Poison Ivy Page 4

  So I searched through my closet—and shuddered because Bella had been right about my limited wardrobe. I had brown skirts and khaki pants, copper shirts and umber blouses, cocoa tanks, and even a pair of sepia jeans.

  It occurred to me, standing amidst yards and yards of brown garments, that perhaps I had taken the one compliment given to me at my old job a little too seriously. I’d worn a chocolate-hued pantsuit with a light beige blouse and my boss, for the first time in three years, had said I looked nice. Knocked me for a loop, and I guess it shut down the rest of my color sense.

  Damn. What was I going to do now? Obviously, the only sane thing I could think of—I called Bella.

  “Help!”

  “Ah, let me guess,” she said, voice smug over the line. “You looked through your closet and can’t find a single blessed thing in any color other than brown.”

  “You’re psychic now, too?” That could certainly be a big help with my lingerie thief.

  “No,” she said. “I’ve seen you over the last two weeks, and every piece of clothing you’ve worn has been, in one shape or form, brown. The jeans you wore last week blew me out of the water because they were actually blue. But that’s been it as far as diversity in color.”

  “I know,” I wailed. No shame in wailing when it’s over clothes. Well, clothes and shoes. I wouldn’t wail over underwear that was brown. That thought caught me off guard and I pawed through my chest of drawers, only to discover bras and panties of every cut and material, but all in shades of brown. Shit. Well at least no one would see my undies tonight. Tomorrow I’d raid the lingerie room at work, assuming the thief didn’t come back. He or she had taken everything last week, including my size—which we’ll call ten because I’m having a Jackie day.

  “Hey, no whining. Look, we can fix this. Come over right now and we’ll find something for you.”

  “Yeah, right. As if you have anything that would fit me.” I tried hard for the no whining, but I was pretty sure I did not hit my mark.

  “I said, no whining.” Nope, guess I didn’t. “Just get over here. ASAP.”

  So, after applying my makeup with an eye toward covering my enormous pores (why couldn’t I have silky smooth skin to counterbalance the weight?), I jumped into my sand-colored Hyundai Santa Fe—color police help me!—and zipped the three blocks to Bella’s cottage.

  The little house was painted a bright, sunny yellow, and a bold red coated the front door. It sat nestled in a flood of color, flowers spilling from baskets and planters, from gardens and windowboxes. Thank God I hadn’t planted anything at Great Aunt Gertie’s house yet. What kinds of flowers are brown and still alive?

  Even her house shouted confidence, I thought as I walked up the cobblestone pathway. Fountains with open-mouthed fish and fairies pouring water from chalices stood in the emerald green of the lawn.

  I knocked, and before my fist landed back at my side, the door whipped open and Bella dragged me over the threshold into a wonderland of jewel tones and light wood. She shoved me in front of her as we walked down a short hallway, so I didn’t get a chance to admire any of the blur of colors.

  “So much for hello,” I said.

  “No time. Strip and start trying on the things I put on the bed.”

  Hoo-kay. But when I turned to see the clothes strewn across the lavender comforter, I gasped.

  “These are beautiful.” I fondled one silk blouse in electric blue paired with a long slim black skirt.

  “Less talking, more trying.”

  She didn’t have to tell me twice, although there was no way I was going to change in front of her and her little compact body. In her rose-and-cream bathroom, I shrugged out of my beige shirt and brown slacks and pulled on the black skirt. The silk lining under the wool slid up the length of my legs and I buttoned the side, turning toward the mirror. It’s always a test for me to see if slacks or skirts look all right by themselves without the long shirt I usually drape on.

  And the skirt fit like a dream. No extra flesh hanging over the top. No smushing of my slightly rounded stomach to ruin the lines of the garment. I seriously contemplated never taking it off.

  Then came the blouse. I’ll admit here that I’ve never worn bright colors because I always thought they’d drain me of what little color I possessed. I didn’t have one of those peaches-and-cream complexions. I wasn’t tanned, even though I had lived in California for all my twenty-four years. If I had to pick a color to describe myself, it would have been wheat and washed out, certainly not glowing. But when I put that unlikely electric-blue blouse on, I knew I lit up like a saloon sign on a Friday night. Bella told me as much after I stumbled out of the bathroom in a haze of excitement. Oh, and my own eyes confirmed it.

  “Now, that is what I’m talking about,” Bella said, a triumphant smile on her vivid face. “You look great. That color brings out the blue of your eyes and makes your hair shine.” She made a motion for me to turn all the way around, and I did. “Yes. Definitely. You should burn all your brown clothes.”

  “Absolutely not.” I liked the new colors, but I wasn’t willing to abandon brown altogether. The Masked Shoppe wasn’t bringing enough money into my checking account to allow a new closet full of clothes. Plus, I’d set up Kitty’s son Charlie with the plum job of putting a fountain in the main room. I’d looked and looked for someone else, but the supply of good handymen was way down in this town.

  “Absolutely, yes. You can start by burning this brown blouse and then taking the rest of the clothes on the bed home. Right after my divorce, I gained twenty pounds from the stress, but I wasn’t going to dress like it. So I bought all these clothes with my ex’s credit card and left him with the bill.” A feral grin spread over Bella’s painted lips and I smiled with her.

  “Well in that case, I guess I could be ready for a change. Wouldn’t want a whole payback shopping spree to go to waste. Should we make it like a celebration?”

  “Yes.” Bella threw another pair of pants on the bed, these in a bright, almost luminescent green. I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to actually walk outside in them, but it would be fun to open my closet and know they were there.

  “It will have to wait, though,” she said as she emerged from the walk-in closet with a pair of black stiletto heels. “We need to get you ready for tonight. Your liberation from brown can be this weekend, but your liberation from celibacy can be this evening.”

  How did she know I’d been without male companionship of the sweaty kind for a couple of years? Maybe it showed on my face or in my choice of clothes. Either way, I hoped she was right and the drought would be over soon. I stepped into the stilettos, praying I wouldn’t break my neck when I fell into the arms of a handsome stranger.

  Chapter Five

  We walked into the Rusty Pelican and my first thought was, Club? This was what they considered a club around here? My God, this place was a cross between a dive and a honky-tonk.

  L.A. had clubs, and they looked nothing like this. But I decided to think of it as a bar in my attempt to be a part of the culture of my fellow Martha Pointers, as I’d heard locals refer to themselves. Being from Martha’s Point and all. Classy, I know.

  The motif was distinctly seafaring, with heavy rope nets holding plastic crabs and seagulls. The tables were high, like you’d find in a club, but there the resemblance ended. On top of a ship’s wooden steering wheel, turned on its side, similar to the one Captain Jack manned in Pirates of the Caribbean, sat a round of glass. The table was certainly unique, and the grips of the wheel stuck out a couple of inches past the edge of the tinted glass. Please, please don’t let me start out the night by impaling myself on one of them, I thought.

  Smoke and dim lighting obscured the other patrons. Used to California laws, I had completely forgotten Virginia didn’t embrace the no-smoking-indoors thing. This would be a pleasant night, complete with my mascara running from my smoke-sensitive eyes. Yay.

  I followed Bella to our very own round wheel table in the corne
r and thanked my lucky stars there was a vent directly over my head. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad.

  Ten minutes later, I knew my stars were out of whack. The vent pulled the smoke our way and yes, indeed, my eyes were starting to stream. We’d been approached by a couple of guys, but Bella shooed them away. After they moved off, she’d lean over to tell me their flaws, which ranged from married to inbred.

  But then the door swung open and it was like one of those kooky movie moments. A man walked through the front door and stood silhouetted in the muted light of the bar. He was tall and, from my vantage point in my very attractive captain’s chair (no lie, I swear), he looked good. Of course, throughout the evening I’d met and been wrong about Will, the fisherman with the wandering eye, and Chuck, the jobless drifter—and not in a sexy, Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise way. Bella leaned over again and I prepared myself for the inevitable, “He’s not right for you. He has slimy hands, syphilis, a wife, etc.”

  So I was shocked when she said, “Now this is a man who is worth knowing.”

  What? A man worth knowing? As in biblically? Or because he could build me an ad campaign that would bring in more customers? So I asked. No sense being in the dark if I had a line to the flashlight. “He doesn’t have some strange disease or defect I should watch for?”

  “No,” she yelled in my ear to be heard over the awful ’80s cover band wailing out Van Halen, and I waited for the rest. “He’s really sweet and kind. I think you guys will hit it off great.”

  What? again. Hit it off great? So why hadn’t she mentioned this fine example of maleness prior to now? Bella had made it a point to let me know I’d have to go outside our small town to find anyone even remotely interesting. So what bushel had she been hiding this one under? And why?

  The why wasn’t answered immediately, but the bushel thing became clear after she told me where he worked. “He’s the food critic for the Martha Herald, our local weekly paper. The paper sucks, because it’s pretty much all gossip and how to sauce your apples, but he’s pretty witty at spotlighting the local restaurants.”

  So what took up all his time if he only did reviews of local places to eat? I mean, that can’t take all day, every day. Can it? Bella’s clairvoyance reared its head again, and it was spooky.

  “It doesn’t take up all his time. He’s also doing some online correspondence course work for his private investigator license.”

  “Online? Seriously? To be a private investigator?” I yelled. And of course, because my stars were in whacked mode, he walked up to the table at the precise moment the music stopped and everyone in the place heard me. I fidgeted in the chair, then leaned forward to whisper my embarrassment to Bella. As my stiletto-shod foot slipped off the circular rail, I lost my balance and fell face first into a solid wall of muscle.

  Swallow me whole, floor. Open up and take me away. Or was that Calgon?

  “Yes, online,” a voice as smooth as scotch said right next to my ear. So not only did he have the silhouette thing going for him, but the voice was a potential puddle factor.

  Bella, bless her smug heart, jumped right in and made the introductions. Which in no way detracted from my embarrassment like everyone always thinks a change of subject will. Oh no, it just hastened the creeping blush making its way from my chest to my ears. I tried to find the positive here and came up with, “At least it’s dark and smoky.” Lame, but I so did not need anything else to be mortified about.

  “Ben, this is Ivy Morris. Ivy, Ben Fallon.” On the first pass, I thought she’d said Fallen. That wouldn’t have been far off the mark in features, now that I could see him up close. Too close for a first encounter. Could he see my gigantic pores I’d tried so hard to hide with foundation?

  He set me back on my chair like I weighed nothing, and let me tell you, that is some kind of feat. My insides went all fluttery, as though I’d harvested a bunch of cocooned caterpillars.

  I finally got a really good look at all of him, and he was the embodiment of my every wish of a fallen angel. Dark hair brushed the collar of his chocolate (see, not a bad color, at least not on him) leather jacket. Moss-green eyes stared into mine, hard cheekbones and a square jaw boxed in a set of lips that should have been illegal—perfect, full lips I wanted to bite. “Uh, hi, Ben.”

  Brilliant.

  Jeez, get it together, Ivy. I didn’t even know this guy and already I was wanting to nibble at him? And sounding stupid while I dreamed up my fantasy? Celibacy was obviously not for me when faced with broad shoulders and—if he’d just walk away, I’d put money on it—a fine ass.

  In the interest of testing out my theory, I drained my fruity drink and said, “Ben, would you mind terribly getting me another drink?” Which would have been smooth if we weren’t sitting two feet from the bar, but he seemed to take the hint. Falling for my lame attempt at a Southern twist on my words, he walked away. Yes, yes, yes! I seriously would have won that butt bet.

  “Christ on a crutch, Bella. I thought you said no eligible men. And thanks so much for letting me yell as he walked up.” My inner voice sure was coming out more often. Three weeks ago, I would have smiled demurely and let the words run through my head. Or I would have come up with them three hours later and wished I’d said them at the right time. Now I seemed to be blurting out whatever came to mind. I would need to seriously consider investing in a filter between my brain and my mouth. There was certainly something to be said for a little tact.

  Bella had the nerve to laugh, a big guffaw, and pat me on the hand. I wanted to smack her, but fortunately the link between my brain and physical abuse had a strong filter of its own.

  “Calm down,” she said. “From the way he was looking at you, you probably could have yelled out what kind of underwear he wears and he still would have gone to fetch you a new drink.”

  “Somehow I doubt Ben would appreciate a public discussion of whether he wears boxers or briefs.” The music was still loud, so I felt safe in my response. Except my stomach did a slow dive and shivers danced down my back when “Boxers” was whispered into my ear. Hello, God, anytime now, floor opening up, earthquake, anything?

  Of course, none of those things happened and I had to wait while the blush I was positive flared on my face went from a burning red down to a faint tingle. I used the time to shoot daggers at a smiling Bella.

  Ben placed our drinks on the glass table and pulled up a captain’s chair for himself, not a self-conscious bone in his body. He plopped into the chair in a decidedly masculine sprawl and threw me a wicked grin.

  Sheesh, was it suddenly very hot in here for a late autumn night?

  “So, Ivy, Bella tells me you’re running The Masked Shoppe now.” The ’80s cover band was taking a welcome break from their ear-splitting renditions of “White Snake,” “Damn Yankees” and “G-N-R,” so we could actually talk at an almost normal level. Well, a little louder than normal in order to compete with the other patrons, because it seemed like the whole town was here.

  “Gertie was my great-aunt,” I said. Duh. I mean, everyone must know that little tidbit in a place the size of Martha’s Point. I cleared my throat and plunged on. “I love this town. I’m sorry that Gertie passed, but it got me out of my dad’s house.” Oh. My. God. I was an idiot. I did a little half-smile and waited for Ben to pick up his glass and move to another table to get as far away as possible from the lunatic who didn’t get out of the house unless someone died. Add on the embarrassing fact that it was my dad’s house and Ben should be running like a bat out of my hell.

  But, surprisingly, he stayed and started telling Bella and me funny stories about the food critic business and local gossip he picked up around the newspaper.

  I tried my hardest not to snort at any time and had nearly made it through the first half an hour without embarrassing myself when he said, “So this guy comes in to the paper and wants to place an ad. Not my department, but I was the only one there on that Saturday. So I gave him the template to fill in and waited while he labored ov
er the four lines allowed. He hands the sheet back to me when he’s done and I skim over it to look for any misspellings when the words ‘crotch’ and ‘humping’ jump out at me. I take a closer look, because I wasn’t really reading it for content.” Ben took a pull on his beer, then continued, “It turns out this guy found a dog on the side of the road and other than the fact that it’s a mutt, the guy put in distinguishing characteristics such as the dog likes to stick his nose in every female crotch he comes in contact with and likes humping hedges.”

  And I lost it. Just like that, I started laughing so hard I was snorting and then the snorting turned to almost gagging, which is always attractive.

  Bella, friend that she was, whacked me a solid one on the back, and I nearly fell off my chair again. This time straight into Ben’s lap. Without thinking, I put my hand out to stop my forward momentum and ended up with my fingers grasping a purely male characteristic.

  “Holy hell,” I said in the silence following my fall. Every eye in the place was on me. Even the bartender had stopped wiping the long, curved bar to look my way. It was the final straw. I awkwardly lurched to my feet and, despite three of the fruity drinks floating in my system and clouding my brain, hightailed it to the ladies’ room.

  The fake wood door banged shut behind me and I was surrounded by that special scent of public restrooms everywhere—a mix of disinfectant and the last patron who sat on the toilet.

  How was I going to face Ben again? He was a lot of things I always told myself I would look for in a guy if I ever met any outside of my old job. Cute, sexy, intelligent, with a hell of a sense of humor. Why, oh, why, did I have to touch his doodads on the first meeting? I totally copped a feel, and while I was embarrassed about the impromptu groping, let me tell you, girls, that had been some serious package to get my hand on. Faint-worthy, even, if I hadn’t been so busy turning bright red.