Wicked Beginning: An Ivy Morgan Mystery Books 1-3 (28 page)

“Just let it go,” Jack said. “Let’s go have a look at all the windows and doors. I’m not leaving this house until I know it’s safe.”

“Yes, sir,” Max said, clicking his heels together and mock saluting.

“It’s cuter when your sister does it,” Jack said, moving toward the side of the house. “Let’s start over here and work our way around.”

Kelly’s hand shot out as Jack moved past her, timidly grabbing his forearm. Jack stilled, lifting his eyebrows as Kelly nervously regarded him.

“What’s wrong, kid?” Jack asked, forcing himself to remain calm even though Ivy still had his stomach twisted in knots.

“When I woke her up last night she said something.”

Jack waited.

“She said she had to get back to you,” Kelly said. “She was frantic about it.”

Jack’s face softened. “Okay,” he said. “I … I’ll deal with that. Don’t worry about Ivy. She’s just persnickety. She’ll calm down in a little bit.”

“She likes you,” Kelly said.

“She’s got a funny way of showing it.”

“She’s scared you’re going to break her heart,” Kelly said.

Jack cocked an eyebrow. “Did she tell you that?”

“No. Sometimes you can just tell things by looking at people, though. When she looks at you, she’s scared. When you look at her, you’re scared. Maybe you guys should stop fighting things separately because it makes you scared. If you fight them together, who knows, you might find some courage.”

Jack was dumbfounded as he watched Kelly shuffle down the side of the house. When he lifted his face, he found Max staring at him.

“Out of the mouths of babes,” Max said.

“Oh, don’t you start,” Jack said. “Come on. Let’s make sure this house is secure. I have a feeling whoever came here last night isn’t going to stop after one try.”

“Fancy meeting you here.”

Jack glanced up from the beer he was nursing at Denny’s Bar several hours later, surprised to see Max sliding onto the stool next to him. This was his first time frequenting a drinking establishment since relocating to Shadow Lake, and he was expecting to wallow alone.

“Did you follow me?” Jack asked, arching an eyebrow.

“No,” Max said. “I come here three nights a week. The female clientele misses me when I don’t show up.” Max winked at two blonde women sitting in a nearby booth. When they started giggling, Max shot Jack a knowing look. “See.”

“Wow,” Jack said, making a face. “It’s like you’re a dating guru or something.”

“Don’t make fun of my dating prowess,” Max said. “I’m a legend around these parts.” He focused on the owner behind the bar. “How’s it going, Denny?”

“Well, I’m still alive,” Denny said, the light from the top of the mirror at the back of the bar glancing off his bald head. “I consider that a good day.”

“It sounds like it,” Max said, grinning. “I’ll have whatever is on tap.”

The two men sat in silence until Denny delivered Max’s drink and ambled farther down the bar to wait on several other customers. While Jack was happy with the silence, Max was not.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on with you and my sister?”

“Nothing is going on,” Jack said, tracing his finger through a line of condensation on the bar top. “I wish people would stop assuming something is going on.”

“You know why people assume that, right?”

“Because this town is the size of my shoes and they have nothing better to do?”

Max barked out a hoarse laugh. “Partially. They also assume it because no one can be in the general vicinity of you and Ivy and not feel the fireworks when you look at each other.”

“Ugh.” Jack made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “That is such crap. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fond of your sister. She says what she thinks, and she means what she says. I don’t have feelings for her, though.”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Max said. “Maybe you’ll believe it in about fifty years or so.”

“Whatever.” Jack averted his eyes from Max’s probing gaze.

“My sister is just as guilty as you are in this situation,” Max said. “Don’t think I’m taking her side and blaming this all on you.”

“Your sister is a piece of work.”

“She’s definitely a piece of work,” Max agreed. “She’s also one of the best people I know.”

Jack swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me why you’re so desperate to stay away from my sister,” Max said. “I want you tell me what happened to you.”

Jack stilled. “What do you mean? What did your sister tell you?”

Max held up his hands, warding off Jack’s potential fury. “She didn’t tell me anything,” he said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. When I was teasing her about having a crush on you, she said you’d been through something terrible and there was no way you could have feelings for her so I should let it go.”

“She didn’t tell you what happened to me?”

“No. Why do you think I’m asking you?”

“I have no idea,” Jack admitted, hanging his head. “I can’t … get her out of my head. Literally. She’s in my head.”

“She has an annoying habit of being able to do that,” Max said.

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Jack said. He glanced around the bar to make sure no one was eavesdropping. Other than the girls in the booth, who were staring at the two men like they were hamburgers and they hadn’t eaten in weeks, no one was paying attention to them, though. “Has your sister ever … I don’t know … shown you that she has actual magical powers?”

Max practically spewed the beer he was sipping out of his mouth. “What?”

“Does she have … abilities … that she’s not telling anyone about?”

“You’re starting to freak me out, man,” Max said. “What is going on?”

Jack didn’t know what to do, so he told Max about his dreams – including Ivy’s cameos. He didn’t tell him about the shooting, and he blurred some of the details about his ordeal, but when he was finished, Max was flabbergasted.

“Are you putting me on?”

Jack shook his head.

“What does Ivy say?” Max asked, genuinely confused and surprised.

“She says that I’m calling her to me,” Jack replied.

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know what to believe,” Jack said. “I know I can’t be in a relationship right now. I’m no good to anyone, especially your sister. I don’t know what to do, though. She drives me crazy. I can’t stay away from her.”

“That’s because you’re attracted to her,” Max said. “Don’t worry. She’s attracted to you, too. I’ve never seen her like this with another guy. It’s like you get her so worked up she has no choice but to explode. Unfortunately for you, she keeps exploding all over you.”

“That’s a nice visual,” Jack muttered.

“I know you don’t want to tell me what happened to you, and I’m okay with that,” Max said. “Frankly, it’s none of my business. It sounds to me like you want to share it with Ivy, though. Have you considered that?”

“No.”

“Well, as long as you’re looking at it from a healthy perspective, man.” Max patted Jack’s arm, nonplussed, and twirled around so his back was leaning against the bar and he was on full display for his fan club in the booth. “You know, when I first heard you were moving to town, I thought you were going to be competition.”

Jack lifted an eyebrow. “How?”

“Well, as you can see, I’m quite popular with the female population in Shadow Lake,” Max said. “According to Ava Moffett, who got a glimpse of you when you were interviewing, you were hot and ready and she was going to nab you.

“Now, I don’t care who nabs Ava … or Maisie, for that matter … but I was worried you were smart enough to see beyond them and start encroaching on my turf,” he continued. “I figured I was going to have to beat you up if that happened.”

“If I remember correctly, you did try to beat me up when we first met,” Jack said.

“That’s because I didn’t know who you were and I thought you were going to murder my sister,” Max said. “Let’s not make the story more than it is, shall we?”

Jack smirked. “Fine. I’m not interested in being your competition, though. You know that, right? I don’t want to date anyone. I came to Shadow Lake to be by myself.”

“I know,” Max said. “The problem is, you ran smack dab into my sister and all of your good intentions and quiet dreams flew out the window. I know you don’t want to have feelings for her. I also know you do have feelings for her. Your head and your heart are at war, man. Sooner or later, one of them has to win or you’re going to drive yourself insane.”

“I don’t want to hurt your sister,” Jack said. “Not for anything.”

“Of course you don’t,” Max said, chuckling heartily. “You’re a good guy. I hate to admit it, but you are. I never thought anyone would be good enough for my sister, but I’m starting to rethink that.”

“Well, I’m not,” Jack said. “I know I’m not good enough for your sister. She deserves more than what I can give her.”

“My sister deserves the world,” Max agreed. “She’s not willing to take it for herself, though. Someone is going to have to give it to her. And, for someone to give it to her, she’s going to have to let that someone get close to her. The only one who has even made it through her front door is you. That has to mean something.”

“It means we’re both idiots,” Jack said, swigging from his beer.

Max studied him for a moment, a myriad of ideas floating through his head. Finally, he settled on a course of action. “Do you really want to get over my sister?”

“There’s nothing to get over.”

Max made a face. “Don’t push me, man. I’m trying to help you.”

“Fine. What do you suggest?”

“Come on,” Max said, climbing off the barstool and grabbing Jack’s arm. “There are two distractions right over there, and they’re primed for the plucking.”

“I just told you I didn’t want a relationship,” Jack argued.

“Who said anything about a relationship? Those are just two women to flirt with. You can be my wingman.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re coming,” Max said. “If anyone can take your mind off my sister, it’s one of those two. Trust me. In an hour, you won’t even be able to remember Ivy’s name.”

Max knew that wasn’t true. He knew the two women at the table. They were vapid, catty, and overly sexual. He knew twenty minutes with them was going to be enough to send Jack out of the bar as if his hair was on fire. He was just hoping that inclination would also make him see that his heart was already taken, and maybe it would be unwise to throw that away without giving it a chance.

“SO,
what is this movie?” Kelly asked, sitting on the couch next to Ivy and reaching into the bowl of popcorn.

“It’s called
Dirty Dancing
.”

“Is it old?”

“From your perspective, yes,” Ivy said. “From my perspective this is a movie my mother always watched when I was a kid and I fell in love with it. I have no idea why.”

“Okay,” Kelly said dubiously. “What’s the deal with the music, though? There’s no beat.”

Ivy smirked. “This was what music was like before hip hop came along.”

“Is this the kind of music they had when the dinosaurs were around?” Kelly teased.

“Pretty close,” Ivy said.

“Hey, that’s the grandmother from
Gilmore Girls
.”

“It is,” Ivy said.

“Who is the hot guy?”

“His name is Patrick Swayze,” Ivy said. “And if you think he’s hot now, wait until you see him dance.”

“Has he been in anything recently?”

“No,” Ivy said, shaking her head. “He died a few years ago. If you like this, though, I can scrounge up a few other things he was in. Wait until you see
Ghost
… and
Point Break
… ooh, and
Red Dawn
.”

“Do you watch a lot of old movies?”

“My mother loved movies,” Ivy said. “I don’t consider them old. She always let me watch them with her. I would curl up on the couch with her, just like you’re doing now, and we would watch them.”

“That sounds nice.”

“It was,” Ivy said, her eyes drifting to Kelly’s face. “Tell me about your mother.”

“I don’t remember a lot about her,” Kelly said evasively.

“Weren’t you eight when she died?”

“Yes.”

“That’s plenty of time to make memories that stick,” Ivy said, refusing to back down. “What did you do with her?”

“My mom wasn’t big on movies,” Kelly said, keeping her attention fixed on the television. “She loved music, though.”

“What kind of music?”

“Old stuff … like this.”

“Stop calling this music old,” Ivy warned. “I’m in my twenties. I’m not old.”

“I didn’t say
you
were old,” Kelly said. “I just said you liked old stuff. I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with that.”

“There’s not.”

“Anyway, my mom liked to listen to old music, and she was always trying to get me to dance,” Kelly said. “I didn’t have any rhythm, though, so that never went well.”

“Well, at least you tried,” Ivy said. “I don’t have any rhythm either. Don’t feel bad.”

“I wonder if she saw this movie,” Kelly mused.

“This movie is a classic for a reason,” Ivy said. “I’m sure she did. I … .” Ivy broke off, an inner warning alarm dinging in the back of her mind. She shifted quickly, her gaze focused on the front window of the cottage. “Someone is here.”

“What do you mean?” Kelly asked, furrowing her brow. “Is Jack back? Is Max here? I just love your brother.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Ivy said, pushing herself to her feet. “Someone is outside … someone who isn’t supposed to be here.”

“How do you know that?” Kelly asked, her eyes shifting from hopeful to terrified in the blink of an eye. “Is it him?”

“We need to have a talk about who ‘him’ is,” Ivy said. “I don’t know who is outside. I don’t even know how I know someone is out there. I just … .”

At that precise moment, Nicodemus started howling. Ivy knew the cat well enough to realize he was warning them.

Ivy reached for Kelly, her hand snaking around the girl’s wrist, and then the front door exploded as someone tried to kick it in. The security chain kept it from flying completely open, but the man in the open space – his face hidden by a knit ski mask – was staring at them from the opening.

That’s when Kelly started to scream, and Ivy began to panic. What was she supposed to do now?