3. Ivy
IVY
T he scent of fresh summer rain, wet leather, and something clean and citrusy like lemon soap invades my breath, and I inhale it deeply, tugging the fluffy blanket tighter around me to stay in the perfect dream I’ve been floating in so magically.
One where Drew is here .
Where I can see his face again…
A warm, gentle hand cups my cheek, turning my face to the side. Calloused fingers brush across my temple. “Ivy?”
“Hmm?”
I lean into the touch, the familiar warmth and comfort of it enough to make a little sigh slip from my lips. The same electric buzz that always comes from his soft caress makes me want to luxuriate in it forever.
Drew always knows what I need…
“Ivy?” His voice sounds rough tonight. Off. A little unsteady. Like he’s upset about something. Maybe a bad night in the ER. “Can you open your eyes?”
Were they closed?
The thick, gray fog clouding my brain starts to clear slowly, but I try to cling to it. Try desperately to make it stay so he will stay.
A crack of thunder rattles the house, and I groan and roll toward the only touch that has ever lit me on fire.
“Drew…mmm…was sleeping…”
Those fingers at my temple still. “Ivy, I need you to open your eyes for me.”
Ugh…
So demanding.
That isn’t like Drew.
He’s so patient. So kind. Always putting everyone else’s needs first. Taking care of me the way only he can. Like now…
“Ivy, please .”
That strain in his normally smooth voice finally shatters the last vestiges of sleep, and I force my lids open.
Shadows engulf the room, the lights I swore were on in the kitchen and living room now off. Only the occasional flash of lightning through the front window illuminates the space.
Drew squats in front of me, where I lie on the couch, cocooned in the thick, fuzzy blanket I remember being draped across the back. His normally bright-blue eyes seem darker tonight as he examines me, hand still pressed to one cheek, keeping my face tilted toward him. “Are you feeling okay?”
Huh?
Why wouldn’t I be?
He always worries so much.
It’s so hard for him to take off his “doctor” hat, even when he’s not at the hospital and there’s no reason to worry.
I push myself up slowly, his hand falling away with my movement, and he shifts back slightly and rises to his feet.
It takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness to be able to see anything.
The pale wood floors.
Booted feet.
Black motorcycle boots.
Dark jeans.
A black T-shirt pulled taut over a sculpted chest.
Tattoos swirling up his left arm…
What?
I blink a few times, trying to clear the remaining fog I’ve been floating in.
Lightning flashes again, followed by another rumble of thunder.
The man standing in front of me retreats a step, then another, until he can lower himself into one of the chairs across from the sofa.
But something is wrong.
Very wrong.
My heart lurches into my throat.
That isn’t Drew.
Tears pool in my eyes as they sweep up to the mantle—where the cardboard box sits. Exactly where I left it— him —when I answered the call from Marlo.
An inked arm reaches up and switches on the lamp in the corner behind his chair, bathing the room in a warm glow and enough light to see that the man sitting in the leather chair most definitely isn’t Drew—even though he has the same face.
God, I’ve missed seeing him…
But it isn’t quite right.
Longer hair that, in its current wet state, curls haphazardly over his forehead and around his face.
Small silver hoops hang in his nose and ears.
Slightly broader, more muscular shoulders and arms fill the chair.
Tattoos over his exposed skin when Drew refused to ink his.
And the eyes—though they’re the same vibrant blue—seem haunted.
Somehow shadowed more than the ones I’ve stared into for the past four years.
It takes a second for my brain to fully get on board with what it’s seeing. For it all to finally click.
I suck in a sharp breath. “Camden?”
He clears his throat, shifting forward to rest his elbows on his knees. The movement shifts the collar on his T-shirt, showing a glint of a silver necklace. “I’m sorry about how I just…showed up like this. I should have called to warn you I was coming…”
“What?”
Shaking my head, I try to clear away the remaining cobwebs, try to make sense of what’s happening.
His uneasy gaze darts to the front door, then back to me quickly. “You…called me Drew and passed out on the porch. I caught you and brought you inside to the couch.”
I did what?
Cam swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple bobbing under tanned skin.
“I can’t imagine what that must have been like…
opening the door and seeing me…” He shoves a trembling hand through his wet hair, shifting it away from his face, only to have it fall right back.
“I should have thought about what a shock it would be and called first.”
My mind spins.
Flashes of memory return.
Wanting to go out in the warm summer rain.
Opening the door.
Someone standing there.
A flash of lightning.
Drew…
I squeeze my eyes closed against the wave of despair that washes over me. It threatens to drown me under its catastrophic power, twisting me violently, heaving me toward the truth I managed to forget for a few blissful moments.
My fingers curl around the soft fabric of the blanket Cam must have covered me with when he brought me to the couch.
Cam!
That wasn’t Drew.
This isn’t Drew.
No matter how many times I repeat it to myself, when I reopen my eyes, the man sitting across from me still looks like Drew. My heart still stutters seeing his face again. I’ve missed it—missed him —so damn much.
I never thought I’d see him again anywhere except in old photographs.
But it’s like he’s here with me even when he isn’t.
Cam rubs his hand across a lightly stubbled cheek, his gaze drifting to the box on the mantle like he can somehow tell what’s inside it even when it doesn’t have any visible labeling.
My stomach pitches, the tears burning in my eyes threatening to fall. Because the longer I stare at him and see the differences, I also see all the similarities. Every little feature that matches. “I just didn’t expect you to…look so much like him.”
He gives me a grim half-smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, which I now see have dark rings under them, as if he’s as exhausted as I am. “That’s the thing with identical twins. Someone else always has your face.”
Until they don’t…
Anger flashes hot through my veins, my hands fisting in the blanket.
Because Drew is gone now.
But his brother is here.
“What are you doing here, Cam?”
He shifts restlessly at my question, clenching his hands together in front of him.
“I thought you were still in London.”
Settling back in the chair, he nods slowly, his intense gaze locked on me, like he’s trying to memorize my face when I’m the one who is struggling, seeing his.
“I was. And now I’m not. I wanted to let you know I was back in town, so it wasn’t a surprise if you saw me somewhere.
” He releases a little sardonic laugh. “Not that it could have gone much worse than that did.”
What the hell did he expect?
Given his absence from Drew’s life during our entire relationship, and even after his death, him simply appearing on my doorstep on my wedding day couldn’t have been on my bingo card.
“Why now?” That bubbling anger shifts to something even hotter. “You didn’t even come back for the funeral. So, why now ?”
His lips press together into a firm line.
A muscle in his tense jaw tics.
Camden doesn’t like me calling him out, but he deserves it—the anger, the scrutiny, the discomfort at having to face his actions.
Nothing should have kept him from coming to his brother’s funeral.
Nothing.
Yet, I was the one there holding his mom while she sobbed during the service. I was the one accepting condolences from friends and strangers. I was the one helping Nancy make all the difficult decisions when all she wanted was her other son here.
When he should have been here.
He dips his head to avert his gaze, and his hair flops forward again, hiding his eyes—either because he can’t or won’t look at me.
“I know you’re angry about that, and you have every right to be.
My relationship with Drew was…”—he releases a heavy sigh filled with so many emotions they seem to fill up the room as much as Cam’s presence does, and when he lifts his head again, the pain filling his gaze matches my own, maybe exceeds it, which I didn’t think was even possible—“complicated.”
“Complicated?” My voice cracks on the word, emotion getting the better of me.
“That’s all you’re going to say about it?
That it was complicated? ” I lean toward Cam as my anger rises.
“He was your brother . You shared a damn womb. You share the same face. And you weren’t here for your mom when she lost him.
Does she even know that you’re here now? ”
The look he gives me answers before he does.
Pure guilt floods his darkened gaze as his hands tense on the armrests.
“No…” He shakes his head, and the steely set of his shoulders grows, until he looks like he’s about to snap.
“She doesn’t know, and I know I have no right to ask this of you, but please, don’t tell her. ”
“What?” I shift forward on the couch, mouth gaping as my entire body trembles. “You-you can’t be serious.”
Cam shoves to his feet and grabs a wet leather jacket off the back of the other chair, shoving his arms through the sleeves. It settles over him like it was cut for his body, perfectly molding to his shoulders and chest as he zips it. “Coming here was a mistake. Again, I’m sorry…”
He starts to make his way toward the front door but pauses beside the end table next to the couch, flipping the photograph I laid down up. His gaze rakes over the image, the corner of his lips turning up ever so slightly, but it doesn’t take away any of the pain in his eyes. “He really loved you.”
My breath catches, a sob crawling up my throat.
His hand trembles as he sets the frame back down, the photo facing me. Showing me what will now be the happiest moment of my life. When I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with Drew. When I had everything in my grasp and was clinging to it so tightly that I thought I’d never lose it.
But somehow, it slipped through my fingers…
Sure strides bring Cam to the door before I can even get myself untangled from the blanket and to my feet.
I waver slightly when I finally manage it. “You’re leaving?”
His hand pauses on the knob. With his back still to me, he inhales deeply, his shoulders rising then falling as he releases it slowly.
“I’m sorry I came, Ivy. I thought I was doing the right thing, but—” He shakes his head, still refusing to look at me.
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing I do is ever the right thing. ”
With those words, he yanks open the door and steps out into the storm still blustering outside.
Another sharp flash of lightning illuminates his tense features as he turns and takes one last look at me before pulling the door closed behind him in time with the crack of thunder that shakes the house.
My head spins.
What the hell just happened?
I rush after him on wobbly legs, turning the knob and tugging the door open as he reaches the end of the walkway, where a motorcycle sits parked at the curb.
He isn’t going to ride that in this weather…
Only someone with a death wish would.
Yet, he must have ridden it here.
Through the driving rain.
Coming here to tell me he was back was so important to him that he risked that and will again to leave.
He tugs on a helmet and throws his leg over the Harley Davidson without looking my way. Wind whips the rain almost sideways, more lightning cracking the sky as he fires it up and pulls away from the curb onto the soaked street, disappearing into the deluge and leaving me reeling.
Why did he come?
After four years of not speaking with Drew.
After never meeting me or showing any inclination of ever wanting to.
After staying in London and using it as an excuse to never come home.
After missing birthdays. After missing his brother’s funeral.
After failing to be here for his mother during such a horrible, traumatic time…
he just shows up at my doorstep one month later.
Why?
The storm swallows the sound of the motorcycle’s engine quickly as he flees.
He’s gone.
I stagger back a step, then close the door against the riot outside, turning to rest my shoulders to the smooth wood. My heart thuds wildly beneath my ribs. My hands won’t stop shaking. Even my knees seem weak from the encounter with the other Usher twin.
Something made him return to Philadelphia now.
And something brought him to my doorstep tonight.
But I don’t have the faintest clue what it could be.
I slide down the door until my butt hits the wet floor, but I don’t care that my jeans are now damp.
Whatever reason Cam has for coming home, it’s his .
It doesn’t affect me.
I can’t let it.
Not when I can barely contain the chaotic, soul-crushing emotions that swamp me every waking moment and the memories and nightmares that plague me when I try to sleep.
But not telling Nancy that he’s back when she’s grieving and needs her son, that’s something else entirely.
A debate wages inside my head, between calling her immediately and telling her Cam is here or honoring his request. More of a plea, really. The way he looked when he asked me not to tell her, the pain in his gaze—it’s enough to give me pause in grabbing my phone.
What is going on with you, Camden Usher?
Something tells me finding out the truth will be almost as hard as figuring out what to do with that.
My eyes land on the box, and I push myself to my feet and slowly make my way over to it. I trail my fingers across the damp cardboard, my throat tightening.
“What should I do?”
Drew was always my sounding board.
No matter what was bothering me—issues at the shop with employees or stock, bridezillas who made my days so much harder, even my occasional spats with Marlo over trivial things.
He was the only person who ever got all of me.
I sink back to my knees in front of the fireplace where I was before Marlo called and Cam showed up. It’s the closest I can get to him without pulling the urn from that box, and I don’t have it in me to do that right now.
Not when I just saw his ghost.