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“Did Hayes actually ask him to do that?”
“No. But Stuart argued that reorganizing the chaos in the sheriff’s department was a public service. Hayes didn’t agree. He went and talked to Judge Meacham himself. They gave Stuart his license back.”
“You said he didn’t hit anything with the car.”
“He didn’t. But while it was sitting on the side of the road, a cattle truck—one of his own, in fact—took the curve too fast and sideswiped it off the shoulder down a ten-foot ravine.”
“I don’t guess the driver works for you anymore,” Ivy mused.
“He does, but not as a driver,” Merrie said, laughing. “Considering how things could have gone, it was a lucky escape for everyone. It was a sturdy, well-built car, but those cattle trucks are heavy. It was a total loss.”
“Even if I could afford a car, I don’t think I want to learn how to drive,” Ivy commented. “It seems safer not to be on the highway when Stuart’s driving.”
“It is.”
They snacked on cheese and crackers and finger sandwiches and cookies, and sipped coffee in perfect peace for several minutes.
“Ivy, are you sure you’re cut out to be a public accountant?” Merrie asked after a minute.
Ivy laughed. “What brought that on?”
“I was just thinking about when we were still in high school,” she replied. “You had your heart set on singing opera.”
“And chance would be a fine thing, wouldn’t it?” Ivy asked with a patient smile. “The thing is, even if I had the money to study in New York, I don’t want to leave Jacobsville. So that sort of limits my options. Singing in the church choir does give me a chance to do what I love most.”
Merrie had to agree that this was true. “What you should really do is get married and have kids, and teach them how to sing,” she replied with a grin. “You’d be a natural. Little kids flock around you everywhere we go.”
“What a lovely idea,” she enthused. “Tell you what, you gather up about ten or twelve eligible bachelors, and I’ll pick out one I like.”
That set Merrie to laughing uproariously. “If we could do it that way, I might get married myself,” she confessed. “But I’d have to have a man who wasn’t afraid of Stuart. Talk about limited options...!”
“Hayes Carson isn’t scared of him,” Ivy pointed out. “You could marry him.”
“Hayes doesn’t want to get married. He says he likes his life uncluttered by emotional complications.”
“Lily-livered coward,” Ivy enunciated. “No guts.”
“Oh, he’s got guts. He just doesn’t think marriage works. His parents fought like tigers. His younger brother, Bobby, couldn’t take it, and he turned to drugs and overdosed. It had to affect Hayes, losing his only sibling like that.”
“He might fall in love one day.”
“So might my brother,” Merrie mused, “but if I were a betting woman, I wouldn’t bet on that any time soon.”
“Love is the great equalizer.”
“Love is a chemical reaction,” Merrie, the nursing student, said dryly. “It’s nothing more than a physical response to a sensory stimulus designed to encourage us to replicate our genes.”
“Oh, yuuuck!” Ivy groaned. “Merrie, that’s just gross!”
“It’s true—ask my anatomy professor,” Merrie defended.
“No, thank you. I’ll take my own warped view of it as a miracle, thanks.”
Merrie laughed, then she frowned. “Ivy, what are you eating?” she asked abruptly.
“This?” She held up a cookie from the huge snack platter that contained crackers, cheese, cakes, little finger sandwiches and cookies. Mrs. Rhodes loved to make hors d’oeuvres. “It’s a cookie.”
Merrie looked worried. “Ivy, it’s a chocolate cookie,” came the reply. “You know you’ll get a migraine if you eat them.”
“It’s only one cookie,” she defended herself.
“And there’s a low pressure weather system dumping rain on us, and you’ve had the stress of Rachel worrying you to death since your father’s funeral,” she replied. “Not to mention that your father’s only been dead for a few weeks. There’s always more than one trigger that sets off a migraine, even if you don’t realize what they are. Stuart gets them, too, you know, but it’s red wine or aged cheese that causes his.”
Ivy recalled one terrible attack that Stuart had after he’d closed a tricky big business deal. It had been the day after he’d attended a band concert at Ivy and Merrie’s school soon after the girls had become friends. They were both in band. It had been Ivy who’d suggested strong coffee and then a doctor for Stuart. He’d never realized that his terrible sick headaches were, in fact, migraines, much less that there were prescriptions for them that actually worked. Ivy had suffered from them all her life. Her mother and her mother’s father had also had migraine headaches. They tended to run in families. They ran in Stuart’s, too. Even though Merrie hadn’t had one, her father had suffered with them. So had an uncle.
“The doctor gave Stuart the preventative, after diagnosing the headache,” Merrie commented.
“I can’t take the preventative,” Ivy replied. “I have a heart defect, and the medication causes abnormal heart rhythms in me. I have to treat the symptoms instead of the disease.”
“I hope you brought your medicine.”
Ivy looked at the chocolate cookie and ruefully put the remainder down on her plate. “I forgot to get it refilled.” Translated, that meant that she couldn’t afford it anymore. There was one remedy that was sold over the counter. She took it in desperation, although it wasn’t as effective as the prescription medicines were.
“Stuart has pain medicine as well as the preventative,” Merrie said solemnly. “If you wake up in the night screaming in pain because of that cookie, we can handle it. Maybe when your father’s estate is settled, Rachel will leave you alone.”
Ivy shook her head. “Rachel won’t rest until she gets every penny. She convinced Dad that I was wilder than a white-tailed deer. He cut me out of his will.”
“He knew better,” Merrie said indignantly.
She laughed. “No, he didn’t.” Nor had he tried to find out. He drank to excess. Rachel encouraged him to do it. When he was drunk, she fed him lies about Ivy. The lies had terrible repercussions. That amused Rachel, who hated her prim younger sister. It made Ivy afraid every day of her life.
She pulled her mind from the past and forced a smile. “If having the estate will keep Rachel in New York, and out of my life, it will be worth it. I still have Aunt Hettie’s little dab of money. That, and my part-time job, will see me through school.”
“It’s so unfair,” her friend lamented. “It’s never been like that here. Stuart split everything right down the middle between us. He said we were both Dad’s kids and one shouldn’t be favored over the other.”
Ivy frowned. “That sounds as if one was.”
She nodded. “In Dad’s will, Stuart got seventy-five percent. He couldn’t break the will, because Dad was always in his right mind. So he did the split himself, after the will was probated.” She smiled. “I know you don’t like him, but he’s a great brother.”
It wasn’t dislike. It was fear. Stuart in a temper was frightening to a woman whose whole young life had been spent trying to escape male violence. Well, it was a little more than fear, she had to admit. Stuart made her feel funny when she was around him. He made her nervous.
“He’s good to you,” Ivy conceded.
“He likes you,” she replied. “No, really, he does. He admires the way you work for your education. He was furious when Rachel jerked the house out from under you and left you homeless. He talked to the attorney. It was no use, of course. It takes a lot to break a will.”
It was surprising that Stuart would do anything for her. He always seemed to resent her presence in his house. He tolerated her because she was Merrie’s best friend, but he was never friendly. In fact, he stayed away from home when he knew Ivy was visiting.
“He’s probably afraid of my fatal charm,” Ivy murmured absently. “You know, fearful that he might succumb to my wiles.” She frowned. “What, exactly, are wiles anyway?”
“If I knew that, I’d probably have a boyfriend,” Merrie chuckled. “So it’s just as well I don’t. I’m going to get my nursing certificate before I get involved with any one man. Meanwhile, I’m playing the field like crazy. There’s a resident in our hospital that I adore. He takes me out once in a while, but it’s all very low-key.” She eyed Ivy curiously. “Any secret suitors in your life?”
Ivy shook her head. “I don’t ever want to get married,” she said quietly.
Merrie frowned. “Why not?”
“Nobody could live with me,” she said. “I snore.”
Merrie laughed. “You do not.”
“Anyway, I’m like you. I just want to graduate and get a real job.” She considered that. “I’ve dreamed of having my own money, of supporting myself. In a lot of ways, I led a sheltered life. Dad didn’t want to lose me, so he discouraged boys from coming around. I was valuable, free hired help. After all, Rachel couldn’t cook and she’d never have washed clothes or mopped floors.”
Merrie didn’t smile. She knew that was the truth. Ivy had been used her whole young life by the people who should have cherished her. She’d never pried, but she noticed that Ivy hardly ever talked about her father, except in a general way.
“You really do keep secrets, don’t you?” Merrie asked gently. She held up a hand when Ivy protested. “I won’t pry. But if you ever need to talk, I’m right here.”
“I know that.” She smiled back. “Thanks.”
“Now. How about a good movie on the pay channels? I was thinking about that fantasy film everyone’s raving about.” She named it.
Ivy beamed. “I really wanted to see that one, but it’s no fun going to the movies alone.”
“I’ll ask Mrs. Rhodes for some popcorn to go with it. In fact, she might like to watch it with us. She doesn’t have a social life.”
“She’s married, isn’t she?” Ivy probed gently.
“She was,” came the reply. “He was an engineer in the Army and he went overseas with his unit. He didn’t come back. They had no kids; it was just the two of them for almost twenty years.” She grimaced. “She came to us just after it happened, looking for a live-in job. She’d lost everything. He got a good salary and was career Army, so she hadn’t worked except as a temporary secretary all that time. When he was gone, she had to go through channels to apply for widow’s benefits, and the job market locally was flat. She came to work for us as a temporary thing, and just stayed. We all suited each other.”
“She’s very sweet.”
“She’s a nurturing person,” Merrie agreed. “She even gets away with nurturing Stuart. Nobody else would dare even try.”
Ivy wouldn’t have touched that line with a pole. She just nodded.
* * *
She was looking through the program guide on the wide-screen television when Merrie came in with a small, plump, smiling woman with short silver hair.
“Hi, Mrs. Rhodes,” Ivy said with a smile.
“Good to see you, Ivy. I’m making popcorn. What’s the movie?”
“We wanted to see the fantasy one,” Merrie explained.
“It’s wonderful,” came the surprising reply. “Yes, I went to the theater to see it, all by myself,” Mrs. Rhodes chuckled. “But I’d love to see it again, if you wouldn’t mind the company.”
“We’d love it,” Ivy said, and meant it.
“Then I’ll just run and get the popcorn out of the microwave,” the older woman told them.
“I’ll buy the movie,” Merrie replied, taking the remote from Ivy. “This is the one mechanical thing I’m really good at—pushing buttons!”
* * *
The movie was wonderful, but long before it was over, Ivy was seeing dancing colored lights before her eyes. Soon afterward, she lost the vision in one eye; in the center of it was only a ragged gray static like when a television channel went off the air temporarily. It was the unmistakable aura that came before the sick headaches.
She didn’t say a word about it to Merrie. She’d just go to bed and tough it out. She’d done that before. If she could get to sleep before the pain got bad, she could sleep it off most of the time.
She toughed it out until the movie ended, then she yawned and stood up. “Sorry, I’ve got to get to bed. I’m so sleepy!”
Merrie got up, too. “I could do with an early night myself. Mrs. Rhodes, will you close up?”
“Certainly, dear. Need anything else from the kitchen?”
“Could I have a bottle of water?” Ivy asked. “I always keep one by my bed at home.”
“I’ll bring it up to you,” Mrs. Rhodes promised. “Merrie?”
Merrie shook her head. “No, thanks, I keep diet sodas in my little fridge. I drink enough bottled water at school to float a boat!”
“You said you could lend me a nightgown?” Ivy asked when they were at the top of the staircase.
“Can and will. Come on.”
Merrie pulled a beautiful nightgown and robe out of her closet and presented it to Ivy. It was sheer, lacy, palest lemon and absolutely the most beautiful thing Ivy had ever seen. Her nightgowns were cheap cotton ones in whichever colors were on sale. She caught her breath just looking at it.
“It’s too expensive,” she protested.
“It isn’t. It was a gift and I hate it,” Merrie said honestly. “You know I never wear yellow. One of my roommates drew my name at Christmas and bought it for me. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it wasn’t my color, I hugged her and said thank you. Then I hung it in the closet.”
“I would have done the same,” Ivy had to admit. “Well, it’s beautiful.”
“It will look beautiful on you. Go on to bed. Sleep late. We won’t need to get up before noon if we don’t want to.”
“I never sleep past seven, even when I try,” Ivy said, smiling. “I always got up to make breakfast for Dad and Rachel, and then just for Dad after she left home.”
“Mrs. Rhodes will make you breakfast, whenever you want it,” Merrie said. “Sleep well.”
“You, too.”
Ivy went into the bedroom that adjoined Merrie’s. There was a bathroom between the guest room and Stuart’s room, but Ivy wasn’t worried about that. Stuart was out of town and she’d have the bathroom all to herself if she needed it. She probably would, if she couldn’t sleep off the headache. They made her violently ill.
She put on the nightgown and looked at herself in the full-length mirror. She was surprised at how she looked in it. Her breasts were small, but high and firm, and the gown emphasized their perfection. It flowed down her narrow waist to her full hips and long, elegant legs. She’d never worn anything so flattering.
With her long blond hair and dark green eyes and silky, soft complexion, she looked like a fairy. She wasn’t pretty, but she wasn’t plain, either. She was slender and medium height, with a nice mouth and big eyes. Only one of the big eyes was seeing right now, though, and she needed sleep.
There was a soft knock at the door. She opened it, and there was Mrs. Rhodes with the water. “Dear, you’re very pale,” the older woman said, concerned. “Are you all right?”
Ivy sighed. “It was the chocolate. I’ve got a headache. I don’t want Merrie to know. She worries. I’ll just go to sleep, and I’ll be fine.”
