“That’s great, thanks, Ivy.” Carol grinned again and shoved her bright red hair back behind her ears. “This is a real shot for me, doing the flowers for a wedding this size.”
“I know.” This, she thought, was exactly the reason she had lied to Tanner. Why she had risked so much to try to reach him.
Since Angel Christmas Tree Farm was so far from any major city, the locals had quite a hand in helping with the event weddings. Carol’s flower shop was growing by leaps and bounds. Mrs. Miller’s alteration and tailoring took care of the tablecloths and any other sewing emergency. Bill Hansen’s garden supply shop handled the tables, chairs and even the striped umbrellas that would shade wedding guests at the reception.
These events were helping an entire town to grow and thrive. Was it any wonder Ivy had been worried enough by Tanner’s complaints to the sheriff to risk everything? Small consolation now though, she told herself. Had she saved her town only to doom herself?
They walked into the meadow and Ivy stopped to look around. The decorative bridge across the creek was perfect, just as Dan had promised. It gleamed snow white against the lush green background of the meadow grass and surrounding trees. It would be a perfect photo spot, she thought, letting her gaze slide across the hundred round tables that were scattered in a precisely laid out arc around the main table that was for the bridal party. Everything that could be done ahead of time was ready. The rest would wait for tomorrow.
She took a breath and let it slide slowly from her lungs. “I know how much this wedding means to all of us, Carol. So we’ve got to pull this off flawlessly.”
“We will,” her friend said.
Ivy hoped so. Because God knew, she’d given up a lot for this farm and a future that didn’t look nearly as shiny as it had only two weeks ago.
Ivy was still walking his dog.
For three days he hadn’t seen her, but the signs were plain enough. Hairy was exhausted and the leash was never where Tanner had last left it. So what kind of woman, he asked himself, proclaimed her love, walked out the door and then sneaked back in to visit a dog?
He pushed one hand through his hair and then scraped that hand across his face. His eyes felt gritty and he hadn’t shaved in days.
He couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t work. Couldn’t stop thinking about Ivy.
He’d told himself to forget about her. That she was a liar. Not to be trusted. That her claim of love was just another part of the game.
“But damn it, if that’s true, then where the hell is she?” He glanced down at Hairy who looked up at him, as if trying to give his opinion.
Tanner stroked the dog’s head and told himself that Ivy wasn’t responding the way he’d expected her to. He’d seen this game played out far too often in his childhood to not know the moves.
She should be coming back to the house, trying to see him. Trying to convince him how much she loved him. She should have been there, trying to sway him, reel him in with tears and pledges of eternal devotion.
Scowling, he pushed out of the chair and walked to the back door. He threw it open and as he was slapped by a vicious wind, Hairy raced outside into the early night.
Moonlight spilled out of a clear, star-studded sky and painted the ground with shadows. The trees in the yard whipped and danced in a gale that had been growing steadily for the last hour.
He listened to Hairy’s excited barks as the wind howled around him, but Tanner’s thoughts were too busy churning to pay much attention.
“Why is she bothering to come and walk Hairy while at the same time she’s deliberately avoiding running into me?”
He shook his head and tried to make sense of it all. He didn’t understand what she was thinking or what she was doing. If she wasn’t trying to hook him, then why bother with the dog who loved her? None of this made sense.
He’d been waiting for her return since the moment Ivy had left. And now, he suddenly realized why. Because that’s what his mother would have done. What his mother had done again and again in her all consuming quest for a fairy-tale ending she had never found.
His mother wouldn’t have dreamed of announcing her love and then walking away. She had always found a way to stick around a man who didn’t want her, trying to change his mind.
“Apparently,” he mused aloud, “Ivy and my mother are two very different kinds of women.”
Hairy’s barking became more frantic and Tanner bolted from the porch to see what was wrong. The wind pushed at him, as if trying to shove him back into the house and he wondered where the hell the storm had come from. The sky was clear, but the wind was howling. Then, as quickly as it had kicked up, the wind was gone. As if it had never been.
Tanner finally reached the dog and it was then he heard what Hairy had. Voices. Shouting.
At Ivy’s place.
Then he remembered the big wedding that Ivy was counting on to keep her farm safe was tomorrow. The windstorm had probably played havoc with all of her preparations.
Hairy barked again as if asking him what he was waiting for.
Tanner’s brain shouted at him that this was the answer to all of his problems. If Ivy couldn’t hold the wedding, she couldn’t make the loan payment. If she couldn’t do that, she’d lose the farm.
If that damn farm was gone, he’d have the peace and quiet that had once been so important to him. This was, in effect, the answer to everything.
Cursing under his breath, he sent Hairy back into the house.
Ivy was running through the meadow, shouting directions to the crew that had stayed late to make the final arrangements for the wedding.
“Good thing they stayed,” she muttered under her breath as she looked around at the chaos created by the sudden wind blowing through.
Already, people were racing around under the soft shine of moonlight and the harsh glare of spotlights arranged around the meadow. Tables were turned over, neatly stacked umbrellas had taken flight and were lying every which way across the grass and into the trees. The delicate archway where the ceremony would be held was on its side and the ribbons streaming from it lay limp on the ground.
“Great,” she said, reaching for the umbrella at her feet. It was heavy and cumbersome, but she managed and carried it to where the guys were already stacking the others they had gathered. “All that work and it’s torn down in half an hour.”
“We’ll get it back up,” Dan assured her. He glanced at the clear sky spreading overhead and shrugged. “At least it’s not raining.”