Their Small-Town Love Page 13

  He fought down a spurt of disappointment.

  “I certainly will.”

  “Thanks again for calling,” Ivy said, her voice noticeably softening, then the connection abruptly broke.

  Ryan put away the phone and sat there for several seconds, ordering his mind for prayer. Finally, he bowed his head and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  Thank You, Father God. I guess I’ve been careening around between fear and foolishness. I suspect that I sometimes think I know what’s best when I haven’t even bothered to ask the right questions. You’ve helped me see things a little clearer now. Just one thing more, Father, please stop these ugly rumors about Ivy from spreading. She’s been hurt enough. These things I pray in the name of Your Holy Son, Jesus the Christ, my Lord and Savior. Amen.

  After a long day of meetings and classes, followed by sports practice, Ryan was trying hard to resist his older brother’s cajoling.

  “Come on, little brother. Come out to dinner with us,” Holt urged. “Granddad’s got Teddy and Justus to keep him company.”

  “Besides,” Charlotte added, hanging on her husband’s arm, “when was the last time the Jefford kids all got to go out to dinner together?”

  The last time was a week ago, when he had accompanied his brother and sister-in-law to the catfish joint outside of town. That had been the Friday after he had called in to Ivy’s radio show. Among the crowded, packed dining halls of the tumbledown Watermelon Patch restaurant, talk had swirled that Ivy was “up to her old tricks” again. One grizzled old-timer had even stated that Ivy’s show amounted to “sex on the air.”

  Ryan had felt compelled to put down his fork and ask if the fellow had ever actually listened to Ivy’s show. When the older man admitted that he had not, Ryan had taken it upon himself to inform everyone within his hearing that Ivy’s topics thus far had covered such things as marketing to females, balancing work with family, the nature of real romance, the best jobs for women and the worst excuses for everything from missing work to messing up the house. The man had given him a puzzled look and announced, “That’s not what her own father says.”

  It had taken all of Ryan’s self-control to reply that in this case Olie Villard was sadly mistaken. His appetite gone, he had calmly risen, swept the room with an icy glare and informed Holt and Cara that he needed a breath of fresh air and would be waiting in the truck. They had followed him out a short time later, but Ryan had been too angry to discuss the situation rationally just then.

  In the week since, his anger had only grown, which was why he had not sought out Olie and taken him to task. He feared what he might do if Olie spewed more of his invective for Ivy at him. In fact, he did not think he had a good enough handle on his temper to discuss this issue with anyone still.

  That being the case, Ryan knew that he had no business returning to the Watermelon Patch, which was the unofficial local gathering place, even if his sister and brother-in-law had come from Dallas for the weekend to visit and check on the house they were building.

  “No, thanks,” he said in reply to his brother’s urging. “I’d just embarrass myself.”

  Holt crammed his new summer straw cowboy hat onto his head, grumbling, “Just because Olie showed up at prayer meeting again on Wednesday.”

  “He requested prayer that Ivy’s show be ‘stamped out,’ Holt,” Ryan snapped. “He knows there’s nothing wrong with her show, but because callers keep bringing up topics that were covered by her former partner, Olie’s telling everyone that some great evil’s sprung up out of Eden. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Granddad set him straight.”

  “You really think so? Are you telling me that the talk’s died down?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Holt muttered.

  “I think it’s awful what’s being said about Ivy,” Cara put in, “but what can we do except stand up for her?”

  “Hard to stand up to her if you’re hiding out,” Charlotte said gently to Ryan.

  “I’m not hiding out,” Ryan insisted, “but I won’t do Ivy any good if I lose my temper while defending her.”

  “That serious, is it?” Charlotte surmised, smiling wryly.

  Ryan felt himself blush, but he brazened it out, pretending that he had missed her implication. “Yeah, it’s that serious. It’s worse than simply unfair, and I’m plenty ticked off about it. Makes my blood boil, to tell you the truth, and that’s why I’m better off staying here trouncing this trio at dominoes.”

  He waved a hand at the three old men sitting around the game table in the motel lobby behind him. As expected, they hooted and launched a good-natured attack.

  “You wish!”

  “Can’t trounce anyone without a partner, boy. Best remember that.”

  “Big talk. Now let’s see you back it up.”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” Ryan told them, shooing his siblings and their mates out the front door. “You four go on and have a good time. And don’t worry about me.”

  “Wouldn’t speak too soon if I were you,” Hap counseled, tongue in cheek, as the two couples disappeared from view. “You drew Justus for a partner tonight.”

  Chuckling, Ryan turned back to the table and resumed his chair. Teddy Booker, on Ryan’s right, shook the dominoes then waited until the others had drawn seven each before raking in the leftovers.

  Hap got the bid on that hand and called treys as trumps before running the table by winning all seven tricks.

  “Should’ve bid two marks on that one,” Teddy chuckled.

  Ryan figured he might as well play his own game from then on and successfully outbid the others for the next two hands, making the first easily and the second by the skin of his teeth, thanks to the clever play of his partner. The fourth time around, Ryan got the bid again, paying a high price for it.

  “Okay,” he said, trying to figure out which of his dominoes to lead with, “let’s see if Justus can keep me out of trouble.”

  “Son,” Justus drawled, shifting sideways to dangle one arm over the back of his chair, “it’s gonna take more than a crack Forty-Two player like me to keep you out of trouble.”

  “With these trumps you may be right,” Ryan muttered, continuing to study his hand.

  “I don’t think he’s talking about dominoes,” Hap said, turning his playing tiles face up on the table.

  Confused, Ryan looked to his grandfather. “What are you doing?”

  These three played a cutthroat game, going so far as to force the bid on the dealer if the other three players passed ahead of him. They did not just lay down their dominoes.

  Hap smiled, hung an elbow on the edge of the table and nodded toward the picture window. Ryan looked that way just in time to see Ivy reach toward the door. He was on his feet when she came through it.

  A bright smile broke across her face, the dark ponytail on the back of her head swinging jauntily. She struck a pose, shoving her enormous handbag back and hooking her thumbs in the pockets of her slender denim capris, straining the fabric of her bright red T-shirt with its straight neckline and neat cap sleeves.

  “Hey. My favorite caller!”

  Ryan mirrored her pose. Tucking his thumbs into the back pockets of his jeans and pressing back his elbows, he winked. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite radio host. Hey, yourself.”

  Ivy laughed. “Can a girl get a room around here?”

  “Indeed, she can,” Ryan declared. “You can fill out the registration card later.”

  “At least I have a proper address to put on it now,” she said with a grin.

  He could not quite believe how delighted he was to see her. After standing there for some seconds drinking in the sight of her, he suddenly realized that he was on the edge of making a spectacle of himself. With a jerk, he cast around for the next step to take, and it hit him when he glanced at the apartment door.

  “Had your dinner by any chance?”

  She shook her head, admitting, “No, I didn’t want to stop until I got here.”


  “Ah. That would explain it then.”

  “What?” she asked, blinking at him.

  “Why we have a pizza out there in the freezer with your name on it,” he quipped, somehow managing to keep his tone and expression level. All three of the old men around the domino table chortled, even as Ryan asked, “Isn’t that right, Granddad?”

  “Sure enough,” Hap confirmed. “Welcome home, Ivy.”

  “Thanks,” she said, while Ryan stepped to her side. “It’s good to be back.”

  Ryan swept out an arm and ushered her toward the apartment, saying, “Ma’am, your pizza awaits. A little help would sure speed things up, though.”

  “Of course,” she replied brightly.

  As Ryan hurried her away, he heard the dominoes clacking together behind them.

  “Looks like it’s plain old dominoes for us tonight,” Teddy said.

  “Yep,” Hap confirmed.

  “Okay by me,” Justus retorted happily. “I can beat you two old softies at any game you choose.”

  Ryan looked down at Ivy, found his smile reflected there, and knew with a growing sense of alarm that he would do almost anything to keep her from hearing the lies being spread about her. He would, he realized, do almost anything to keep that smile on her beautiful face.

  Chapter Eleven

  Frozen pizza had never tasted so good. Ivy knew without a doubt that it had more to do with the company than the canned pineapple slices Ryan had insisted they add to the toppings before sliding the frozen pie into the oven, although she had to admit that the sweetness of the pineapple offset the spiciness of the pepperoni to perfection.

  She felt quite sated, but that last slice was speaking to her. She reached across the oval maple table in the homey dining room of the motel apartment and, with a fork, cut off the tip of that last slice of pizza, which she then poked into her mouth.

  Ryan sipped his soda and nodded toward the pizza pan. “Is that for me?”

  “Mm-hm. If you don’t eat it, I will, and then I’ll pop.”

  He chuckled and reached for the last bit of the pizza, saying, “Can’t have that. I like you unpopped.”

  Ivy put her head back and laughed. “Why is it,” she asked, “that you suddenly seem so entertaining?”

  “Nothing sudden about it. I’ve always been entertaining,” he quipped. “You just haven’t been around to enjoy my sparkling wit.”

  “And I thought you were so boring back in high school.”

  Ryan’s eyebrows jumped up into his hairline. “Oh, really? Do tell.”

  Embarrassed, Ivy backpedaled a bit. “No, I just mean that, well, when I made the cheerleading team as a freshman, every other upper classman seemed to hit on me but you.”

  Ryan sat back in his chair, his hands resting on the edge of the tabletop. “Didn’t think you noticed.”

  “I noticed,” Ivy replied softly.

  He sat forward again. “So did I. To tell you the truth, if I’d been just a year younger, I’d have been all over you, just like the other guys.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “I was always very much aware of you, Ivy.”

  She tried not to let that feel too good. That was then. This was now, and too much water had passed under her bridge since then, but it helped to know that Ryan had been as aware of her as she had been of him. Still, she had to know something.

  “Why didn’t you ask me out, Ryan? Was it because of my mother?”

  He seemed genuinely surprised. “Absolutely not. Why would you think that?”

  Ivy spread her hands. “It was always that, in one way or another. Some of the boys asked me out because they thought I might be like her. Some kids avoided me for the same reason.”

  “Quite frankly, I never thought about your mom one way or the other. I won’t say I wasn’t aware of her reputation or that I haven’t been a self-righteous prig at times,” Ryan told her softly, “but back then I was simply focused on the future. You see, my dad really wanted his sons to go to college. He never did, and he always said that meant he had to make his living the hard way. He never talked about if we went to college, only when we went to college, so that became our focus, too.”

  “He must be very pleased with how you turned out,” she said.

  “I hope so.” Ryan ducked his head, laced his fingers together atop the table and looked up at her. “Can I ask you something that’s been bothering me?”

  Mentally gulping, Ivy nodded. “Sure.”

  “How do you know Devony Barston?”

  Ivy relaxed into a broad smile. “Devony is my spiritual mother, you might say.”

  “What?”

  “It was Devony who led me to the Lord, Ryan.”

  He gaped at her. “We are talking about Matt Barston’s wife, aren’t we?”

  Nodding, Ivy said, “She was Devony Pulen when I first came to know of her.” Ivy went on to explain how she’d stumbled across Devony’s Web site months earlier while surfing the net looking for subject matter for the FireBrand Phillips and Ivy show.

  “Are you talking about the Web site with the photos?” Ryan asked haltingly.

  “Photos? I don’t know what photos you mean.”

  “I—I only know that there were some photos of Devony on the Internet recently.”

  “Well, the site I’m talking about is called Reclaiming Purity, and it’s a counseling ministry.”

  “A counseling ministry?” he echoed, sounding confused.

  “Exactly. Devony tells her personal story on the site and offers free online counseling to others trying to get out of that life. I assume you know that she was once a prostitute.”

  Ryan rubbed the back of his neck, nodding absently. “Maybe you better tell me Devony’s story.”

  Ivy gladly did so. It wasn’t a pretty story, but neither was it unique. At fourteen Devony had run away from her home in California to escape an abusive stepfather only to find herself on the streets in Los Angeles, where she was virtually kidnapped, raped, drugged and, once she was hooked, forced to prostitute herself.

  Ryan dropped his head into his hands, groaning. “That poor kid.” He looked up, his hazel eyes agonized. “How did she ever escape that?”

  It sounded so simple. “One day a guy pulled up to the curb where Devony was working the street, but instead of paying her for sex, he paid her to sit in his car and read a tract that explained how God sees sin and how to be free of it. He prayed with her right there.” A day or so later, Devony had managed to get to a police station. She had just turned seventeen. Eventually, her pimp and his phalanx of enforcers had gone to jail. “It took a long time and a lot of counseling,” Ivy went on, “but eventually Devony got clean and straight, and that’s when she got the idea for the Web site.”

  “She counsels others in the same situation?” Ryan asked.

  “Actually, what she does is get Christian psychologists and other professionals to do it for free. There’s lots of other stuff going on there, too, lots of resources available.”

  “So how did you two meet?” Ryan asked.

  Ivy sighed. “When I read her story and saw what she’s doing, I suggested to Brand that we do a show with her. I was always trying to schedule more inspirational content, but usually he shot down my ideas. This time, though, he went for it. Which should have been my first clue.” Ivy raised both hands, palm out, to make an important point. “I scripted what I thought was a very uplifting, important show, but when it came air time, Brand savaged her. He only wanted the gory details.”

  A muscle jerked in the hollow of Ryan’s jaw. “Man, what a scuzzball.”

  Ivy couldn’t have agreed more. “It was the worst. He humiliated her. I shut off my mic and left the booth, but through it all Devony calmly used every opportunity to try to witness, to explain her beliefs and give the Web site address.” Ivy took a deep breath to keep her tears at bay as she recalled that day. “Afterward, Devony actually comforted me. It was like she could see straight into my heart, and listening to her
, I knew that I had to have what she had.”

  Ryan covered his face with his hands. “God forgive me,” he moaned. When he looked up, regret glistened in his mottled gold and green eyes. “I didn’t have the courage to ask the questions that I should have,” he whispered enigmatically. Then he squared his shoulders. “But that stops now.” He picked up her free hand from the table with both of his. “Will you have dinner with me again tomorrow night?” he asked.

  Delight washed over Ivy, and she nodded happily.

  “I’ll have dinner with you again tomorrow evening,” she said, “on one condition.”

  His smile skewed sideways. “Let’s hear it.”

  “We have to have our dessert first. At Rose’s. Tomorrow is Hunter’s birthday, and she made a point of saying that he would like to have you at the party.”

  Ryan sat back, her hand snuggled into his. “Yeah?”

  “Will you go?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it,” he told her, squeezing her hand.

  Smiling and still holding hands, they discussed the particulars and caught up on each other’s lives. Then Ivy stood.

  “I’d better call Rose and let her know we’ll both be there tomorrow,” Ivy said, reaching into her purse for her phone.

  “What about your dad?” he asked.

  Ivy stilled. “Apparently, he refuses to come if I’m going to.”

  Glowering, Ryan rumbled, “Someone needs to have a serious talk with that man.”

  “No, no,” she refuted softly. “He’s entitled to his feelings, Ryan. I just pray that with time the relationship will heal.”

  Ryan opened his mouth, but then his gaze shifted away, and his jaw clamped shut. Pleased that he wouldn’t argue the point with her, she leaned in and kissed his cheek before hurrying away, happier than she’d been in a long, long while.

  With one hand gripping the handle of a bright green gift bag and the other hovering at the small of Ivy’s slender back, Ryan walked from the car to the house on Hydrangea Lane. Ivy looked great in skinny black pants, matching flats and a melon-pink sweater set, her dark hair parted on the side and flowing over one shoulder. Delicate earrings made of concentric circles of gold wire set with black beads dangled from her tiny earlobes and called attention to the graceful length of her neck. For the first time Ryan noted how the top of her head came just past his chin. It seemed a perfect height for a woman. In fact, everything about her seemed perfect today.