Chapter 29
An Ambush by Ivy
Ivy
I know I should pull over and calm down. But I don’t. Instead, as the last notes of Daniel Lovelace’s Christmas ballad fade, I punch Griselda’s number into my phone.
She picks up on the second ring.
I skip the niceties. “Where is he?”
“Where is who?”
“You know who.”
“For the sake of argument, pretend I don’t,” she says.
I pound the steering wheel in frustration. “Daniel Lovelace.”
There’s a pause. Then Griselda says carefully, “Ivy, what are you doing?”
“I’m fixing this. Where is he?”
“Does Dash know you’re—”
“Griselda, please. Just tell me where he is. I know you know.”
Another pause. I can practically hear her weighing whether to help me or talk me out of whatever I’m planning.
“He’s staying at the Stonebridge Tavern in the valley,” she finally says.
“Room number?”
“You can’t just show up and—”
“What’s his room number? Please.”
“Ivy.” Her voice is firm now. “Think about what you’re doing. This isn’t your mess to fix.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Oh, honey.” her tone softens. “You’re sure about this?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay. He’s in Room 412.”
“Thanks. Can you do something else for me?”
“Depends what it is.”
“Can you pick Dash up at the Children’s Hospital and take him and Rachel to the matinee of The Nutcracker? I have three tickets at Will Call, but I’m not sure I’ll be back in time.”
“Well, I do love our youth ballet.”
This is news to me. She’s been feuding with their artistic director for a decade, easy. But I let it go. “Great. I got the best seats in the house, so you should have a fantastic time.”
I end the call and type the hotel’s address into my GPS system to pull up directions. It’s only twenty minutes to the south. I adjust course and turn off the radio so I can think. I need to get Daniel Lovelace to talk to me, trust me, and then do what I want him to do. How hard can it be?
I giggle nervously. Regardless of my likelihood of success, which, frankly, I estimate as low, I’ve at least broken my habit of shying away from risk.
The Stonebridge Tavern’s been around almost as long as the country has, and it looks its age.
Once a way-stop for weary travelers, it now serves mainly as overflow accommodations for visitors to Mistletoe Mountain’s holiday celebrations who can’t find lodging in town.
Dad’s been known to direct tourists to this place when the inn’s completely booked.
I park in the visitor lot and sit for a moment, hands gripping the steering wheel, and gather my resolve.
Then I force myself out of the station wagon and across the lot to the hotel.
The lobby is clean and bright, but nearly devoid of holiday decorations—at least by Mistletoe Mountain standards.
The desk clerk barely looks up as I cross to the elevator. Fourth floor. Room 412.
I’m about to knock on a stranger’s door and blow up his world.
Except he doesn’t feel like a stranger. Not really.
I’ve been listening to his voice all week without knowing it.
Every time Dash laughs, every time his speaking voice drops into that raspy register, I’ve been hearing echoes of Daniel Lovelace.
I knock before I can overthink it.
Footsteps. Then the door opens.
Daniel Lovelace is built like Dash, with the same height and the same broad shoulders. He’s older, of course. Weathered. He wears jeans and a faded tour t-shirt and his feet are bare. And when he looks at me, I see Dash’s eyes. Dark brown, deep, intense.
“Can I help you?” His famous voice is careful, guarded.
“I’m Ivy Jolly.” The words come out steadier than I feel.
“I know who you are.” Of course he does. Anyone with a pulse and an internet connection probably knows who I am now. The weirdness of this fact almost knocks me off course.
I refocus. “I want to talk to you about Dash.”
His expression shifts, opening up like he’s been waiting for this conversation.
He steps back, opening the door wider. “Come on in.”
The room is neat but lived-in. A guitar case sits propped against the wall. On the desk, a notebook lies open to a page covered in scratched out lyrics. Half-empty coffee cups litter the nightstand and the dresser.
He gestures to the armchair by the window. I sit. He sits across from me and kicks his long legs out. The posture pings something in my memory.
“You were at Christmas karaoke. You sat in the back and had a cowboy hat pulled down over your eyes.”
“Yup.”
He’s the man who left in a hurry when Dash sang the Daniel Lovelace song.
“How long have you known you’re his father?” I ask.
“Since I broke my leg on tour two ago. Or at least, I suspected then. I was laid up in Albuquerque and an episode of the vampire football series came on. I’d never seen it, and I didn’t have anything better to do. Ended up binge watching all seven seasons.”He chuckles.
“It sucks you in,” I agree, smiling a little at my unintentional pun.
He nods and goes on. “The kid who played Vlad sure reminded me of myself. I started to wonder. Pine’s not the most common surname, and I’d had a romance with a girl with that last name.”
Daniel stands and moves to the window, staring out at the parking lot.
“Once I was up and around again, I dismissed it. Then I saw his new movie, the one about the rancher. I spent the whole film trying to remember to breathe. It was like watching myself at twenty-five. The same face. The same mannerisms. And now that he’s grown, the same voice.”
His voice is raw, anguished. So I wait a beat, giving him time.
“But you didn’t reach out to him?”
“What was I supposed to say? Hi, I’m the father who never knew you existed. The one who chased record deals and played dive bars while your mother raised you all alone.”
He has a point. “But why not contact his mother?”
“Rachel and I were together in the late nineties. I was nobody, playing opener slots for fifty bucks a night. She was trying to make it as an actor, auditioning for commercials, sit-coms, anything. We were young, broke, and stupid. And completely in love.” He pauses.
“At least I was. Then one day she was gone with no explanation. She just vanished.”
“And you let her?”
He spreads his palms wide. “What could I do? She wouldn’t return my calls, my letters came back undelivered.
I went to her apartment, but she’d moved out.
I thought”—he stops and then restarts—“I thought she decided I wasn’t ever going to make it and she was tired of waiting.
At some point you have to stop the chase. ”
“But twenty-some years later, you couldn’t call her and ask her if Dash was your son?”
Daniel closes his eyes. “She obviously didn’t want me in his life. And … I still love her. I’ve never stopped. Crazy as that sounds. I couldn’t risk contacting her and hearing she’d moved on. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true.”
My chest tightens. There’s more to this story, I’m sure of it. But that’s not why I’m here.
“The plan,” I say. “The whole scheme with Lia Campbell, revealing their fake relationship in Mistletoe Mountain—you were behind that, weren’t you?”
He opens his eyes, startled. Then he laughs dryly. “After Dash had that meltdown on the morning show I had to do something. I’ve been there, spiraling in the spotlight. So I reached out to an old friend.”
“Griselda?”
He nods. “She was a dancer on one of my first stadium tours. We’ve stayed in touch, and I know she’s savvy.
She knows a lot about reputation management.
She put me in touch with Lia Campbell’s team.
I put a bug in their ear, and they went for it.
I also suggested the town where Griselda lived as the perfect place to go public.
Figured I’d come up and watch him right his ship. ”
“Fathering from a distance.”
“Better than nothing.”
“Is it, though?” The words come out sharper than I intended. “Because right now, Dash is at a children’s hospital playing Vlad the vampire for sick kids, trying to be everything to everyone, and he doesn’t know the one thing that might actually help him understand himself.”
“What’s that?”
“That he comes from someone who understands longing. Who turned loss into art. Who knows what it’s like to live in the public eye.”
Daniel’s jaw works. “You think telling him will help?”
“I think he deserves to know his father didn’t abandon him.”
Daniel’s eyes are bright and damp.
“Rachel’s here,” I continue. “In Mistletoe Mountain. She and Dash are barely speaking. She’s trying to protect him by taking away his agency. She’s repeating history.”
“What do you mean?”
“She told me”—my voice cracks—“real love is letting someone go to pursue this dream. She said she knows it’s hard because she did it herself. She said she loved Dash’s father but she let him go to pursue his dreams.”
“What if they don’t want to see me?”
“What if they do?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. Then he says, “Why do you care so much?”
“I love Dash.” The words are out before I can stop them. “I’ve only known him for six days, but I love him. And even though I screwed everything up between us by pushing him away, I want him to have just one family Christmas, for fig’s sake.”
He holds my gaze. “Okay. Let’s make it happen.” Then, “Did you just say for fig’s sake?”
The drive back to Mistletoe Mountain takes forever and no time at all. I call Griselda, who confirms she picked up Dash. She asks if I found Daniel. I say yes. She asks if I know what I’m doing. I say no, but I’m doing it anyway.
“That’s the way,” she says with a smile in her voice.
I hang up and turn the radio on. A Daniel Lovelace song is playing. Of course it is.
As he sings about finding his way back home, I realize that all these songs about love, loss, and yearning are really about Rachel.