Their Small-Town Love Read online

  Hunter and Scott sat on the floor in front of the TV, close enough to hear with the volume set very low. Neither of them so much as turned a head when Ryan and Ivy entered the room, but Ryan saw that Hunter held the remote and knew that the boy was no doubt responsible for the near silence of the TV. Ryan sat, pulling Ivy down onto the sofa with him. She moved mechanically without the least resistance, one hand fisted in the fabric of his shirt as if to keep him close, but she had yet to look at him.

  Tendrils of dark, sleek hair had escaped from a loose ponytail on the back of her head and now wafted haphazardly about her face and shoulders. Giving in to impulse, Ryan reached out to smooth the silky wisps from her cheek, and finally she turned her gaze to his. Her lovely brown eyes, black lashes spiked with tears, contained an agony so sharp that it shredded whatever resistance he might have had. With one hand, he pulled her head down onto his shoulder. Curling into him, she coiled an arm about his neck and thoroughly wet the front of his shirt, her body convulsing in silence.

  After what felt like a long while, Hunter got up and came to stand at Ryan’s knee. “Aunt Ivy,” he said in a soft voice, “can we have cheese crackers for snack?”

  Ivy pulled herself together, an incremental process that made Ryan think of bricks going one by one into a wall. Finally, she offered up a wobbly smile and nodded, whispering, “I’ll get them.” Rising from the couch, she walked toward the kitchen.

  Hunter laid a hand on Ryan’s knee. Sensing that the boy needed to say something, Ryan watched Ivy for a moment. She seemed steady enough on her feet, so he looked to the boy. Leaning close, Hunter whispered, “No sister.”

  Ryan pulled the boy up onto his lap. Scott stayed in front of the TV, seemingly hypnotized by the cartoon that played on the screen, but Ryan knew some part of the younger boy was attuned to everything around him.

  “I’m sorry about your sister,” Ryan said gently. “For some reason God took her straight to heaven to be with Him, and that’s made everyone very sad. We were hoping we could get to know her and watch her grow up. But the good thing is, we already have you guys, and someday, when the time is right, maybe you’ll get another little sister.”

  Hunter nodded. “Aunt Ivy said she was too sick to grow up.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Mom’s sad, too, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, I’m sure both she and your father are very sad right now, but they must be doubly glad to have you and Scott. I’m sure that they can’t wait to come home and see you.”

  “When will they?”

  “As soon as your mom’s well enough. Another day or two, I’d think.”

  “And till then you and Aunt Ivy will take care of us.”

  You and Aunt Ivy. Ryan’s heart knocked hard against the wall of his chest. He suddenly felt paired up. How had that happened? But hadn’t he feared, on some level, right from the beginning, that it would? He shook his head before realizing how that would look to Hunter, then quickly reassured the boy.

  “That’s right. Aunt Ivy and I will take care of you.”

  Satisfied, Hunter slid off Ryan’s lap and went to sit next to his brother, who said loudly, “I wonder where the cheese crackers is.”

  Ryan wondered the same thing. Getting to his feet, he went into the kitchen to check on Ivy and found her standing with both hands braced against the counter, her head bowed and tears dripping from her face. The box of crackers sat on the counter behind her. Working quickly, Ryan opened a cabinet above her head, took down two plastic bowls and filled them with small orange-colored crackers; he then carried them into the living room for the boys. He returned to guide Ivy over to the table, which consisted of a rectangular oak top mounted to four black legs. Pushing her down onto a matching chair, he handed her a paper napkin. She dutifully mopped her face, but then she just sat there, looking utterly dejected.

  Ryan rummaged around until he found the coffee. Then he filled the pot, took down some mugs from the cabinet and went over to grip her shoulder with his hand. “Want anything with your coffee? Something to eat maybe?”

  She shook her head. He sat next to her with his arms folded against the tabletop until the coffee was made. After filling a cup, he carried it back to the table and literally wrapped both of her hands around it. Without so much as glancing up, she lifted it to her lips and took a sip. He drank his own mug while quietly making telephone calls.

  The first order of business seemed to be freeing himself for the evening. He called other coaches to cover practice and the principal, Kenneth Spicer, to manage his last class and the Honor Society meeting that evening. After accomplishing that task to his satisfaction, he went back into the living room and questioned the kids about what they might like for dinner. He followed with a call to the café downtown. Assured that four hamburgers with all the trimmings would be waiting when he went to pick them up at half-past five, he turned his full attention back to Ivy. They had almost three hours for Ivy to pull herself together well enough for him to feel comfortable about leaving her alone with the boys again.

  Much the same way that he forced the cooperation of headstrong teenagers, he calmly bullied her into taking a nap, going so far as to walk her down a second narrow hallway, this one running the length of the house, to the room where she’d spent the night and making her lie down. When he covered her with the blanket folded across the foot of the narrow bed, she turned onto her side, tucked her hands beneath her cheek and wearily mumbled, “Thank you, Ryan. I’ll never forget this.”

  “I just hope the coffee won’t keep you from resting,” he said, but her eyelids were already drifting closed. He went out and shut the door behind him.

  Two hours later when he slipped back in to gently shake her awake, she sat straight up and looked at him with clear eyes, asking, “Are the boys okay?”

  “I left them playing in their room.”

  “They’ve been so quiet all day.” She got up and started making herself presentable, smoothing her tailored shirt before reaching up to pull the rubber band from her hair.

  “Kids know,” he told her. “I always did. I always knew when my mother was sad. Which was often.”

  “That must have been difficult,” Ivy murmured, gathering her hair into her hands to put it up again.

  “Very. Today I suppose she’d be on antidepressants or some other medication.”

  Ivy stopped what she was doing, and dark, silky tresses slid free to tumble about her face. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Not your fault,” he said, taking the elastic band from her hand and gathering up her hair himself. She went stone still. “I’ve done this for my sister more times than I can count,” he told her, manipulating the glossy strands and the elastic band. “Wait one minute.”

  Seconds later the ponytail swung smoothly against the back of her head.

  Turning, she offered him a tremulous smile. “Thank you.”

  From habit—he assured himself that it was from habit—he kissed the top of her head. “My pleasure. Will you and the boys be all right if I go out long enough to pick up dinner?”

  “Yes, of course, but you don’t have to do that. I’ve taken enough of your time.”

  “Be back in a few,” he said, cutting off further protest.

  He left her standing there, one hand fingering her ponytail thoughtfully, and despite his fears and misgivings, he had to admit that being around Ivy just felt right. Maybe that’s what scared him the most.

  Ivy perched on the edge of the tub, watching in bemusement as the boys played submarine war with two red plastic ducks, a squeaky pig and a screw-on bottle cap.

  “Boys will be boys,” Ryan commented from the doorway. “You can give them ducks and pigs to play with, but they’ll just use them as weapons and blow them up. Figuratively speaking, of course.”

  It appeared that he was right. She suspected Ryan Jefford usually was. Her guilt at having imposed on him resurfaced, as it had done throughout dinner and the early evening.

  “You don
’t have to stay,” she told him, hoping that he couldn’t tell how much just the sight of him standing there filling up the doorway comforted her.

  “Don’t have anywhere else to be at the moment,” he told her, looking somewhat surprised by that fact.

  Selfishly, she did not try to convince him to go. Instead, she broke eye contact and concentrated on the boys, knowing that if she gave herself too much time to think regret would reduce her to tears again.

  No one had to tell her that she had overreacted today, that her grief was out of proportion to her sister’s loss. Likewise, no one had to tell her why. That did not make it any easier to bear, however. She wished that she could share the original source of her pain with Ryan. The more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to trust him with the details of her past, but she was afraid of how he might react. Would he look at her with disappointment? Scorn?

  She let the boys play until the water in the tub cooled. “Time to get out, guys.”

  “A-w-w.”

  “Five more minutes,” Hunter pleaded.

  “Sorry. You’re shivering now. Time to get dried off.”

  She leaned over and lifted the plug. Ryan crowded into the small room and pulled a towel from the bar beside the sink, holding it out to her. She wrapped the towel around Scott’s shoulders and lifted him out just as Ryan came forward with a second towel and captured Hunter with it. They carried the boys to their bedroom, where Ivy had earlier laid out pajamas.

  Some playful tussling later, they had both little bodies dried, dressed, teeth brushed and tucked into their twin beds. To her surprise, they did not insist on stories or books or bedtime games, but when Ryan suggested a prayer, both boys instantly stilled and pressed their hands together.

  Ryan rose to stand between their beds, and when Ivy also stood, he moved behind her and lightly clasped the tops of her shoulders. Ivy bowed her head, feeling peace steal over her as Ryan spoke.

  “Heavenly Father, we know that even when You allow sadness into our lives, You still love us. The quiet joy of Your love is always with us, and we thank You for that. Heal our hearts, Lord, and keep us safe as we go through this night and the days to come. Amen.”

  Ivy kissed the boys, told them good-night and then followed Ryan to the door. He shut off the overhead light, waited a moment as the night-lights blinked on and the boys snuggled down, then gently closed the door and walked Ivy through the hall, his hand riding lightly against the small of her back. She knew then what she wanted to do, needed to do. She owed it to him in some way. She would tell him the truth.

  As soon as they entered the family room, she turned to face him.

  “You’ve been so wonderful today, Ryan. I shudder to think what I would have done without you.”

  “I’m glad I could help.”

  “Do you have a few more minutes?”

  A gentle smile twitched at his lips. “Like I said, I don’t have anywhere else to be. For once.”

  Ducking her head, she folded her arms, surprised by an impulse to hug him. Instead, she swung away and dropped down onto the sofa. He followed suit, but this time, she noted, he left a good deal of space between them. That somehow felt awkward, and Ivy struggled to know where to start.

  “You strike me as a very busy man,” she said, knowing that she was avoiding the real subject.

  He nodded slowly. “Everyone thinks teachers have it easy because they get several weeks off in the summer, but we pay for that time with long hours the rest of the year.”

  “What is it you teach again?”

  “History. All of it. State history, American history, world history.”

  “And you’re a coach? Football, isn’t it?”

  “Mostly. It’s the assistant principal thing that really grabs the time, though. All those meetings and administrative duties and just the oversight, those pesky extracurricular activities that take up so many evenings.”

  “You love it, though, I can tell.”

  He flashed her a grin. “Yeah, I do. It’s a calling. It’s what I’m made for, meant for.”

  “I envy you that,” she told him. “I fell into radio while studying for a communications degree in college. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the microphone, and I’ve had a certain success with it, but it’s come at a high price.”

  “How so?”

  Still she hedged. “It’s a tough gig, up one day, down another, and you’re only as good as your latest ratings in your market and demographic. You move from market to market and format to format, hoping for the numbers to make national syndication. Every time you move, you leave something or someone behind.”

  He tilted his head, and she knew that the moment had come even before he gently asked, “What did you leave behind, Ivy?”

  “Everything,” she said around the lump in her throat. “Everyone.”

  They both knew that was not a full answer. He just sat there, waiting, until she told him. Strangely, though it was the first time she had ever spoken the words aloud, they proved less difficult to say than she had imagined they might.

  “My daughter. I left behind…I gave up my daughter.”

  Chapter Eight

  Everything inside Ryan’s chest seized. For a moment, he seemed unable to breath or even swallow. Meanwhile, Ivy went on in a soft, tremulous voice.

  “Her name is Chelsea. She’s six. She and her adoptive family live in Seattle.”

  Ryan finally gulped down the clog in his throat. “I—I had no idea.”

  Ivy smiled wanly at that. “No one does. Only my family. And Brand, of course.”

  “Brand?”

  “Her father.” She looked away. “Or her sperm donor, as he calls himself.”

  “Sounds like a charming character,” Ryan muttered, shocked to hear Ivy chuckle.

  “You have no idea. When he wants to be, Brand Phillips is the most charming man in the world. Also the most selfish.”

  Brand Phillips. Ryan recognized the name. Ivy’s partner on the controversial FireBrand Phillips and Ivy show. No wonder they broke up.

  “Am I to take it that you had a child together but never married?” he asked carefully, dreading the answer. It would explain a lot, he thought, hurt, somehow, as odd as that seemed. She was none of his concern, after all, but that didn’t seem to make any difference. He waited for her answer with a painfully thudding heart.

  Her forehead wrinkled. “Something like that. I had a child, and no, we never married. We lived together for several years before I accidentally became pregnant, and when I refused to have an abortion, Brand left me.”

  “This was how long ago?” Ryan asked, confused.

  “Six years, six months and seventeen days ago.”

  Ryan shook his head, more confused than ever. “But you continued your show together?”

  “Eventually. After I gave up the baby for adoption, Brand came back. He convinced me that he loved me, so in a way we picked up where we’d left off.”

  Ryan could only stare at her. “Then why, Ivy? Why give up your child?”

  Twisting sideways, she lifted a hand to cradle her temple, her elbow sunk into the back cushion of the couch. “When I signed the papers, I really didn’t have any other choice. Brand broke up the act when he left, so I didn’t have any means of support. I came back to Eden in hopes that my father would help me get on my feet, but…”

  “He turned you away,” Ryan surmised sourly.

  Ivy sighed, nodding. “He had never approved of my relationship with Brand, never approved of my lifestyle. I was an embarrassment to him. He told me that I would be a terrible mother, and he was probably right.” She looked straight at Ryan. “No, he was right. I was a mess.”

  “Still, Ivy,” Ryan argued, “you were pregnant, alone and unemployed.”

  “And confused,” she added. “I couldn’t believe what I’d done to myself, what I’d done to my child. To that point, I had truly loved Brand, admired him, even, for what I saw as his courageous social convictions.”

&
nbsp; “Such as?”

  “The ‘battle against the norm,’ as he called it, the right to dissent, to say outrageous things and defy social conventions.”

  “Like marriage and parenthood.”

  “Yes, like those, but other things, as well. Brand believes that because there are so many choices when it comes to religion, religion itself must be false and even harmful. He truly believes that religion is a shackle which humankind must throw off if we are to achieve true peace. Believing that, there is no convention or social ethic that he won’t challenge.”

  “And you bought that?”

  “I tried to, but when it came to aborting my child, I couldn’t do what he asked. I simply could not. So I did the only thing I could see to do.”

  “You gave her up for adoption.”

  Ivy bowed her head, saying softly, “I’ve never seen her, not even a picture of her, since the day she was born. They’ve offered, her parents. They write newsy letters and cards a few times a year, usually for her birthday in August and again at Christmas, and I’ve kept them apprised of every change of address I’ve made, but I just don’t think I can handle seeing her.” Ivy began to weep then, not the great, horrible sobs of earlier, but a gentle stream of tears that washed her already scrubbed cheeks. “That’s why I fell apart earlier. The loss of Rose’s daughter felt in some way like my own loss all over again. Wow, it feels so good to talk about her!”

  “You should be able to talk about her anytime you want,” Ryan declared, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “You did a brave, selfless thing, Ivy. Be proud of that.”

  Ivy wiped her eyes, saying, “I made sure she had a good family, good parents who could give her everything I couldn’t. A real home. Big sister. Financial security. A dad, grandparents, the works. And when it was too late to stop it, Brand came back.”