just feels like home to me.”
He put his arm around her. “To me, too.”
Ivy leaned into him, enjoying the warmth of their bodies together and the sun on their shoulders. The climate was a little cooler at this higher altitude.
Ivy recalled when she’d sold her flat in Back Bay and rented the extra room in the professor’s home. With a place of her own, she’d felt unmoored, adrift in life. Everything in her life had once been ordered and assumed. Suddenly, Jeremy’s death had ripped her secure platform from beneath her feet. She’d felt like she’d been in free fall until arriving in Summer Beach. Strangely, she had Jeremy to thank for her new life, although he had never intended it.
Not that she couldn’t have recovered on her own, she thought quickly. She might have sold some paintings, landed a show at an art gallery, or licensed her artwork. She might have done very well for herself.
Yet, she’d chosen to try to save Jeremy’s investment of their retirement funds in Summer Beach. It hadn’t been easy, but she’d done it. And in the process, the old house had become her home.
“Okay,” Bennett said slowly. “So we’re back to the original question. After we’re married, do you want to live in your room or mine?”
Ivy honestly didn’t know. She’d hardly thought about it. Was that a sign in itself? “I don’t know. Why don’t we wait to figure that out?”
“Mine has the kitchen, but yours has the large bath and dressing area.” When she didn’t say anything, he patted her hand. “We can always try one room, and if we don’t like it, we can move right back into the other one. How’s that?”
“That sounds perfect,” she said quickly. And it was. Bennett was so understanding. On the plus side, that was another reason she loved him.
But love wasn’t like accounting, with assets in one column and liabilities in another. Ivy couldn’t simply tally up the scores to find the answer. In the final accounting for love, they had to be all in or all out.
Ivy fell into step with Bennett as they continued strolling through the vineyards, taking in the scenery and chatting about nothing in particular.
As pastoral as their surroundings were, beneath it all, Ivy was still bristling from their conversation and Bennett withholding information about Mitch. Maybe it wasn’t any of her business, but Shelly was her sister. Family ties went deeper than friendships, and this bothered her. She tried to brush away this thought and enjoy the day, yet it was still there in the back of her mind, taunting her.
Or maybe the wine was clouding her judgment. She’d think about that tomorrow.
13
The next day, Ivy rang the silver bell on the counter at the Laundry Basket. Louise poked her head from behind a mechanized rack of clothing.
“Be right there,” she called out.
Ivy waited, and a few moments later, Louise bustled to the counter. She smoothed her short, steel-gray hair from her forehead. “It’s good to see you. Hey, I’m sorry about what happened with Darla at Java Beach.”
“I guess you heard all about it,” Ivy said.
“Word of that fiasco got around the town pretty quickly. Folks say you stuck up for yourselves pretty well.” Louise grinned and tapped on the counter. “I knew I picked the right team.”
Ivy had hoped that incident would die down. “Unfortunately, it’s not my first run-in with Darla. But this time, it’s Shelly that she’s after. I wish we could get along.”
Louise shook her head. “I’ve known Darla for a long time, and she has always been this way. People are saying that Shelly stole her boyfriend.”
Ivy opened her mouth in astonishment at the intimation. “You can’t be serious. I don’t think Mitch would do anything of the sort.”
“Now, now,” Louise said, holding up her palms. “I don’t mean that literally. Darla fancies Mitch a sort of son; she wants the best for him. And to Darla’s way of thinking, that would be someone just like her. But I’m still on the Bay team.”
“This isn’t a sporting event,” Ivy said, more sharply than she’d intended. She clenched her teeth to contain further comments she might regret.
Embarrassed, Louise drew a hand over her jaw. “We don’t mean anything by that. Well, I don’t, but I can’t speak for other people. They’re just bored. You have to understand; you big-city ladies came breezing into town and then opened that old haunted house—”
“It’s not haunted,” Ivy said quickly. “That was just a rumor.”
“Maybe so,