Page 1 of The Christmas Arrangement
Chapter 1
Rescuing a Spider
Ivy
* * *
A bead of sweat trickles down the back of my neck and runs along my spine to collect in my panties, followed by another, and another. It’s unbelievable that I’m sweating like this in late November in Vermont. It’s twenty degrees and snowing.
But the MacIntoshes’ barn is both heated and packed with photojournalists, entertainment reporters, and camera crews. Between the radiant heat system, the body heat of the crowd, and the heat being thrown by the blindingly bright photography lights trained directly on me, I’m roasting in the sage green wool sweater dress I wriggled into just minutes ago. The dress is soft and weather appropriate, but the thigh-high stiletto boots the stylist paired with it are highly impractical for a snowy day in the mountains. I can only imagine that my carefully coiffed curls are wilting as badly as the flowers are. I eye the drooping scarlet amaryllis and my heart aches. I spent hours arranging literally thousands of blooms into a festive fairytale garden. And for what?
None of this is real.
The scene is as fake as it is hot. Speaking of fake and hot, I shift my attention from my poor flower arrangements to the man standing beside me. He holds my clammy left hand loosely in his warm, strong right hand like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It most certainly is not the most natural thing in the world for Dash Pine, Sexiest Man Alive, top-grossing movie star, former teen icon, and Hollywood bad boy to be bothering with a small-town florist whose name sounds like something out of a bad Christmas cartoon. Yet, here we are.
He catches my eye and flashes me a reassuring smile. Then he gives my hand a little squeeze and whispers, “Show time.”
Quinn flicks the lights off and on like intermission at the ballet is about to end, and the noisy barn goes quiet.
Dash’s grin broadens and he greets the assembled media in a friendly, familiar tone, like he’s sitting around a fire pit with his buddies. Does Dash Pine have buddies? Has he ever leaned back in a camp chair, propped his feet up on a log, and sipped beer from a can? I have no clue.
“Thanks for coming, folks. I know Mistletoe Mountain is a trek for most of you, and I’m grateful you made the trip because I have exciting news to share.”
He pauses while camera bulbs flash. I curve my glossed lips into a happy smile, trying to think cold thoughts about icicles and snowballs rather more troubling thoughts about whether the lipliner is bleeding into the foundation that is almost certainly melting off my face.
“Everyone, now that our secret’s out, meet Ivy Jolly.”
He wraps his arm possessively around my shoulder and tugs me toward him, nestling me into his side. He smells like juniper and cinnamon and man.
“How long have you been together?” A reporter with gorgeous box braids calls out. I recognize her as Veronica Jones from The New Newz.
“Long enough that I couldn’t wait another minute to share it with the world,” he rumbles in his famous throaty voice.
“Ivy, what do you do?”
“I’m a—” My voice comes out in a squeak, so I stop, clear my throat, and breathe before trying again. “I’m a florist. I own Blooms by Ivy in town.”
Dash sweeps his free hand expansively over the garden I’ve created in the dead of winter. “All of this is her work.”
My panic ebbs and my pride swells as the cameras and recorders pan over the floral display.
“Dash, how did you two meet?” someone shouts from the middle of the crowd.
I wait for him to field this question. The pause drags on. And then on some more. I flutter my mascara-coated eyelashes and give my supposed boyfriend a look that says, honey, tell these nice people how we met.
He’s wide-eyed, frozen like a deer on the side of the road that’s just heard the roar of a pickup truck. He squeezes my hand again, but this time his palm is as damp as mine is. His Adam’s apple bobs above his collar and he blinks rapidly. Dash Pine, trained actor, is choking.
For a heartbeat, I think well, that’s it. This ridiculous plan is about to fall apart like the house of cards it is. But here’s the thing about me. I can’t bear to see anyone—or anything—suffer. Just this morning, I pulled over on the shoulder of the road to relocate a spider from my side mirror to a stand of still-flowering witch hazel trees, nestling the little thing into the yarn-like petals of one reddish-yellow bloom to shelter it from the wind. I can’t very well rescue an arachnid and then let a fellow human die a slow death of public humiliation, can I?
“Can I tell the story?” I coo at Dash. My voice sounds sweet and light—a minor miracle considering that my legs are shaking and the rivulets of sweat pooling in my panties have ticked up from droplets to a steady drizzle.
“Please,” he croaks.
Several dozen pairs of eyes train on me. I look over the reporters’ heads and catch Quinn’s gaze. I hold it, talking directly to my best friend, as I spin a tale that’s technically entirely true.
“We met on the set of a photo shoot. I was delivering flowers and Dash was outside getting some air. He helped me move a heavy potted plant, and I told him how much I loved his performance in An Inheritance of Irony.” I pause and giggle. “Maybe it went beyond telling him. I may have gushed a little—okay, a lot.” My face heats, and for once, I’m not upset that I blush so easily because several of the cynical Hollywood insiders soften, their skeptical frowns loosening into small smiles.
My intervention reset Dash’s brain, and he smoothly jumps in with his famous half-purr, half growl. “We started talking movies, then Ivy told me all about the charming little town she lived in, and I decided I had to see it for myself. We’ve been more or less inseparable ever since.”