“Well, they’re not out, so much as they’re behind in their deliveries.”
“Great.”
“Not too bad,” Dan told her. “Most of the bridge is completed. It’s only the railing the crew hasn’t finished.”
“Yes, but we still have to get it painted and let it dry before the wedding.” She rubbed her forehead as a headache began to erupt. “So when can they get it to us?”
“Friday,” Dan said.
“Friday?” Ivy’s voice broke on the word. “That’s impossible. We need that bridge completed and ready for photos by Saturday afternoon.”
“Yeah, I know, and I think we’ve got it covered,” he said quickly. “If it’s okay with you, I’m going to send a couple of the boys out to Tahoe to pick up the load and get it back here today.”
“Of course it’s okay with me.” Ivy slumped against the counter as relief coursed through her in a thick wave. “You scared me to death, Dan.”
He laughed. “Sorry, but since you’re the boss I’ve got to run this stuff by you.”
“Well, as your boss,” she retorted, her voice teasing, “I’m ordering you to stop giving me heart palpitations. Or Angel Christmas Tree Farm is going to have to find a new manager.”
“I’m not worried,” Dan told her. “You can’t fire a man who used to give you piggyback rides.”
Ivy laughed at the memories he awakened. “Fine, fine. Get the guys on it right away though, okay? Will the crew be there to finish this up tomorrow?”
“You bet they will and they’ll have that bridge built, sanded and painted by Thursday. I guarantee it.”
“Thanks, Dan. Don’t know what I’d do without you.” She hung up, tucked her phone into her pocket and froze when Tanner’s voice boomed out into the otherwise still room.
“You own Angel Christmas Tree Farm?”
Ten
She whipped around and her gaze locked with his. He was standing in the doorway, hands braced on the jambs, glaring at her as if he’d never seen her before. This was not how she’d planned for him to find out the truth.
“Oh, God. Tanner…”
“You are the owner of the Christmas tree lot.”
It wasn’t a question this time. It was a statement, said in a cold, hard voice, that sounded nothing like the man she’d come to know. This was going to be much harder than she’d thought it would be.
Hairy trotted past Tanner and went straight to Ivy. He sat down at her feet, looked up at her and whined a little as if in sympathy.
“Answer me.”
“Yes,” she said. One word and it couldn’t possibly convey what she was feeling. Ivy’s heart sank. She finally completely understood that old saying, as an icy hole opened up in the pit of her stomach and her heart dropped right into it. The look on Tanner’s face chilled her to the bone.
She was so used to seeing a flash of humor in his eyes or even that shuttered look he got when he felt she was getting too close. The expression on his face now was one she’d never seen before. This wasn’t hot fury, this was cold rage. His features were taut and his eyes were eerily blank as he gave her a look usually reserved for bugs under a microscope.
“You’ve been lying to me since the day you walked in here.”
Stomach churning, eyes filling with tears she refused to shed, she nodded. “Yes. I have.”
“Look at that,” he mused in a sneer. “So you are at least capable of honesty.”
That stung. Until he’d entered her life, she’d always been honest. “Damn it, Tanner. I didn’t mean—”
“Please. Of course you did.”
“Okay yes,” she admitted, feeling a frantic rush inside to get out everything she wanted to say. “I did lie to you deliberately. I wanted to try to make you—”
“Horny? Well, congrats. It worked.” He pushed off the doorjamb and folded his arms across his chest in a silent maneuver that told her plainly that he was already shutting her out.
“No,” she argued. “That wasn’t it.”
“And I should believe you?”
This wasn’t what she’d wanted, but maybe it was no more than she deserved. She had set out to trick him. To lie to him. To seduce him into not only liking her, but the town, the valley, so that he’d stop making trouble for her farm. She hadn’t exactly gone into this with the best of motives. Was it any wonder that she was now getting kicked in the head by her own maneuvering?
“I only wanted to get to know you. To let you get to know me,” she told him, words tumbling from her in a wild rush. “You were so determined to make trouble for the farm and you stayed locked up here so no one could talk to you, so—”
“Ah,” he said, moving into the kitchen with a panther’s deadly grace. Every move was quiet, contained and only defined the fury she felt pumping off of him in thick waves. “So your lies were my fault. You were forced to come into my house and lie to my face because I gave you no other choice.”
Afternoon sunlight speared through the kitchen windows. The wall on the clock ticked so loudly, it echoed the heavy rhythm of Ivy’s own heart. Hairy’s whining crept up a notch in volume as if he sensed the tension mounting in the room.
She looked into Tanner’s familiar eyes and read only anger churning in those depths. Her heart ached and the cold that had a grip on her insides only deepened. She’d waited too long, Ivy told herself. She should have confessed all to him days ago.
“Tanner, you can at least listen to me,” she said, never taking her gaze from his, despite how much it hurt to look at him and see nothing of the man she loved looking back at her.
“Why should I?” he countered, closing in on her. “You have more lies for me?”
“No.” She sighed a little, then took a breath and said, “I was going to tell you today. I’d made up my mind that I couldn’t pretend anymore.”
“Yeah,” he said dryly. “The strain must have been hard on you.”
Through her misery, through the pain, her own temper started to flicker brightly. Yes, she had been wrong to lie to him. But she was apologizing, wasn’t she? Standing here in front of him, letting him take potshots at her without firing back. Didn’t that count for anything?
Oh, Ivy had been dreading this confrontation. She’d known it was eventually coming. How could it not? He couldn’t live in Cabot Valley and not find out the truth about who she was. But somehow, she’d hoped to find a better way of telling him than this.