy anything. But from the curious tilt of her head, it seemed that this was one situation he may have read all wrong.

“Oh. I just assumed—”

“What? That one kiss had me planning our wedding flowers?” Ivy laughed. “Please, Brett. It was a wedding. Alcohol was involved. It was just a kiss.”

Now here he disagreed. It wasn't just a kiss. It was a flurry of mouths and hands and heat. And no alcohol had been involved. She'd kissed him with a clear head. Not that he could say the same for himself. He'd been stupid, and it wasn't on account of a glass of wine. He'd wanted her.

“Besides, that was months ago,” she pointed out. She gave him a pitying look as she cocked an eyebrow.

“It was. I just…” He frowned, at a loss. He wasn't used to the conversation going this way. Wasn't prepared for it. “I just wanted to make sure you weren't… let down.”

“Let down?” A wrinkle of confusion appeared between her eyebrows.

He gave her a kind smile. “You know, that you didn't have any… expectations.”

She laughed. “My goodness, someone's full of himself.”

Brett felt his brow flinch. “I just wanted to make sure there wasn't any misunderstanding. I'm glad we cleared the air.”

“Me too.” Her tone was sharp, and she was already unraveling one long leg from the bench, using the surface to steady herself. “But it was good seeing you, Brett. And now that you're back in town, I'm sure this won't be the last time.”

She smiled as she turned and walked away toward the Madison sisters, who were gathered at the edge of the lawn, and he watched her hips move and sway as she strode across the grass, her long auburn hair bouncing against her back. Brett frowned, wondering what exactly he had accomplished in that conversation. He and Ivy had never been close, but they saw each other a lot when he was in town—she was always at some party or event he was invited to—and he liked her. Liked her smile. Liked her laugh. Liked her face.

He liked her a lot, actually.

“Someone sitting here?” Shea O'Riley, who had been a couple of years behind him in school, hovered next to the table, holding a glass of white wine and smiling at him.

Brett hesitated, his mind still on Ivy, his head still spinning over the conversation they had just had. He waved a hand over the table, smiling politely. “It's all yours.”

“Perfect,” she said, and then startled him by scooting onto the seat next to him rather than across from him, where Ivy had sat.

He laughed under his breath, surprised, but not entirely, and started thinking of an exit plan. He was used to girls making moves on him. Maybe it was because he made so few of his own; they had no choice but to take the lead. In high school, it was out of shyness, but later… He didn't want to give the wrong impression. Sure, there were girls he was interested in, but he was always careful with that first move. He usually waited for a lead, however subtle. He wouldn't say he didn't enjoy it, especially when a girl was as attractive as Shea, with her long legs, jean shorts just barely skimming the space between her thighs, and a dimple in her left cheek that revealed itself when she smiled. If he'd been back in Baltimore tonight, he might have stuck around, had a few drinks, and enjoyed a pretty girl's company. But he wasn't in Baltimore right now. He was in Briar Creek. A town where everyone knew everyone and everyone talked, and if he got to talking to Shea for too long, all of Main Street would be talking about it tomorrow.

Already his cousin Luke had noticed the exchange and was giving him a discreet thumbs-up sign from across the deck. Brett muffled a sigh and thought fast. He didn't want to hurt the girl's feelings, but he didn't want to feed into her advances, either.

“Hey, I—”

In his pocket, his phone vibrated against his leg. Happy for the distraction, he pulled it out and glanced down at the screen.
Well, what do you know?
Looked like his services were needed after all.

He stood, readying himself to make an excuse that was, for the first time that night, the truth. And the flicker of his pulse when he watched Ivy turn and glance at him over her shoulder confirmed it.

B
e careful what you wish for
. Ivy repeated this over and over to herself all night long as the humiliation of Brett's rejection burned strong. Hadn't she been the one who claimed to want a man to just come clean with her, tell her he wasn't interested, rather than make up some lame excuse for why he didn't want to date anymore or offer up another empty promise that would leave her waiting by the phone?

It had been bad enough that he'd sought her out, felt the need to put her in her place, but then to carry on with his fun as if the conversation had never happened! Flirting with Shea O'Riley from the stationery store! It was
shameless
! How could she have ever even thought he was cute? Okay, so yes, he was cute, technically speaking, but he was also a total ass. And really, that smile that had once made her all but swoon was, on closer look, more of a smirk. And those deep-set eyes she had found so penetrating and intense and soulful were, on reflection, simply laced with menace.

Oh, she was plenty mad at Shea, too, until she remembered that Shea, like everyone else in town, had no idea that Ivy had held a torch for him for—she cringed—eighteen
years
, or that she had kissed him a few months ago. Shea was simply doing what any other normal, confident, heterosexual woman under a certain age would do in this town, and that was make a play on the most eligible bachelor. Handsome. Smart. A doctor. A real catch. But of course, an uncommitted catch. At least to her.

Ivy picked up the stack of self-help books she'd bought four towns over that morning and bit into a carrot stick, wishing it was a bowl of raw cookie dough instead. She closed the shop on Sundays now, after much pressure from Henry to give herself a rest, and she had to admit—to herself only, of course—that she liked having the entire day off. Sometimes she caught up on orders, or did a bit of housework, or, in recent months, used the entire afternoon to fantasize about a certain undeserving someone, but today she was using it as a self-improvement day. And it started with the glossy cover on the top of her stack:
Say No to the Narcissist! Everyday Strategies to Help You Stop Loving Men Who Only Love Themselves
.

She snorted. It wasn't like she had loved him. Strongly liked, yes. She supposed she should be grateful it was just a kiss, that her entire fantasy hadn't come true and she hadn't ended up another notch on a bedpost.

With most of the men in her past, they hadn't revealed their true colors until after it was too late—after she'd already fallen in love and slept with them. Oh, she supposed there were warning signs, looking back. Like Craig, who saw her only once a week and never told her what he did with the other six nights. Or Lance, who was completely reluctant about quitting the co-ed volleyball team… or letting her join. And then of course there had been the last guy she'd “dated” nearly two years ago, who, after six months and what she thought was the start of something real, hadn't invited her to have dinner with his parents when they came to town.

She'd been hurt every time, but she was determined not to give up the hope that she would find one guy who was looking for the same thing: a nice, quiet life in Briar Creek and a family to come home to at the end of every day. She hadn't had that chance for the first half of her life. Was it so much to wish for it now?

And all along, in the back of her mind, whenever another date turned into a bust, whenever another guy gave her the “it's not you, it's me” speech, she thought of the one man she knew who seemed so different from the rest. The one man who just had to go and move to Baltimore.

The one man who had turned out to be no different than the others.

“They're all the same,” her mother used to say bitterly, when Ivy confessed her latest dating woes. At the time, she'd tried to shut the words out, tell herself that she wouldn't end up like her mother, that she'd meet a nice, sweet man and have a cozy, comfortable life.

But now she began to wonder… Was it even possible?

The kettle whistled in the small kitchen at the back of her apartment, and Ivy crossed the cramped living room to the sun-filled galley space where her favorite hand-painted floral mug was already on the counter. She grazed her thumb over the chip as she turned the stove knob with the other hand. When their mother had passed away last summer, Ivy had kept few things from the house before they sold it: the photo albums from when she and Henry were babies up through age five, when their grandmother and keeper of the albums had died. A few of her favorite childhood books that kept her company on those nights when her mother had one too many glasses of Cab. And this dainty porcelain mug with the sweet little petunias painted on in a variety of colors—chipped, but not ruined, and too pretty to part with.

She'd loved flowers for as long as she could remember. She loved the symmetry of the petals, the way they could transform even the dreariest of rooms. And their house had been dreary. Damp and cold and uninviting. Flowers always made it better. She'd light up at the pastels, at the sunny yellows and vibrant reds. Every season brought something new, something to cheer up a room, something to evoke the spirit of a holiday, even if holidays were never celebrated much in their home growing up. Henry had stepped up, she realized as she grew older. Even though they were twins, he had always looked out for her in that way—tucking aside money and buying gifts for Christmas or their birthday in case their mother forgot, which she often did. She smiled sadly as she carefully filled her mug with the steaming water. She supposed he still was looking out for her.

Ivy let the tea steep and carried it back into the living room, which was so very different from the dark and gray house she'd grown up in. What money she had, she tended to put into the shop, but just as with Petals on Main, she made her small apartment her personal jewelry box, with long, brightly colored curtains to frame the tall windows that looked out onto Main Street, a crisp white slip-covered couch with patterned throw pillows, and soothing celery-green walls that made her think of springtime, even in the winter. She settled herself once more on the armchair that was tucked next to the big bay window and looked down onto Main Street, wondering, despite herself, if Brett was strolling the sidewalk at that very moment.

Well, who cared if he was? Certainly, she didn't.

She set her tea on the coffee table she'd salvaged from a secondhand shop and refinished herself with some elbow grease, sandpaper, and a can of white paint—she was quite proud of that piece, really—opened the book again, and forced herself through the first chapter, hoping for a nugget of inspiration. Something, anything, to end this crush once and for all, and to ensure it wouldn't happen again.

Next time she fell this hard for a guy, she had better be damn sure he was worth it.

She flicked to the next chapter and found herself skimming it. She'd read enough of these over the years to know what to do. At least two dozen were hidden under her bed, dog-eared and highlighted, some passages even memorized. Focus on herself. Live a happy life. In time, she'd attract the right person. She could spend all day trying to cheer herself or come to her senses, holed up in her apartment, or she could get out in the sunshine and truly move on.

She decided on the latter.

Ivy picked up her phone, scrolled through her contacts, and dialed Kara. Her friend answered on the third ring.

“I've been thinking,” Ivy said. “It might be time for me to finally try out that new gym you've been talking about.” The cost was dear, but the payout was big.

Plans made, Ivy set the phone on her coffee table and went into her bedroom to scrounge up some workout clothes, already imagining the promise of lean, long muscles.

So Brett may not be looking for anything. And so she might not even want him anymore. But that didn't mean she couldn't have a little fun making him live to regret it.

Kara was already on the treadmill when Ivy walked into the gym an hour later, her stomach full of the banana and peanut butter she'd eaten in advance to offset the exercise. She waved to her friend and wound her way through the machines, catching a few glimpses of people she knew from the shop and others she'd gone to school with since kindergarten. She knew Henry hated this aspect of Briar Creek—that there was no getting away from everyone you knew, no escaping the dark side of their past, but Ivy saw it differently. She'd grown and evolved, and she was happy to have the chance to show everyone she wasn't the same sad scrawny kid with the drunk mom making a spectacle of herself at every town event. It was redemption, closure really, and it helped ease the bad feelings she had about her youth.

Speaking of redemption…

A group of girls Ivy went to high school with were fake stretching and staring shamelessly at the weight section of the room. For a minute, Ivy's pulse pricked with interest, until she caught Brett's image in the mirror and stopped dead in her tracks. Of course. It seemed Shea wasn't the only one in town who had gotten wind of Brett's arrival. It wasn't every day a handsome, single guy moved to town. Throw an MD in the mix, and they were probably lining up around the block. No doubt Rosemary would be pushing Kara to the front of the queue if they weren't already related.

Brett finished his set, his biceps straining at the effort through the tight material of his gray cotton T-shirt, and he lowered the weights when he spotted her—a signal that she couldn't turn and run, as she'd been hoping to do. Seeing no other choice, she waved and walked toward him, sparking a wave of whispers from the gaggling women on the mat. Standing to give her his full attention, he raked a hand through his brown hair and picked up a towel he'd set on a nearby bench.

Ivy cursed under her breath. She'd love nothing more than to turn on her heel and take the long path to the row of machines where Kara was hard at work, but that would just show Brett that she cared. And she didn't care. At least, he couldn't think she did.

She plastered a breezy smile on her face, hoping that would suffice, but oh God, no. He grinned back, wider than she expected—a smile that probably won him a lot of hearts over time. Well, not hers. She bristled, telling herself it was just a smile, and a cocky one at that, and continued on her path.

“We meet again,” Brett commented as she neared the weight section.

“Briar Creek is small like that.” Why hadn't she considered that Brett would have joined the gym? He hardly maintained those hard abs working in the emergency room or with mere sit-ups alone. She wondered if it was too late to revoke her shiny new membership, which was costing her more than she should be shelling out.

She gave a tight smile that she could only hope passed for polite and inched to her left in an effort to create some distance between them and that sweet smell of soap and musk and spice that had lingered on her bridesmaid dress long after their kiss was over, but Brett stopped her.

“I'm glad you're here, actually.”

“Oh?” She felt the blood drain from her face as she stared up into those warm chocolate-brown eyes.

“I kind of had the impression you were mad at me last night after our talk.”

She narrowed her gaze as the little bubble of hope burst inside her. The little bubble that whispered,
Maybe he's had a change of heart. Maybe he saw you walk into the gym in those yoga pants and tight tank top and thought, What a fool I've been.

When would she stop hoping he would say what she wanted to hear? When he stopped looking like that, she decided, tearing her gaze from his perfectly sculpted chest. The very one she'd run her hands down, pressed her nails into…

“Why would I be mad at you?” she asked. “You established you weren't interested—”

His brow pinched together. “I didn't say I wasn't interested. I said I wasn't looking for a relationship right now.”

She refused to allow herself to read into the first half of his statement any more than she should. He was letting her down—again—and stroking his sorry ego in the process.

She held up a hand and managed a smile. “Relax, Brett. It was just a kiss.”

Only it wasn't just a kiss and they knew it. She could tell by the way he nodded slowly, as if digesting this information, reflecting on it. It had been an entire evening of laughter and flirting, small touches, and unbreakable eye contact. By the time their two bodies had finally fused, they could barely keep their hands off each other. The kiss was deep, and long, and if they hadn't been tucked in the old telephone vestibule of the Main Street B&B, they probably wouldn't have stopped.

She'd kissed enough frogs in her lifetime to know when a kiss was good. And when both people knew it.

She watched his Adam's apple roll on a swallow. “Just a kiss.”

“I mean, it's not like we slept together or anything.” She shuddered, thinking of how much that would have hurt. “Thank God for that!”

His gaze darkened and narrowed steadily on her. “Here I thought you were enjoying yourself that night.” His voice was as smooth as melted chocolate, and just like the dessert, she stamped it out. Not allowed. Not in her world.

But his words still echoed in her head, followed quickly by red-hot anger. “Did you?” She tipped her head, hoping the flush of mortification would stay at bay. Had it been that obvious? She stiffened as she recalled the moan she'd released in his ear when his fingers had slid up her thigh… “Huh. Well, I don't really recall. It was so long ago.” She shrugged.

He stared at her, his square jaw pulsing, and she fluttered her lashes, released a sigh that mercifully didn't shake and betray the jumping jacks that were going on inside her right now, and said a silent prayer that he couldn't possibly see through her painfully neutral expression to the sad fact that she not only recalled but had also replayed and could easily reenact every second of that kiss.