The Christmas Scoop Read online

  They spent the next hour in relative quiet. Famous though he was, Julian wasn’t much of a talker. Rand could see why someone with ideas, who wouldn’t let him sink into blue moods and kept him on his toes, would appeal to him. Someone like Ivy. Katy. He corrected himself.

  Rand shook his head. He had worked his tail off to get Ivy to notice him when they were younger, to choose him, but the fact that he was her only real competition at school made her keep him at arm’s length romantically. Once they chose different colleges, University of North Carolina’s famed journalism school for her and North Carolina State’s architecture program for him, that was pretty much it. He’d shelved his boyhood fantasies and turned to work. But it never failed. During the holidays, Ivy Macpherson memories bubbled to the surface, and nothing he could do would stop them.

  It was midafternoon when Rand turned off the highway and headed down Second Street, the residents’ preferred way to avoid the typical crowds that thronged downtown Dogwood Mountain. All he’d need was for Julian to get spotted by some tourist while they were stuck at a light, and Katy’s weeks of careful planning would be blown.

  Soon, the tires of his old Subaru crunched on the blue-gray gravel of the small parking lot tucked into the L-shape of the Cooper House Inn.

  “Sorry to bring you in the back entrance,” Rand said as he killed the engine.

  “No problem,” Julian replied. “You’d be amazed how many restaurant kitchens and loading docks I’ve come to know over the years.” He got out and stretched luxuriously. Rand felt suddenly small in his six-foot frame.

  “I can get that for you,” Rand said as Julian hauled his duffel out of the back seat.

  “Wouldn’t think of it,” Julian replied. “Lead on.”

  Rand clomped his boots on the worn artificial turf mat at the top of the shallow steps and opened the door to the back porch. He ushered Julian inside and closed the door behind him. “Wait here for a moment.”

  He pushed open the door to the inn’s kitchen. It was too early to start prep for the complimentary afternoon tea, so the big room was, thankfully, deserted. “This way.”

  Rand motioned toward the back stairs. His grandmother would be horrified at this breach of hospitality. He could count on his day manager, Jessica’s, discretion, but all it would take was one of the college kids home for the holiday break who did odd jobs around the inn or a guest in the lobby to spot Julian and spoil everything.

  The two men climbed to the third floor. Rand led Julian around the corner into the other wing, stopping at a door at the end of the hall. A small brass plate engraved with a dogwood blossom glowed on its polished wood surface. Rand knocked softly.

  There was a muffled thump of feet, then a pause before the door was flung open by a petite woman whose shoulder-length braids framed a freckled face the soft brown of a wren’s wing.

  The duffel thudded to the floor as Julian scooped her up into a fierce embrace. They kissed deeply and then, with a sigh, Julian let her down. The crown of Katy’s dark head barely reached Julian’s massive shoulder.

  “Hey, Rand,” she called, her light brown eyes glowing above her freckles. She tucked her arms against Julian’s broad chest and huddled in the curve of his arm.

  “Hey, yourself.” The suite’s antique furniture appeared dainty next to the oversized reality of Julian Wolf standing on the worn Persian rug. “Everything okay?” he asked.

  Katy dragged her gaze away from Julian and beamed at him. “It’s perfect,” she said.

  Rand could tell Katy was seeing the room through a veil of romance. And it was beautiful. His grandmother took great care with all of the rooms, right down to the subtle gardenia scent of the linens. But Rand had an architect’s eye. He saw cracks in the plaster and sagging floorboards, not lace curtains in the dormers and fresh flowers on the bedside tables.

  “The second floor rooms in the other wing have the best view of downtown, but if privacy is what you want most, you’ll be better off up here.”

  Julian chuckled. “I’d be happy in a mildewy camper if Katy were in it.” He kissed the top of her head, then held out one beefy hand and pressed a hundred-dollar bill into Rand’s palm.

  “I can’t take this.”

  “I insist,” Julian said. “For your time. You’re a good man, Rand Cooper.”

  “I’d like to think so,” he said. He tried once again to refuse the gift, but his words fell on deaf ears. Katy and Julian had already turned their attention back to each other. He smiled in spite of himself. At least someone was getting what they wanted most for Christmas.

  “Text me if you need anything,” he said, closing the door quietly behind him.

  Chapter Two

  Ivy slowed her rental Jetta as the curves of the highway deepened. The two-lane road hugged against sheer rock and vegetation. Here and there, a driveway snaked upward to a cabin perched to give it an unobstructed view across the valley sloping down to her right, the bare winter trees tucked among the deep greens of the hemlocks and pines, the curled leaves of the rhododendrons, the stubborn glossy emerald of the mountain laurels awaiting their summer blooms.

  The grouping of small houses the town called the Oxeye Daisies because of their yellow-and-white paint jobs flashed by, and she gave an involuntary smile. Ivy and her sisters had misnamed them the Upsy-Daisies when they were little, and the name had stuck. Passing the Upsy-Daisies meant she was almost there. Then she passed the turnoff for Cooper’s Notch and her smile twisted. Too many memories there to process right now. But, with luck, she wouldn’t need to revisit those on this short trip.

  The Welcome to Dogwood Mountain sign loomed into view, gleaming with new paint and festooned with jaunty red velvet bows. At last.

  She slowed as she approached Main Street. At the traffic light, she peered through her passenger window at the respectable crowd inside the Brontosaurus Pub. On clear spring and fall days, the staff raised the old garage doors, now fitted with glass, so patrons could sit outside under the canopy and enjoy the mild, crisp weather that was a Dogwood Mountain trademark. Today, the doors were pulled down to keep out the winter chill.

  Someone behind her gave a short, impatient honk. Green light. Ivy waved and turned onto Main to drive through the heart of Dogwood Mountain. As usual, the town had put on the dog in preparation for Christmas. Multicolored lights twinkled from windows and awnings. The bare branches of the trees dripped with shiny metal snowflakes, which the men’s auxiliaries from all the churches joined together to hang every Friday after Thanksgiving before retiring to the Brontosaurus for craft brews and burgers. Although it hadn’t snowed recently, the vestiges of the last snowfall still lay in shallow drifts among the hedges and planters and in shadowy corners.

  The white spire of Creekside Church in the middle of the block seemed to glow against the pewter clouds. Across the street, the lunch rush had come and gone at Annie’s Cafe, but the lights of the Inkwell next to Annie’s were glowing and welcome, promising a story and a comfy chair to read it in. The curios in the windows of Antiques Row changed with the seasons and whatever the shopkeepers happened to have found on their picking expeditions over the summer. Today they brimmed with hand-carved nutcrackers, crystal serveware, and miles of velvet ribbon.

  Predictable. Some people might find that comforting, but for Ivy, Dogwood Mountain’s sameness was one thing that pushed her out of town and kept her away for longer and longer periods of time. Same look, same stores, same jokes. Especially the jokes. She spotted a familiar flyer in a shop window and rolled her eyes. It was almost as if the town was mocking her. Thank goodness, she’d be back in New York soon. Escaping her past as one of the “nutty Macphersons” was an impossibility here thanks to her family’s one contribution to the town’s fame.

  Living in New York, Ivy managed to avoid thinking about that particular embarrassment for the bulk of the year. When people asked about her family, she’d say vaguely that they grew apples and then change the subject. It wasn’t a lie. Macphersons ha
d grown apples in the hollow for more than a hundred years. She just didn’t tell her friends what those apples were used for or why they weren’t even the main source of income for her parents.

  That would be the fruitcake. Macpherson’s Phamous Phruitcake, to be precise.

  The Macpherson fruitcake recipe was about as old as the orchard itself. Over the years, it had been refined as generations of Macpherson women tried different combinations of fruits and various whiskeys to soak the finished cakes in. Macpherson fruitcakes had been baked for weddings and funerals in Dogwood Mountain for years before a summer traveler happened upon a slice and paid for a whole one to take home to share with her Main Line friends back in Pennsylvania. Her rival called to order two the following Christmas, and, slowly but surely, the orders began to trickle in.

  Now fruitcake dominated the conversations at the family dinner table in the months between the apple harvest and the day before Christmas Eve and provided ample fodder for childhood teasing all year long. The whole fruitcake business was equal parts revenue and ridicule, and Ivy didn’t miss it one bit.

  She glanced down the street and her heart skipped a beat. She’d been so busy reminiscing, she nearly missed the gray SUV parked in one of the slanted middle lane parking spots. Luckily, an empty space beckoned on the curb by the Corner Store, the oldest shop on Antiques Row, so she slid the Jetta into it and got out.

  Ivy tightened her scarf against the bracing wind, clean and sharp after the heated cocoon of the rental car, and crossed behind the SUV. North Carolina plates. Maybe? She cast a baleful glare at the building behind it. The Cooper House Inn, the oldest one in town, stood on its corner as it had for nearly two hundred years now. Evergreen garlands pinned in place with the same type of velvety red bows as the sign welcoming her to town looped the porch railings on the second floor. Each of the rockers on its wide front porch boasted a set of tufted seat covers appliquéd with a winter scene of cardinals perched on snowy branches. Fresh wreaths studded with jeweled ornaments graced each of the inn’s glossy front doors. It was charming, private, and exactly the kind of place you’d expect a big Hollywood actor and his new amour to hole themselves up in.

  Ivy couldn’t suppress a smile as she pulled open one of the screen doors, unneeded in the winter cold but vital during the humid summer, then pushed her way into the old paneled lobby. A low fire crackled in the worn brick hearth on the far end. The deep green wing chairs flanking it created a cozy nook to await a ride or enjoy a coffee. The Christmas tree tucked in beside the garlanded staircase boasted a mixture of antique and whimsical ornaments Ivy knew had been selected over the years by Mrs. Ellie Cooper, the innkeeper’s wife. She turned her head, expecting to see the kind lady in her customary place behind the registration desk, but was surprised to find instead a lovely Asian woman in her early thirties.

  “Welcome to the Cooper House. May I help you?” the woman said, her Boston accent as crisp as her white shirt and emerald green blazer.

  Ivy was momentarily at a loss for words. If Mrs. Cooper had been here, Ivy could have wheedled the information about any famous guest out of her with a hug. She had no idea what to do with this person—Jessica Park, according to the discreet nameplate on the corner of the desk.

  “Um, hi,” Ivy began, cursing herself for how lame she sounded. “I was expecting Mrs. Cooper.”

  “Are you a regular guest?” Jessica said, tucking a shiny lock of hair behind one ear as she checked the register in front of her. “I don’t have anything written here.”

  “I’m kind of a friend of the family,” Ivy replied. It wasn’t a complete lie. She was friendly with Mr. and Mrs. Cooper. Their annoying grandson, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely.

  “Oh, excellent,” Jessica said in a cheerful voice. “Then you’ll be happy to know she and Mr. Cooper just left for Florida. They’re going on a two-week cruise of the Caribbean for Christmas.”

  Ivy didn’t know where they’d found this woman, but her friendly, just-shy-of-gossipy demeanor couldn’t have been more Dogwood Mountain if she’d been born here. “I didn’t know. I’ve been away for a while.”

  “They were thrilled. Present from their grandson. Do you know him?”

  Did she know Randall Cooper? Pride of the Coopers’ lives and eternal thorn in Ivy’s side for as many reasons as there were ornaments on that Christmas tree?

  “We’ve met.”

  “He’s around here somewhere,” Jessica said. “Would you like me to get him for you?” She picked up a phone.

  “No,” Ivy said, perhaps a bit too loudly. Jessica frowned. “That’s okay. I was meeting up with a friend who said he’d be checking in here today. Tall guy, beard, green army jacket—have you seen him?”

  Jessica shook her head. “It’s been pretty quiet,” she said. “Do you have a name? I can tell you when we’re expecting him.”

  “That’s okay,” Ivy said apologetically. This was getting awkward, and she didn’t want to give away what she was thinking. “I must have gotten the time mixed up. I’ll give him a call myself.” She backed away from the desk and bumped into someone. “Oh, I’m so—”

  “Well, if it isn’t Ivy Macpherson,” the woman said. Ivy would know that surprisingly high, gravelly voice anywhere.

  “Hello, Mrs. Pendleton.”

  Her brown cashmere twin set, glen plaid trousers, and classic tasseled loafers screamed “stately and dignified,” but Althea Pendleton’s drunken songbird voice was another thing entirely.

  She chirped, “Does your mama know you’re in town?”

  Busted. “Not yet—she knows I’m coming, but I have to run a couple of errands before I head out to the house.”

  Mrs. Pendleton leaned in. “Like as not, she’s too busy to think about that right now. You know how it is for her the week before Christmas.” She giggled.

  Ivy nodded as Mrs. Pendleton patted her on the forearm. “Yes, ma’am, I do.” She groaned inwardly, thinking of the tornado of peeling, slicing, stirring, baking, soaking, packing, and shipping that were the hallmarks of fruitcake season. It was one of the main reasons she’d fled Dogwood Mountain once she had the opportunity. She backed away smiling and waved at Jessica behind the desk. “Thanks again. Nice to see you, Mrs. Pendleton.”

  “You too, sugar. Merry Christmas!”

  Ivy nodded and ducked back outside. Yikes, that was close. Althea Pendleton could go one of two ways if a person wasn’t careful—all the gossip they didn’t need or all the gory details of her latest trip to the podiatrist over in Asheville. Ivy was already going to be late without one of those monologues.

  She checked her watch. She could spend a little while longer downtown before she absolutely had to get to the farm. Fine. She stepped off in the direction of the Daily Grind, anticipating the latte with cinnamon she could already taste, and slammed into something hard. Something male. She looked up into a pair of blue-green eyes, framed with familiar reddish-brown brows and capped by a head of tousled curls. Something warm and unexpected curled through her midsection.

  “Hey there,” Rand Cooper said.

  *

  Well, this was new. Ivy Macpherson, speechless.

  Rand took a moment to study her face. Smooth skin, dark eyes like an expensive European truffle, brown hair tucked into a bright blue scarf that accented her full, berry-toned lips. Every year he saw her, she seemed more refined, as if she, like a rich single malt whisky, grew smoother and more complex as time passed.

  Ivy blinked and seemed to come out of her trance. “Hey, Rand.” Her voice was flat. That, at least, never changed.

  “Didn’t know you were in town,” he said.

  “Just got here,” she answered, her tone clipped. “Had an errand to run before I head out to the hollow.”

  Rand couldn’t think of a single errand that might have possibly brought her to the Cooper House. Must be something for her parents. “Do your folks know you’re coming?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Good Lord, you
Dogwood Mountain types are predictable.”

  “Last I looked, you were a Dogwood Mountain type.”

  Ivy shrugged. “Originally.”

  Rand chuckled. “You know what they say: You can leave Dogwood Mountain, but it never leaves you.”

  “How very chamber of commerce,” Ivy said drily. She adjusted the bag on her shoulder. “Nice seeing you, Rand, but I just ran into Althea Pendleton, so I’m racing the clock. If I don’t get to the farm soon, someone will call the state troopers.”

  Rand grinned. No matter how hard Ivy tried, she would never really be something other than a Dogwood Mountain girl at heart. “You know Althea was on the phone to your folks the second you hit the porch. You’re already busted. May as well make it worth your while.”

  Ivy sighed and looked heavenward. “Right. Then I’m off to the Grind.”

  “I’ll join you.”

  The look she shot him wasn’t what he’d call inviting, but he wasn’t deterred. Some of his best Ivy memories happened after one of those looks, even if she’d never admit it.

  They stepped off the Cooper House porch—Ivy straightened one of the chair cushions as they passed—and headed down the street. The bite in the air suggested the temperature was going to dive overnight. Their breaths puffed out in steamy clouds as they walked, Ivy with her head up, eyes front, Rand with his hands stuffed deep inside his pockets, the hundred-dollar bill from Julian a crackling reminder of his surreal afternoon so far.

  “How long are you in town?” Rand asked.

  “Not long,” Ivy admitted. “Big birthday celebration this year.”

  “Right,” he said. “Thirty?”

  She shot him another baleful look. “Sixty. I’m here for Mama.”

  “Thirty is the new twenty. Didn’t I read that on Scoop somewhere?”

  This time, she actually turned and looked him in the face, a grin quirking the corner of her delicious mouth. “I’m surprised,” she said. “You’re not exactly Scoop’s target demographic.”