A Broken Kind of Beautiful (21 page)

“The war of what?”

“It’s what my Grandfather calls the Civil War. This lady, Betsy Crestledown, was the wife of a wealthy-merchant-turned-general. When her husband died of infection, she built this as an orphanage to accommodate the growing population of orphans during and after the war.”

“Quite a woman.”

“A local hero.” Davis recapped his head and walked along the azalea-lined concrete path, looking at Ivy from the corner of his eye. They got off to a rocky start last night, but once they rejoined Marilyn and Sara, Ivy had dropped her obsession with New York City and stuck to all things fashion show. In fact, he’d seen a side to Ivy he wasn’t sure many people saw—a light in her eyes that shone brighter the more she lost herself in the planning. One that had already flickered to life several times this morning.

He stopped in front of the large double doors and wrapped his fingers
around the brass handle. “In case I forget to thank you, you were really great last night with the fashion show stuff.”

Pink tinged her cheeks. “It’s not rocket science.”

He smiled. Ivy embarrassed? This was new. “Maybe not, but I would have taken one look at the community center and put down a deposit.” Who but Ivy would know the models needed more room to change in and out of clothes?

Her blush deepened.

Davis’s smile widened as he opened the heavy door and spotted a man leaning back in a swivel chair—the kind of guy who could be thirty or sixty and neither would be that surprising. One of his boots tore a page of a golf magazine as he pulled them off the welcome desk and examined Ivy.

“Why, hel-lo.”

Ivy smiled—actually smiled—at the grease ball. Davis stepped in front of her and blocked the man’s impolite perusal. The guy leaned over the desk and stuck out his hand, craning his head until he found Ivy’s legs. “Name’s Duncan. What can I do for y’all today?”

Davis shook Duncan’s hand, squeezing a little harder than necessary. “We’d like a tour of the facilities. We’re looking to do a fashion show here in Greenbrier at the end of September and need a place to do it.”

Duncan relaxed back in his seat, crossed his ankle over his knee, and kept his beady stare on Ivy. “You came to the right place. We host beauty pageants here every June.” He uncrossed his leg and looped his thumbs inside the front pockets of his jeans. “I’d bet my shrimpin’ boat you’re that model everybody’s talking about.”

Ivy stepped around Davis and propped her elbow on the high desk. “Your shrimping boat is safe.”

Davis’s stomach flexed involuntarily. He wanted to yank her back and tell her to quit it. He wanted the Ivy who blushed at his compliment, not the one who flirted with perverts.

“Well, I’ll be darned. I never met an honest-to-goodness model before.” Duncan swiped a set of keys from a drawer and came out of his chair, his full height a hair short of Ivy’s nose. “Give me a sec. I’ll go round back and let you in the auditorium.” He looked Ivy up and down once more, let out a low whistle, and disappeared into a dimly lit hallway.

Ivy set her chin in one hand and drummed the desktop with her other. “Charming fellow.”

“You shouldn’t encourage men like him.”

“Men like him?”

“Duncan. Stefan. That kid at the plantation.”

“What kind of men should I encourage then, Dave?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but the auditorium doors jangled, clicked, and flung open. Duncan stood on the other side, whistling as he stuck a key in a switch plate and turned on the lights. “Come on in. Feel free to look at the back rooms if y’all have a mind to.”

Ivy walked past Davis and moseyed down the carpeted aisle, gazing from the seating to the stage to the lights overhead. “Does this place have a decent sound system?”

“Sure does.”

She stopped in front of the stage. “We could set up a small runway down the center aisle here. It wouldn’t be hard.” She clicked her manicured nail against the wood, then used the side stairs to walk onto the stage, swaying her hips like the runway already existed. She looked over her shoulder and crooked her finger at Davis. “You coming?”

Duncan let out another whistle. “You wouldn’t have to ask me twice.”

Davis followed Ivy backstage as she walked from room to room, pausing in certain corners. He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to distract himself from his disproportionate annoyance. Her flirting with Duncan and Duncan’s greasy response should perhaps irritate him, not make him want to punch the guy in the face. He cleared his throat. “That was really sweet of you, asking Sara to organize the music.”

“Don’t patronize your sister.”

He pulled his chin back. Patronize Sara? “How’d you come up with that?”

“She knows music, doesn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Then there was nothing sweet about it.” She ran her hand up a red velvet curtain hanging from the ceiling.

He shifted his weight. The floorboards creaked beneath his cross-trainers. “They’re counting on you to help run this thing.”

“Uh-oh. Mistake number one. Do you want to warn them or should I?”

“The show’s not until the end of September. It’s the beginning of August.”

She held on to the curtain and looked over her shoulder. “What’s your point, Dave?”

“Are you going to stick around?”

“I said I would, didn’t I?”

Confusion spun into spools of doubt. Why would Ivy stay in Greenbrier unless something was in it for her? “I don’t understand why you’d want to stay.”

“I’d rather not have to get on a plane every time Marilyn wants us to do another shoot.”

Davis narrowed his eyes. He wanted to believe her. He really did. But she answered too quickly and looked away too soon, which could only mean she had other reasons for staying. Reasons that could change as quick as the tides. Reasons that could leave Sara and Marilyn in the lurch. “I don’t want to see my aunt or my sister get hurt.”

Ivy let go of the red velvet. “What are you implying?”

“I just don’t want you to make promises you’re not going to keep.”

She looked him in the face, her eyes honeyed steel. “I keep my promises.”

“Good. I’m glad.” Davis filled his lungs with air and stepped closer, trying
not to acknowledge the charge in the atmosphere. He might be attracted to Ivy, but he knew better than to act on it. The last thing she needed was another man coming on to her, seeing her looks without bothering to look for the Ivy underneath. “Since you’re sticking around, I was thinking …”

“Uh-oh. Mistake number two.”

“Do you want to be friends?”

The corner of her mouth quirked. “Do I want to be friends?”

“Yeah.”

She crossed her arms. “What if I want to be more?”

“There isn’t more to have.”

“I’m not big on making friends, Dave.” She studied him beneath arched eyebrows. The air vents rattled and swayed the curtain in a slow back-and-forth rhythm. “But maybe I’ll make an exception with you.”

A sharp whistle sounded from the back of the auditorium. Davis stepped around the curtain, onto the stage, and found Duncan hadn’t moved from his spot next to the doors. “Y’all made up your mind yet?”

Davis shifted the curtains and looked at Ivy, who gave the place one last look and smiled. He cupped his hand near his mouth. “We’ll take it.”

Duncan waved them off the stage and stuck his key into the light switch. Darkness flooded the auditorium. “Then come on out front, and we can talk out the details.”

Davis used the light from the opened doors to maneuver his way off the stage, helped Ivy down, and quickly let go of her waist. Even in the dark, he could see the divot in the center of her forehead. He meandered up the aisle and focused on keeping things light. “What’s wrong? You don’t want to be friends with me?”

“It’s not that.”

“What is it, then?”

“It’s about the pictures you took.”

He couldn’t help himself. He laughed. “You don’t like them?”

They stepped through the doors, out into the lobby, and joined Duncan at the desk.

“Bruce says they’re good. Designers say they’re good. What I think doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“That’s sweet, Dave, but beside the point.”

“What’s the point?”

“A guy with your talent doesn’t belong here in Podunk, South Carolina. No offense, Dunc.” She cast a look at the man rummaging through desk drawers.

“None taken, darlin’.”

“Bruce could get you jobs in New York City.” Ivy snapped her fingers. “Like that.”

Here she was going on about New York City again. “I’m not looking for jobs.”

“Why not?”

“I already told you. I’m only doing this temporarily.”

“I’ve worked with a lot of photographers in my career, and not one of them comes close to touching your passion. You loved every second of that photo shoot, and if you tell me you didn’t, you’re a liar.”

Duncan twirled a set of keys around his finger, watching the exchange unfold. Davis turned his back to him. “Why do you care what I do or don’t do with my camera?”

“Because I think it’s a sin to waste that kind of talent. I don’t get why you’d want to. Or why you feel you have to.”

A sin? Since when was Ivy concerned with sin? “I asked you to drop this last night.”

“You didn’t ask me. You told me.”

His muscles coiled. “We’re here to find a venue for the show. Let’s stick to that.”

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to be friends, Dave. Isn’t this what friends do? Open up or whatever? Push each other to be all they can be?”

“That’s the army.”

Duncan rapped his knuckles on the desk. “When’s your shindig?”

“Last Saturday in September. The twenty-fifth.”

Duncan flipped a page of a pocket calendar. “It’s open, but we’re filling up fast. If you want to reserve the day, we need a down payment ASAP. A check written out to Betsy Crestledown Theater.”

“You don’t take credit cards?” Davis asked.

“No sirree. Only checks or cash.”

“I’ll have to bring one later.” And pray nobody reserved the spot before then.

Duncan circled his finger in the air at Ivy. “Why don’t she bring it in?”

Davis narrowed his eyes.

“Sure, Duncan.” Ivy gave Davis an “at least he acts like a normal man” look. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you again. I wouldn’t mind one bit.”

Georgia panted at Ivy’s feet, tiny paws scuttling against the floor as Ivy approached Marilyn’s bedroom door and knocked.

“Yes?”

Ivy spoke to the wood. “We found a venue.”

“Oh, Ivy, that’s great!” A pause. Some shuffling. “Hold on a sec. I’m getting dressed. I’ll be right out and we can talk.”

“I don’t need to talk. I just need a check so we can hold a reservation at the theater.”

“Betsy Crestledown?”

“Yeah.”

“Perfect! Checks are in the desk in James’s office. Go ahead and write one out, and I’ll be down in a minute to sign it.”

Her father’s office? Georgia licked Ivy’s ankle. She nudged the dog away and headed down the stairs.

It’s only an office, and he was just a man
.

She strode through the foyer, through the small room adjoining the kitchen, and stopped in front of the french double doors—James’s hiding place. As a kid, she’d known better than to enter.

She flexed her fingers and nudged the door. The hinges groaned. Inside, with the shades drawn, the air felt still. Untouched. Tomblike. As if nobody had entered since James had breathed his last. She flicked the light switch, expecting cobwebs, but found polished wood instead. She took five quick steps to the desk and found the checkbook beneath the lamp. She grabbed the lone pen stranded in the middle of an unmarked desk calendar and began writing, but the pen didn’t cooperate. It stopped working before she could scrawl the dollar amount. She shook it and tried again. No luck.

Taking a deep breath, she pulled open the top drawer and rummaged past notebooks, manila files, a stapler, paper clips, an old pocketknife. No pens. She shut the drawer and opened the one beneath it, expecting more of the same.

Instead, she found a heavy wooden box with a hinged lid stained cherry red. It looked like the kind of thing that held memories. And it belonged to her father. Her heart throbbed. Should she peek inside? And if she did, would the contents throw her off balance or crumble her foundation?

Baseball cards would do nothing. Pictures of James as a child might make her a little wobbly. Love letters between him and Marilyn, or worse, love letters between him and Mom? That would toss her somewhere on the high end of the Richter scale.

Curiosity won out. Ivy ran trembling fingers over the warm wood, then removed the box from the drawer. She lifted the lid and inhaled the scent of cedar. A shadow darkened the inside so that all she could see were muted papers.

Photographs?

She reached in, removed the bundle clumped together by a rubber band, and turned the pictures right side up. What she saw made the air swoosh out of her lungs. Ivy plopped down on the swivel chair.

They were pictures all right, but not of James or Marilyn or Ivy’s mother. They were pictures of her—Polaroids, black-and-whites, wallet-sized school pictures, candids, even a whole stack of magazine tear-outs. All of Ivy. Her heart thudded inside her chest, pulsed in her ears. How had he gotten them, and why did he have them?