4. Ivy
IVY
Itook Jack Wilder’s hand and let him walk me up the brick path toward the prettiest house I’d ever seen.
The porch had two rocking chairs angled toward each other like they were waiting for a couple to grow old in them.
Through the front windows I could see clear to the back of the place where the ceilings went up and up to a point, the kind of ceiling that’s just begging for a Christmas tree too tall for its own good.
A man didn’t buy a house like that, way out here at the end of a long, dark drive, forty-five minutes from town, for just himself.
He bought it for the family he was planning to have.
This was a house for a whole mess of people.
My heart beat real fast, thinking about how much I wanted it to be me, then dismissed it as impulsive, since I’d just met the man.
“This is a gorgeous house you have here, Jack Wilder.”
“Thanks. I’m proud of it. Never thought I’d own anything this nice.”
“I actually thought it would be bigger.”
He laughed. “Are you disappointed?”
“Not at all. I just had imagined more like one of those with the big ol’ columns.”
“Oh, well, that’s not really my taste. I always wanted a farmhouse. This is a modern take on it. It was the house I always imagined when I was a boy growing up in the trailer park.”
“Well, you did it. You made that dream come true. Isn’t that something?”
“Come on in. Dumplings are ready. I think.”
“You made them for real?” I asked.
“It was a bigger project than I thought,” he said. “And I’m not sure they turned out.”
“I should’ve had you call Mama to walk you through it.”
“There were like a thousand different methods,” Jack said. “All of them contradictory.”
“Like a gaggle of my mother’s friends, all claiming theirs is the best,” I said. “Gosh, it’s hot, isn’t it? I’ve been sweating like a working girl in church since that darn bird decided to invite himself into my living room. Shouldn’t it be cooling down by this time of day?”
“It’s nice in the house,” Jack said. We were at the front door by then. Jack opened it, and I stepped inside to the cool foyer.
My gaze traveled immediately through a wall of glass on the other end of the house, where a gorgeous patio with a turquoise pool called my name in the worst way.
“What a gorgeous patio,” I said.
“You eyeing that pool?” Jack asked.
“It does look mighty inviting.”
“You want to take a swim before dinner?”
“Would you mind?” I bit my lip, feeling about sixteen years old. “I know it’s terrible manners to take a swim before a man’s dinner but—could we? Just a quick dip? Five minutes? There’s nothing I love more than splashing in some water.”
He looked at me sideways, the corner of his mouth tipping up. “No arguments from me. Do you want to change?”
“I just happen to have my favorite bikini on under this dress.”
He swallowed, stuttering. “Um, yeah, yeah, sure. How did you know I had a pool?”
“Um, because you told me earlier,” I said.
“Oh, that’s right. I plumb forgot. Dumplings in the kitchen, dumplings in the brain.”
“My building has one but I never use it. Too many eyes on me,” I said.
“I get that.”
“You sure it’s okay?” I asked. “I’m not normally this forward, but I’m so hot.”
“I get to see you in your bikini?”
“That’s an inevitable outcome, yes,” I said.
“Then get on in there.” His eyes twinkled at me, part mischievous boy and part way too sexy grown man. He took my hand and escorted me across the large great room and out to the patio. “I’ll get changed in the pool house. Feel free to jump in without me.”
I was already pulling my dress over my head and kicking off my sandals as he headed toward the pool house. I dove in head first, the cool water immediately refreshing. When I surfaced, Jack was standing on the steps leading into the shallow end.
And oh my goodness, the man without his shirt was something every woman in the world should see just to prove there was indeed a God up in heaven making beautiful things. Broad shoulders, six pack abs, and a chest I longed to run my fingers down.
“You coming in?” I asked, treading water.
“I’m working into it.”
I swam to him, then stood in front of him, his bare skin radiating heat in the last golden light of the day.
Taking his hands, I led him further and further into the pool until we were both in the deep end.
I thought he’d swim away, but instead he pulled me to him.
My legs seemed to have a mind of their own because they wrapped themselves around his waist like that had been their purpose all along.
My arms did the same around his neck. We floated like that, all entwined, and I knew this is where I was supposed to be.
“Hey, pretty girl.” Jack looked into my eyes, In the orange-tinted evening, his eyes appeared darker, more like two bags of deeply seeped tea than the sweet tea my mama makes. “Where have you been?”
“Not far,” I said.
“Far enough I couldn’t find you.”
“I’m here now,” I said.
“Is our first kiss going to be in the pool?” Jack asked, voice husky.
“Is that what you want?”
“I don’t care where it is, just that we have one.”
I laughed and pressed myself closer to him. His arms tightened around my waist, then he leaned in, capturing my mouth like we’d done it a thousand times already. I kissed him back, and it occurred to me that, whatever I’d done with other men, it had not been kissing. This was kissing.
When we broke apart, a white cat with one of those flat faces appeared at the pool’s edge to glare at us with enormous copper eyes.
“Um, we have company,” I said.
“That’s Oscar,” Jack said.
“What’s up with his face?”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked, sounding offended.
“It’s all flat, like someone squished it with something heavy.”
“He’s an Exotic Shorthair. Very expensive.”
“You have a designer cat?” I asked, laughing.
“I’m not sure why that’s funny.” He laughed too, then kissed me again. “You should say hello. He’s a sucker for a beautiful woman.”
“How do you know?”
“We talk,” Jack said.
I disentangled myself from him and swam over to the side of the pool where Oscar was now giving himself a very thorough bath. Hanging onto the edge of the pool, I said hello to him.
Oscar halted his bath to blink at me.
“I’d pet you, but my hand’s wet,” I said to him.
He let out a cat sigh and resumed his bath. Jack swam up next to me.
“You want to know the truth about Oscar?” Jack asked.
“I’m dying to know everything about him.”
“He was my ex-girlfriend’s cat.”
“Okay?” I asked.
“Lisa left him when she left me.”
“Why did she leave?”
“Short answer? She fell in love with someone else. A guy who was allergic to cats. So Oscar stayed with me.”
“Were you together when she fell in love with this other guy?”
“We were. I mean, not really together. I was on tour. She was staying here while I was gone and, according to her, one thing led to another with this guy from work and then she knew he was the one and that was that.”
“Did she leave Oscar all alone here?”
“Kind of.” Jack rested his chin on his hands, kicking his legs out behind him. “Marcus looks after him when I’m away.”
“What’s the long answer to why she left?” I asked, taking the same position on the side of the pool.
“Lisa wasn’t in the music business, so she had little tolerance for my lifestyle.
She didn’t like how I was gone on tour so often.
Or that I can get obsessive when I’m writing a new song and forget that there’s a life outside of chasing three chords and a rhyme.
Plus, I’m independent. Always have been.
She wanted someone more attentive. Less lone wolf, I think is how she put it. ”
“Are you a lone wolf?”
“I don’t think so. My band’s family. I have a little sister, Luci, who I’m close with.
She’s a pediatrician. Runs a clinic for low-income kids outside of Nashville and can barely make her rent, but won’t let me help.
My mom’s still back in the Pacific Northwest where I’m from.
When I started making money, I bought her a little house on the Oregon coast. That’s where she wanted to be, even though I tried to talk her into Nashville. She can’t take the humidity out here.”
“Is it true that you and Rhett grew up together?”
“Yeah, that’s right. He lived two trailers down from us. Father was a drunk, so my mom took care of him most of the time too.”
“What about your dad?”
“He left when I was eight. Took off with some girl on the back of his motorcycle. Never came back.
“That must have been hard,” I said.
“It was, yeah. But I had Mom, Luci, and Rhett. We looked out for one another. You know he’s the one who entered me into the singing competition, right?”
“Sure, that’s country music lore.”
“Rhett believed in me more than I believed in myself. He and Luci had to listen to all my first attempts at songwriting, God bless ‘em. When we graduated high school, Rhett went off to college and got a degree in business. When I won the competition, he started working with me. The man’s a shark. A strategic shark. My career is because of Rhett and Madeleine.”
“And because you’re talented and hard-working,” I said. “If you weren’t, no matter what they did, you wouldn’t be where you are today.”
“Sometimes I wonder if that’s true.”
“Imposter syndrome,” I said. “If it can get you, then the rest of us are doomed.”
“Most of the time I’m okay. But there are nights, when I’m here alone with just Oscar, I start thinking about all the things that could go wrong. How many people I’d let down.”
“Do you feel like you have to take care of everyone?” I asked. “The band? Your mom and Luci?”
“Sure, yeah.”
“Do you ever feel tired?”
“Sometimes. Scared too. Like what if it all just ends? Poof.”
“That’s unlikely. I assume you’ve got some money in savings?”
“Without a doubt. But I mean the music. An album flops. Songs stop charting. Pretty soon I’m a has-been playing country fairs. And all these folks who rely on me? I’ll have let them down.”
“You don’t have to take care of the whole world.”
“But I have to take care of my whole world,” Jack said.
“I’m sorry you feel that burden.”