Chapter Twelve
I vy didn’t bother to spruce up for her date this time. The simple cotton dress she wore to work would be suitable for dinner at the diner. It was too late now to go home and change. So, she touched up her makeup. Good enough. She grabbed her little clutch purse and strolled catty-corner across the street to the diner, arriving just as Kyle, dressed in pressed jeans and a collared shirt, met her at the entrance, his timing impeccable.
Longtime waitress Dina greeted them with a raised brow. She ushered them to a booth smack dab by the front window where everyone in town could see them out together, and provided them with colorful, new menus.
As Ivy perused the menu, she was thrilled to discover Pedro had taken her advice and added Mexican entrées. She tried to ignore Kyle pulling wet wipes from a package and wiping down the entire surface of the table, along with the salt and pepper shakers and hot sauce bottles. She tried to recall if he did that when he came into the tea shop. She hoped not. She was careful to keep everything spotless. Everything was clean at the diner too, so she didn’t know what Kyle’s problem was.
Dina must’ve informed Pedro that Ivy was out front because he materialized to describe the specials. That was when everything went skidding sideways.
The instant Pedro saw Kyle with Ivy, he bristled like a paranoid hedgehog. Next, he swaggered—really, that was the only word for it—up to their booth. He rocked up on his toes and back, up on his toes and back, all the while, his deep-set eyes shooting carving knifes at Kyle.
Kyle smirked. He slid his hand across the newly wiped-down table to clasp Ivy’s. His large hand encompassed hers.
Ivy gave his hand a light squeeze and tried to extricate her fingers. Kyle held on. His thumb caressed her knuckles. She tugged. He held.
She expected steam to rise off Pedro like in a cartoon, he was so hopping mad at Kyle’s gesture. The madder Pedro got, the smugger Kyle grew, and the more enthusiastically he caressed her fingers.
Ivy was ready to jerk her hand free and create a scene when Pedro mumbled a curse that Ivy recognized from her high school Spanish, and began to denote the specials. His focus remained on Ivy as if they were the only two people in existence.
Every offering sounded fantastic, and Ivy got lost in his detailed descriptions. Enchiladas suizas with freshly made tomatillo salsa, carnitas tacos with pineapple-mango salsa, and beef fajitas with grilled sweet onions, green and red bell peppers, habaneros, and jalapenos.
With her attention on Pedro, Kyle’s grip on her hand grew tighter and tighter.
Ivy’s mouth began to water, despite the tension sparking in the air and her immediate need to extract her hand from Kyle’s grasp. If the date was only about the cuisine, it would’ve been perfect.
As soon as Pedro finished, Kyle inserted himself. “That all sounds delicious. What would you like, sweetling?”
Sweetling? Ivy could’ve sworn Pedro grew an inch in indignation.
Before she could speak, Kyle said, “Bring all three. Let’s share shall we, sweetling? That way we can enjoy everything together .” His emphasis on the last two words only served to antagonize Pedro even more.
Just when Ivy thought Pedro would suggest he and Kyle go out back to settle the score, Pedro found his professionalism. He took a breath, gave a brisk nod at Kyle, and beamed at Ivy. “I can’t wait to cook for you,” he told her.
When Pedro turned, Ivy snatched her hand back. “Sweetling? Really, Kyle?”
Kyle shrugged. “You don’t like sweetling? How about ‘dearheart’ or, I know, ‘babe’?”
“Babe makes me think of Paul Bunyan’s blue ox. Just stick with my name, okay? I like my name.”
Kyle waved to the people passing on the street, no doubt so they would see him with Ivy. She sighed. Next the gossip grapevine would have them planning their wedding. “Sure, dearheart,” Kyle said in his off-hand way, and launched into a description of his new truck. Leather seats, custom hubcaps, sunroof, whatever. Ivy could not care less. But Kyle was determined to share the great deal he gave himself on it, since he owned the Chevy dealership. Next, the conversation became a detailed description of every car in the lot and the wheeling and dealing aspects of his job.
Ivy hid a yawn while her mind scampered off on a tangent, considering dearheart as an endearment. Dearheart made her think of a hunter pulling a throbbing heart from a stag, blood dripping down, like something from a Grimms’ fairy tale. Not the most romantic of images, to be sure.
Heaping platters of food arrived. Dina had to bring each one out separately, they were so overloaded. Kyle began to serve portions onto both their plates, as if he knew what Ivy preferred. It was all Ivy could do to keep Kyle from personally attempting to hand-feed her the chips and salsa, not to mention the tacos. He would make up a fajita taco adding extra salsa to it and hold it up to her mouth expecting her to take a bite. She barely resisted the urge to wrest it from his hand. He was doing it to tick Pedro off. She could feel Pedro watching them from the kitchen. She finally just focused on the enchiladas suizas. She liked those best anyway.
Dina hovered near the edge of the table, clearly enjoying the show. She could barely contain her laughter. She kept slyly winking at Ivy as if all this machismo was of great benefit.
Ivy longed to go home, but she was no quitter. She would see this date through like all the rest.
What annihilated the evening was the complimentary dessert Pedro brought to the table. A hot fudge sundae, buried in whipped cream with a cherry would have been ideal, but it arrived with a smattering of crushed walnuts. Pedro managed to fling walnut bits at Kyle when he set it down.
The glint in Pedro’s eyes made it clear to Ivy that he’d done it on purpose.
Kyle hopped up, brushing madly at his clothes with the napkin. “You know I’m allergic to nuts. Why would you do this?”
Pedro responded with a Gallic shrug. “I forgot.” He slid the dessert over to Ivy.
Kyle rushed off to the men’s room to scrub his hands and make sure his clothes were nut-free.
When Pedro lingered at the table, Ivy waved him away with a scowl of disgust, picked up a spoon, and dived into the sundae.
She might as well.
It was forty minutes before Kyle returned. Apparently he had stripped down to check all his clothes for nut bits. Why not just go home?
Her sundae was long gone by the time he reappeared, subdued. He slumped back into the booth, rumpled and disgruntled. This date topped out as the worst yet.
Neither one spoke. What was there to say? Ivy’s gaze wandered from Kyle over to Pedro putting out his “Closed” sign. Through the glass door was a view of the town green across the street. She spotted Montgomery on the end of a long leash trotting along on his little legs and where Montgomery was…
“Thank you, Kyle,” Ivy said. “Sorry about the nuts.” She grabbed up her clutch, shrugged into her jacket, and escaped. She brushed by Pedro on her way out without a word, because really, why? He had made an awkward date miserable beyond repair. Leaving it all behind her, Ivy made a beeline to the opposite side of the street, just in time to meet up with the only man she wanted to spend time with.
“Hey, hi,” said Jaxon. He glanced at the diner, where Pedro and Kyle were obviously having words and raised an eyebrow.
“Excruciating,” was all she said. He nodded. His lips gave a wry twist.
“Want to talk about it?”
Ivy shook her head. “Not ever, not for any reason. Can I walk with you?”
Montgomery was doing his delighted little doggy dance at Ivy’s appearance.
“My dog says yes.”
Ivy laughed. She reached down to pat Montgomery’s head, and he rose on his hind legs to paw at her skirt.
When Jaxon started to scold him, Ivy held up a hand. “It’s fine, really.” Montgomery gave her a happy, jubilant lick, and Ivy fell into step with Jaxon. They walked a block in companionable silence. Easy. Stress-free, not like her dates with Roman or Joel or Rob or Kyle.
At the corner of Worthy and Endeavor, they paused to cross the street. Ivy sighed. “You’re easy to be with.”
“Nah, it’s him.”
Ivy gave Jaxon a bemused look.
Jaxon pointed at his dog, who scampered along. “I love taking him on walks. He’s always so happy. He’s the happiest little dog I think I’ve ever known.”
“I always wanted a dog.” At Jaxon’s questioning glance, she added, “Holly’s allergic.”
“Ah.”
In a moment of honest transparency into her life, she added, “So, whatever Holly needs.”
“Holly gets.” He nodded. “I see that. It’s still like that.”
Staring at the ground, Ivy shuffled her feet a little. “I didn’t think anyone noticed.”
“That she’s a taker? I see it. You’re the giver.”
“So are you.”
They passed Throckmorton Grocery and the one and only bar in town, Toby and Mac’s. At Celestina’s Chocolates, Ivy paused. She pointed. “The competition—here at the corner of Hazard and Endeavor.”
“Really, I’ve never been inside.”
“Ah, well, you’re missing out.”
“Nah, there’s scones over there.” He gave a nod toward the tea shop. “I have all I need on Main Street.”
“Thank you.” Ivy beamed.
They rounded the corner by the ramshackle Hazard Inn with its “For Sale” sign still out front when Jaxon shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, I like all the businesses on the square. We have everything we need right here in the center of town. I especially like that my building is part of the whole. Listen, I should really tell you…”
Suddenly, Montgomery slipped free and tore across the street. Jaxon, now holding an empty leash, muttered a curse and dashed after him in pursuit.
Montgomery barked joyfully, chasing a squirrel on the green. As the squirrel made its escape, Montgomery pawed at the base of the tree wildly. Just as Jaxon got close and leaned down to reattach the leash, Montgomery darted toward the white metal bench in the middle of the expansive lawn.
Ivy watched from the corner, not sure if she should laugh. All the other Rebels took themselves so seriously. But when Jaxon let out a loud guffaw from the green and turned back to shrug, Ivy crossed over. Jaxon waited until she caught up and angled his head toward his pet. “Dog on a mission.”
The little Scottie parked his hind end by the Captain Hazard statue, waiting, as if calling them over to join him. Jaxon motioned Ivy to come along. He reached out a hand. Ivy took it. She needed the connection after the disastrous date at the diner. Well, after all of them, really. It’s like Jaxon knew she needed the human contact without expectations. Someone to understand.
That was the problem with all the dates. All the expectations they placed on her, imagining her to be what they wanted her to be and not bothering to find out what she might need. But Jaxon kept it easy, and she was certain if she were brave enough to share her thoughts, he would listen. But was that because all he wanted was a friend?
She swallowed, and it was as if Jaxon sensed her inner turmoil. He spoke, adding lightness to the moment. “I wonder if anyone ever called him Eddie.”
Ivy blinked up at him and couldn’t help it; she snorted a laugh. “Better than Edwin, I would think. Probably just Ed. A tough guy like him would be Ed, don’t you think? I bet he had a dog, too.”
“Oh? You think all the tough guys have dogs?”
Was he flirting?
Ivy gave him a cheeky grin. “Well, you do.”
He blinked in surprise. “Yes, but he’s a little dog, not a manly dog.”
“Oh, I suppose manly dogs are Rottweilers and Huskies. It’s not really fair to Montgomery, is it. I bet he thinks of himself as a tough, manly dog.”
“He certainly doesn’t lack for self-confidence.”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “Hmm, how did you come by Montgomery?” She sat on the bench with him beside her.
“He was a gift.”
She turned to face him. “From?” Her eyes widened at Jaxon’s pained expression. What had she said? Then it hit her. “Oh, I’m sorry.” She could’ve kicked herself as realization flooded over her. Her voice cracked. “He was a gift from your wife.” She cleared her throat. “Of course, I should have known.”
Jaxon shook his head. “No.” He gazed up at the sky for a long moment. “He was a gift to my wife…from me.”
That just made it worse. Ivy’s stomach took a dip and dive, but Jaxon was shaking his head.
“Don’t. Please, you didn’t say anything wrong. It’s not…”
She held up a hand. “You don’t have to talk about this.”
Jaxon gave a harsh laugh. “It’s not that. Really. Swear to God, Candace never even liked Montgomery.”
“Really?”
“He was a terrible gift for her, a thoughtless gift. I don’t think I could’ve given her a worse gift than Montgomery.”
How could a cute little dog be a thoughtless gift? Ivy’s heart clenched.
“I knew better, too. Candace was all about adventure.” He waved his hand at the clouds. “Wingsuit flying, skydiving, white water rafting, even zorbing.”
“Zorbing?”
“Don’t ask.” He shivered and shook his head. “If anyone thought up a crazy new extreme sport, Candace was all in. Being responsible for anyone else was not her idea of a good time. Having a dog meant we couldn’t just pop off for the weekend. We needed to make arrangements for that dog , as she called him. But I—” He gave a wry smile. “I was hoping she’d change. Gifting her with a dog didn’t transform her into the person I needed. It only made it clear our goals were out of alignment. She didn’t even give him a name.”
“What kind of woman doesn’t name her dog?” The words spilled out before Ivy could pull them back. Her heart ached for Jaxon. The sky was dimming, vibrant streaks of color folding into the deep blue violet of twilight. “How long had you known each other when you married?”
“Three months. Total whirlwind, but Candace was like that. Leap first. Neither of us was what the other imagined. We had completely different expectations of what our marriage would be. We tried to make it work.”
Ivy heard the grief in that statement.
“She thought I’d be into her escapades. I thought we’d build a home, at very least a home base. I knew she liked adventure, but the danger thing? That was a total surprise. We were still trying to make it work when she—fell.”
Ivy swallowed hard. She didn’t want to drag Jaxon through his heartache, certain it helped no one. “I should go.” She rose.
“Don’t.”
“I hate making you relive bad memories.”
“Please stay.” He tugged her hand until she sat on the bench beside him. “You’re helping me to make sense of my memories. No one else in town lets me talk about Candace. They’re so convinced I’m miserable and grieving, but it’s been three years and—” Jaxon ran a hand through his hair. It flopped down in that adorable way Ivy loved, and she experienced a flash of guilt that she could be thinking that when he was working through something so emotional.
“I’m still trying to make sense of what happened. I’d like to start over.”
“Except for Montgomery.”
Jaxon’s mouth curved up on one edge. “Except for Montgomery. He’s a keeper. I think sometimes if I’d tried harder, Candace wouldn’t have died.” He sighed. “It’s my fault.”
“Surely not.”
He nodded. “We were fighting when she fell. If we hadn’t been, maybe I would have been closer. Maybe she wouldn’t have gone off climbing by herself. I’d have been by her side. If we hadn’t been arguing, Candace wouldn’t have been so reckless. If I could do it over…”
Ivy’s first instinct was to soothe him, to tell him it wasn’t his fault, it couldn’t be, but at his wounded expression, she simply took his hand. She rubbed her fingers lightly over the back of his knuckles. “Tell me.”
He released a shuddering breath. “Really?”
Jaxon needed to talk, and she could do this. This wasn’t like being a good listener for her “dates” while they bragged about inventory, risk management, and fixing up a Corvette. This was being there when it mattered for someone who mattered to her.
She nodded, and was stunned at the gratitude in his eyes.
“Candace convinced me to go on her latest adventure. This one was easy, she said. One even I could handle.”
Ivy took in the athletic physique of the man before her and said, in disbelief, “That even you could handle?”
He nodded. “Not mountain climbing, she claimed, no, no, much easier than that. It wasn’t even canyoning.”
“Canyoning?”
When Jaxon rolled his eyes and shrugged, they smiled at each other and said in unison, “Don’t ask.” His hand tightened around hers in a comfortable squeeze. “Just rock climbing, she promised, easy like those practice places kids use after school or for parties.”
“Was it?”
He looked skyward. “Not even close.” He laughed, and Ivy joined in.
“No, she tricked me, and it pissed me off. She thought it was hilarious and was impatient with me for being annoyed. I couldn’t back out. We were already there with a group of her adrenaline-junkie buddies. I was already committed. Unless I planned to renege, my only option was to tough it out. The rock face was sheer. Oh, it wasn’t high like a mountain. That much was true. We were without the climbing equipment I thought we should have. Everyone there was a veteran climber, except for me. We each had a rope and a harness. It started out fun, but the higher we got, the crazier it became. They were all extreme-sports gurus, and I was just me.
“I’m not unathletic—I played sports in high school. Even now, I’m on the baseball team with the Rebels, but this was new and not without risk. That’s the part Candace loved. Taking a chance, being overconfident made her come alive. And, believe me, her confidence was staggering. It’s one of the qualities I admired, but she took it too far that day. I made it to the first ridge no problem. I even made it to the second, but she kept taunting me, hinting that I’d back out.
“She wanted me to, I think, to prove I couldn’t hack it, to prove we were a mistake. It made me more determined to stick it out. If everyone else could do it, so could I. By the third ridge, I’d had enough. We had space on this one. We’d moved off by ourselves, far enough from the others that no one would overhear us arguing in hushed tones. I let her have it. I told her to quit embarrassing me. That I knew she’d deceived me.
“She dared me to give up. I told her I wasn’t a quitter. She lit into me about Hazard, how miserable she was and how, since I wasn’t a quitter, we’d be stuck here until she died, that the reason she needed adventure was because of our pathetic life.
“We were on a ridge, halfway up a cliff. It was the absolute dumbest place to pick a fight. I’d started it, and Candace, being Candace, amped up our row until we were shouting. So much for quarreling where no one else would hear. She thrived on confrontation. Never one to back down from a fight, that was Candace.
“I chewed her out for lying to me about the skill level required, and she laughed, mocking me. All I could think was, how could she do this?
“She went off on how I was embarrassing her, that the trip was to show me what I was made of, or, rather, not made of. I said she was cruel. She said I was weak.
“I finally quit arguing. What was the point? She trudged off to check out the next section, and she left her harness behind. She rounded the outcropping—just to view the rock face, she said. But Candace always had to be first. She didn’t wait for any of us to join her. Without her harness, she began to climb.
“I knew when she trudged off that I should follow. Lord, if I could do it over. That one moment haunts me. But I was angry, and at the time I thought, fine, she wants to get away from me. I’ll let her.”
“She was a grown woman.”
“She was my wife. I should have kept her safe. It was my responsibility, but I just let her go, and then I lost her. Forever. She fell. We were all too far away to catch her, or to even break her fall. She didn’t fall back to the outcropping, but all the way to the base of the rock face.
“In the last moment of her life, I wasn’t there.”
Ivy took his hand. “Jaxon…”
“I should have protected her.”
“She—” How could she say this? She knew that Candace had been trying to escape him just as she had escaped from her dates. Candace had made her choice.
She hadn’t loved Jaxon.
But had he loved her? More importantly, would Jaxon always blame himself? Because if that was the case, he might never get past his loss. Was the town of Hazard right? As the last bit of color faded from the horizon into darkening azure, Ivy knew she needed to go. She needed to let him go—for now.
She stepped away as Jaxon remained sitting, his loyal dog beside him. She wanted something he wasn’t ready to give. At that moment, the door of the diner burst open.