Chapter 9
Only One Bed
Ivy
My sisters and Noelle pilot me into the cottage.
I stop just inside the door and take it in.
Cleaned from top to bottom, the cozy space sparkles.
The potted tropical anthurium red splash I gifted Noelle and Dad when they got engaged sits on the side table in a glossy white pot.
I’m pleased to see that both the graceful white-striped red blooms and the vibrant green leaves are healthy.
Noelle catches me looking. “We keep it in our bedroom usually. But it’s so pretty and rare we decided to move it here to make this place fancy enough for a couple movie stars.”
I don’t know if what she said lands with my sisters, but it lands with me.
I nod and return to checking out the cottage.
It’s definitely been prepped with Dash (and Lia) in mind rather than the Bryants.
Instead of whimsical holiday touches, everything is sleek, elegant, and understated.
A glass bowl of vintage silver ornaments occupies the center of the island.
A giant three-wick candle from Luminous Lights sits on the mantlepiece.
I breathe in the heady mix of cinnamon, pomegranate, and citrus of the shop’s bestseller.
It echoes the scent of the pomander balls that dangle on satin ribbons from the stocking hangers where Jodi and Mark Bryant usually hang their quilted stockings over the hearth.
I turn to Noelle. “It looks like something out of a design magazine.”
Before she can answer, Holly grabs my arm and steers me to the couch. “She’s touched. Sit. Spill.”
She pulls me down on to the cushion beside her and Merry and Noelle scoot the armchairs closer and lean forward, waiting.
“It’s a long story,” I begin.
“No, it isn’t,” Merry says. “In fact, I’ll bet it’s an extremely short story. You have not been secretly dating Dash Pine. I’d know if you were. We live together, remember?”
“Fair,” I say. “How was your trip?” I ask Holly.
“It was nice to spend Thanksgiving with Jack’s brother and some of their friends.”
“What about the evil stepfather?”
“We had lunch with him. He wasn’t invited to dinner.”
Merry whistles.
I raise an eyebrow. “Harsh.”
“He did try to steal their mom’s empire from them. Now, while I commend the attempt at redirection, let’s get back to the pending question.” Holly uses her lawyer voice.
“I didn’t realize this was a deposition,” I stall.
Holly crosses her arms and stares at me.
I bite my lip.
Noelle gives me a close look. “Your father and I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement in order to rent this cottage to Dash. “There was a second name on the reservation. And it wasn’t yours.”
Holly huffs, and I turn toward her again. “Quinn said you reviewed it.”
“I did.”
“Well, then you know.”
Merry puts on her best youngest child pout. “If everybody knows, then you have to tell me. It’s not fair. You can’t leave me out.”
I’m dying to tell her, to tell all of them. But there’s one teeny, tiny wrinkle—Merry’s big mouth.
I meet Holly’s gaze across the room, and she nods like I’ve got this.
“Merry, you can’t tell anybody,” she warns.
My younger sister has the nerve to look offended when everybody in Mistletoe Mountain knows that the fastest way to spread news is to tell Merry Jolly that it’s a secret.
Before she can protest, Holly goes on. “I’m serious. There’s an argument that the NDAs extend to whatever it is Ivy’s about to tell us. If you share it, Dad and Noelle could be in breach. Ivy, too.”
“Okay, okay. I get it.”
We all stare at her for a beat.
She raises her hand. “Baker’s honor.”
“I don’t think that’s a thing,” I tell her.
“It totally is,” she lies.
“Just tell us,” Holly says, exasperated. “If she blabs, I’ll slap a cease and desist on her.”
I’m pretty sure this is a bluff. But then, this is Holly we’re talking about.
“Okay, fine.”
In unison, they lean toward me, rapt.
“You know how Dash got a lot of press for his nude scenes in that movie?”
Merry snorts. “Um, yeah.”
“That’s an understatement,” Noelle observes dryly.
“I heard Calvin Klein wants him for a new campaign.”
I pause to consider this tidbit of information from Holly before continuing. “He didn’t handle it so well.”
“You think?” Merry says. “He got hammered on that morning show and went on a rant.”
“Not to mention, he mooned some reporters outside a club last night,” Noelle adds.
No one would ever accuse the Jolly women of being out of the pop culture loop.
“Right, and until last night, he had a plan to clean up his image by pretending to spend a romantic week in our very own winter wonderland with his longtime girlfriend, Lia Campbell.”
“Dash was dating Lia Campbell?” Merry asks, wide-eyed.
“Mmm, no. No, he was not.”
Her surprised expression contorts into a scrunched-up, disgusted look. “It was all a PR stunt?”
“Apparently,” I say.
“Jack says it’s fairly common,” Holly informs us.
Jack would probably know. His late mother was an extremely famous author. I note, but don’t mention, that Jack could only have weighed in if Holly, Dad, or Noelle spilled the tea despite the NDA. Maybe Merry isn’t the only loose-lipped Jolly.
Instead I say, “A public relations stunt that Lia backed out after Dash’s latest behavior.”
Merry’s catching up. “And you took her spot. How did that happen?”
“Quinn asked me to make these enormous flower arrangements, over a thousand flowers, for a photo shoot. Turns out the photo shoot was going to be Dash and Lia’s big announcement about their relationship. I’ve been awake for almost two days putting together these elaborate flower arrangements.”
“We seen the pictures on the internet. They’re gorgeous,” Noelle says.
If they’ve seen pictures of the flowers, they’ve also seen pictures of this kiss. Their extreme interest is making even more sense.
“When I was unloading them into Quinn’s barn, Dash came outside for some air. I asked him to give me a hand.”
“You asked Dash Pine to help you unload flowers from the bed of your dad’s pickup truck?” Noelle asks, as if she’s misheard me.
“Well, I didn’t know it was Dash. He had his collar up and hat pulled low over his forehead. I had my hands full and didn’t take a close look at him.”
“So then he said, ‘I don’t do manual labor,’ and that’s when you found out it was Dash,” Holly guesses.
“No, he helped me, and then I recognized him.”
“Huh,” Holly says.
“It’s your meet-cute!” Merry declares.
“It wasn’t a meet-cute. It was the beginning of a business arrangement.”
“So what happened?” Noelle says. “Did you offer to take Lia’s place?”
“No, he asked me. Actually, first he asked me to take my coat off.”
“He asked you to take your coat off?” Holly says. “And you did it? That doesn’t seem like you.”
She’s right, of course. “He had just told me Lia backed out and I was panicking. I thought if the photo shoot didn’t happen, he might not pay for all those flowers.”
“That would be breach of contract, and we would have nailed him to the wall.”
“Maybe, but in the moment, I just took off my parka and …”
“He liked what he saw,” Merry says.
Blood rushes to my face.
“And cue the blushing.”
Noelle throws her a warning look as I barrel ahead with the story. “So he asked. At first I said I couldn’t because I have too much work to do.”
“You do have too much work to do,” Merry says.
Holly and Noelle stare at her.
“It’s a crazy time of year. We have a big bulletin board in the kitchen where we have all of our orders pinned up so we don’t lose track.”
“She’s right. Between her desserts business and my flower business, our house is busier than Santa’s workshop. But that’s not my biggest problem.”
“It’s not?” Holly asks, calculating lost orders in her head.
“No.”
“What is?”
“The sleeping arrangements.”
“What?” Noelle says, bewildered.
I look at my soon-to-be stepmother. “There’s only one bed.”
She laughs. “I’m aware.”
Suddenly I remember that she and my dad holed up here for a while the summer she was being stalked.
“What did you do?”
“At that point, your father and I were just friends, so he took the couch.”
“Just friends is doing a lot of work, but we’ll let that go for now,” Holly says.
I turn to her. “What did you and Jack do?”
Last year, she shared the cottage with her now-boyfriend before they started dating.
“We had ground rules,” Holly tells me.
“Shocker,” Merry says.
“We took turns. We alternated getting the bedroom and the couch. But,” Holly adds, “that was a different situation.”
“How is it different? You weren’t dating; we’re not really dating.”
“We weren’t dating because I was his court-appointed lawyer and he was my client, and being involved with him would have been a violation of …”
I fade out as she starts naming the rules that she didn’t want to violate and snap back to attention when she says, “If I were you, I wouldn’t have any ground rules.”
“What do you mean? This is a professional situation. We have a boundary.”
“What’s the boundary?”
“Save the displays of affection for the public. So I guess we should just alternate nights in the bed.”
“Or,” Merry proposes, “you could throw caution to the wind, acknowledge that you’re attracted to each other, and have a fling.”
“A fling with Dash Pine?”
“You say it like it’s crazy idea.”
“It is,” I retort.
“No. The crazy idea,” Noelle tells me, “would be to not have a fling with Dash Pine.”
“Shouldn’t you be a good influence on us?”
She laughs. “Your mother raised three amazing daughters. You don’t need me to be an influence, good or bad. I’m just saying: it’s Dash Pine.”
“And we saw that kiss, you know,” Holly adds.
“Nothing about it said professional arrangement,” Merry agrees.
I’m saved from answering by a knock on the door.
I jump up and practically run across the room.
“That must be Dad and Dash.” When I yank open, there are three men standing on the porch. “And Jack,” I add. “Come on in.”
They tromp inside and slam the door closed against the cold. While I hug Jack in greeting, Dad shows Dash around the small space.
“Do you want to take off your coats and stay for a drink?”
I haven’t opened the refrigerator yet, but I know it’ll be fully stocked. That’s standard for the inn. Given the guest, they might have upgraded the food and drink, too. Caviar and champagne? Ugh, I hope not—at least on the salty fish eggs.
“We should get back,” Dad says. “We still have several guests with late arrivals to check in, and I haven’t made the sauce yet.”
“My pizza dough should be done rising,” Merry tells him.
“Oh, we’re not going to be able to come to dinner before the tree lighting.”
My announcement lands on my family like a punch.
“It’s a tradition, Ivy,” my dad says.
“Dad, I know, but we have to go in to the shop. I was gone all day.”
“We?”
“Dash is going to help me.”
Holly snorts. “Do you know how to do anything in the real world?”
I look at Dash for a second, watching him decide whether to be offended, and I realize it’s a fair question.
“The only jobs I’ve ever had have been acting, serving as a spokesperson, and modeling. I’m not sure they qualify me for much in the real world, but I’m here and I’m willing and I’m able. Ivy can just point me in the direction of what she needs.”
Holly nods her approval, and I feel like he’s passed the first of what might be several tests from my sisters.
“Do you want me to bring something for you to eat at the festival?” Merry asks.
“No, we’ll grab something there.”
Noelle wears a small frown but says nothing. Dad wears a bigger frown.
I get out ahead of it. “It won’t become a habit. I promise I’ll only miss pizza and Negronis before the tree lighting on nights when I’m ambushed into fake dating a movie star.”
After a moment, Dad chuckles, Noelle smiles, and the tension evaporates.