It Took a Rumor (2 page)

Low and steady. “Mr. Deathridge, I have no idea how these rumors began circulating, but I assure you they are baseless.”

“That so? You think I ain’t been wondering how long it was gonna take for your old man to sell you out? Only thing I don’t know is if you’re the type to let him do it. Are you, Ivy? Would you marry a man just to help your father’s business?”

“No!” she said, a little louder than she’d meant to. “I absolutely would not marry for that reason. And I’m not in love with any of your sons.” That much was true, at least. A flash in the pan was what that moment had been. No build up. No come down. Just one hot, crazy moment.
 

“But you’re sleeping with one of them.”

She swallowed.
Speak! Speak, damn you!
 

Deathridge saw the hesitation, and his eyes narrowed.
 

Ivy threw her shoulders back and her chin up. “Mr. Deathridge, this is the 21
st
century. People don’t need reasons to sleep with each other. They just do it and move on. If…If, Mr. Deathridge…If I was having sex with one of your sons, I give you my word that it would have nothing to do with business.”

His eyes narrowed as they bored into hers. The moment stretched. A trickle of sweat dripped down the center of Ivy’s back, the air conditioner roared in the background, and somewhere in the distance, Ivy was certain, a lone hawk screamed into the vast and vacant sky.
 

At last Deathridge stepped back. “Your mother was a good woman,” he said. “A fine woman. And I don’t think she’d have raised a liar. So I’ll take your word, and I won’t bother with this no more. But if I find out my trust is misplaced, young woman, don’t think for one instant you or your money-grubbing father are getting so much as a square foot of my property. I’ll disown whichever one of those boys you’ve got your hooks in long before I’d let you all ruin my ranch.”

He turned on his booted heel and marched out the door. Another rush of hot, summer air blew in. It felt like a promise from hell, and at the moment, it was nothing compared to the fire in her own gut. To be accused of basically being a whore and then to have her momma’s memory exploited—it was simply inexcusable. Insulting and undeserved. Hadn’t she done good in the community? Hadn’t she been a model citizen and an example to young women throughout the town? The old bastard had a lot of nerve talking to her like that.
 

Time resumed its normal march and Ivy spun around, looking for something to hit or throw. Her search took too long, and by the time she wrapped her fingers around the stapler, she’d calmed down.
 

“Damn Myra,” she muttered, sitting back down to her computer to do some work. She resisted the urge to punish herself by watching the video any more.
 

The Deathridge dinner table was a quiet place, that night. Only the clinking of forks on China, ice on glass, and knives on forks in an arrhythmic symphony that normally did Clara’s heart good—it meant her boys were eating well—but tonight did little to alleviate the disturbed curiosity plaguing her soul. Gideon sat at the head of the rectangular, raw wood table. Clara, sat at the other end, a forced smile on her plump, cheerful face. And in between, their four grown sons. Jake directly to Gideon’s right, Dallas to his left.

Gideon cast frequent scowls at each of his sons. Clara made several attempts to start conversation, but they always resulted in monosyllables from her men. She figured this had something to do with little Ivy Turner. Of course, Ivy wasn’t so little anymore. Clara could remember a time when she was a chubby, curly-haired toddler running between her momma and Clara as the two women knitted and chatted. There’d been times that Clara had been deeply envious of Penny Turner, having a sweet little girl she could buy pretty dresses for and teach how to cook and bake and sew. Boys were a gift from God, but one didn’t receive much affection from them, especially when their father disdained affection in men and expected his boys to behave as tough as him.

Ivy had turned twenty-six. Had a college degree in business management. And until recently, quite a positive reputation around town. Clara felt bad for her. She wasn’t convinced there was any truth to the rumors. If there was, she was certain her youngest, Boone, was to blame. In fact, she might have voted in Myra Tidwell’s online poll, though she certainly wouldn’t confess to it.

Clara glanced at Boone. He was halfway through his steak, eating with gusto the same as his brothers. Surely a guilty conscience would lead to a loss of appetite. Then again, maybe not with these particular men.

Suddenly, Gideon slammed his fists on the table. “All right,” he growled. “Which one of you’s is it?”

Clara flinched and all four boys looked at their father. “Which one of us is what?” asked Dallas, the smart-ass of the crew.

“You know damn well what I’m talking about. Which one of you boys is screwing around with Ivy?”

Clara might have intervened in an attempt at making peace, but she was too busy watching facial expressions and trying to determine if the rumor was true…and if so, which one of her boys was the guilty party. Jake and Cody both frowned at their father. Boone smirked. Dallas laughed. “I wish I was screwing around with Ivy,” Dallas said. “That girl has the best ass in town.”

“Great rack, too,” Boone said.

Cody cleared his throat. “I don’t think it’s right, talking about her like this. She’s always been a real upstanding woman, and now there’s some rumors and we’re all treating her like she’s some whore. It ain’t right.”

“Ha,” Dallas said. “That proves it. You’re fucking her, aren’t you?”

“Language,” Jake muttered involuntarily. Being the oldest, he’d early on learned to parrot his mother’s rebukes. Clara wasn’t sure he even knew he’d said it. He was busy frowning down at his plate.

“Jake, honey?” she asked. “What do you think?”

He looked up at her. “‘Bout Ivy? I guess I think none of us would be stupid enough to mess around with her so I don’t really know why we’re having this conversation. Some old gossips in town probably saw when me and her had that business breakfast a week back…which you told me to go to, Pop, if you’ll recall.” He looked to Gideon who nodded grudgingly. “I reckon that’s likely where all this is coming from.”

“But the rumors aren’t about you and Ivy,” Gideon said. “They’re about Ivy and ‘one of my sons.’ If folks thought it was you, why wouldn’t they just say so?”
 

Jake shrugged.
 

Gideon sighed. “All right, just each of you boys look me in the eye and tell me you ain’t with her and I’ll leave it be. But don’t lie to me. Ain’t never had a problem with my sons lying to me.”

He looked first at Boone, whose expression had sobered. “I swear, Pop. I ain’t been with Ivy.”

Dallas said, “I ain’t been with Ivy.”

Cody said, “I swear. I never been with Ivy.”

Jake said, “I’ve never been with Ivy.”

Gideon gave them each a once-over. And then he nodded and went back to finishing his dinner. Clara relaxed. Her boys wouldn’t lie. So the rumors must be just that.
 

The Turner’s ranch hands ate their dinner in the bunk house. The Turner dinner table was family only. It was rectangular, but small. Ivy’s father, Jared, sat at the head of the table, closest to the wall. Her mother had always sat at the opposite end, closest to the kitchen. And Ivy had sat on the side. She couldn’t identify at what point she’d assumed her mother’s spot at the table, but she noticed it that evening.

“When did I move to Mom’s chair?” she muttered.

“What’s that?” Jared asked over a mouthful of steamed broccoli.

“Nothing. Do you like the chicken?”

“Kind of bland.”

“That’s what your heart wants, Daddy. Bland food. Don’t insult the cook.”

Jared smiled as he took another bite. “Myra Tidwell paid me a visit this morning.”

“For God’s sake, does she never stop?”

“How are you holding up?”

Ivy didn’t want to talk about it. She had an MBA and single-handedly ran the business side of the ranch, a job that had formerly belonged to her mother. And since taking over the work, Ivy had managed to grow their business in terms of productivity and profitability. She’d proven herself adept at increasing efficiency as well as sales and marketing. Until yesterday, she walked with her head held high. “I’m rather pissed, if you must know.”

Jared chuckled. “Well, you ought to conduct your affairs with more discretion.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. She opened her mouth to defend herself, but thankfully she remembered that her father didn’t know—couldn’t have known—of her little folly. He was only teasing her, of course. She forced a laugh and said, “I was overcome with desire.”

Jared shook his head. “The idea of my girl going after a cowboy…everyone in this town knows you don’t swing that way. Why would they lend credence to this stuff?”

“People love juicy gossip, that’s all. It’ll pass.”

“I just hate to see your name dragged through the mud. I know how much your reputation means to you.”

Ivy shrugged. “It’ll pass.” There really wasn’t any more to say on the subject.

But then Jared looked up, making eye contact for the first time since they’d sat down. “I want you to know, if it turned out you did like one of those boys—”

“Dad, please. Come on. I’ve got a city-girl soul. I’m not interested in cowboys, you just said so yourself.”

“Now we both know that’s bullshit. You
want
to have a city-girl soul, but you’re a hundred percent country stock, through and through.”

Am not, am not, am not.
Ivy worked up her coldest glare.

Jared sighed. “I know you say you don’t want a cowboy, I just want you to know…it wouldn’t bother me. Your mother and I were both so proud of the woman you’ve become. We were at ease. I trust you to make your own decisions.”

Ivy clenched her teeth against the brief pang of sadness in her throat before nodding. “Thank you, Daddy.”

He smiled and went back to eating. Ivy exhaled slowly, relaxing now that the conversation had passed. Open-minded or not, Ivy hoped her father never found out what she’d done, and with whom she’d done it.
 

Boone

Genetics had obviously been good to the Deathridge boys. So much so that three of them took it for granted. Jake barely glanced up when women made passes at him. Cody had a collection of polite rejection lines he cycled through. Dallas didn’t go out unless he wanted to get laid, at which point he went to a bar, picked out a woman like a puppy in a pet shop, and took her home.

Boone didn’t understand any of them. Maybe it was because he was the youngest. He’d watched the others go before him and wanted what they’d had. And maybe it was because he was the only late bloomer among them. Sixteen came, then seventeen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Yes, he, Boone Deathridge, brother to Dallas Deathridge of the infamous School Nurse Affair scandal, didn’t lose his virginity until he was twenty.
 

It hadn’t been for lack of trying. He’d mimicked every one of his brothers’ moves in his attempt to score. At the age of twenty, quite by accident, he finally learned that valuable life lesson that everyone must realize in order to reach self-actualization: be yourself.
 

At a loud, smoke-filled party, Boone had looked around the room at the women he usually made passes at, the kinds of women his brothers went for, the kinds of women who rejected Boone roundly and regularly; something inside of him had despaired. A voice had said to him, “You’ll never have that.” He’d given up.
 

He’d been about to leave when he noticed a young girl, likely fresh out of high school, hovering in the corner, smiling at her friend, but glancing around shyly. The girl looked sweet and innocent. Normally Boone’s eyes would have passed right over her, but in that moment, he’d paused to look a little closer. Nothing wrong with the girl. Underneath her demure sundress and cardigan, she had a pretty nice body. A spark ignited inside of Boone, something he would later come to recognize as the spark of inspiration. Likely Michaelangelo had felt it when he’d first picked up a paint brush, or Beethoven when he’d first touched a piano. Boone saw this girl and realized he’d been going after the wrong prey. He’d been using the wrong tools. Sure, Jake and Cody could act like they didn’t care and have women falling at their feet; and Dallas could act like he was doing a girl a favor talking to her; but Boone didn’t have that kind of prowess. He had a sweet face and a non-threatening air about him. That night, instead of seeing those attributes as weakness, he’d chosen to turn them to his advantage.
 

He’d approached the nice looking girl and struck up friendly conversation. He hadn’t leered, but instead had bashfully offered her compliments, giving a little something, and then pulling back so as not to come off predatory or desperate. He’d dropped little bread crumbs of seduction, just hints at a time, camouflaged under a veneer of mostly fake innocence, until the girl had followed him out the door and into the back of his car.
 

Now, five years later, Boone still remembered that night as the best of his life. The most amazing thing about the whole situation had been that the girl had moved away a week later, making it easy for him to shake her off. Other women over the years had proved more challenging, and his one regret, now that he looked back on it, was that he hadn’t planned better for how to get his conquests to move on. The trouble with preying on nice girls was that they were all very commitment-oriented, and nowadays, Boone had a rather bad reputation as a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
 

Which was probably why so many people thought he’d been sleeping with Ivy. He had a meeting with Ivy that night, only an hour after the dinner where he and his brothers had solemnly sworn that they were up to no bad. Boone reflected on those promises. Jake and Cody would be telling the truth. If they swore they weren’t fucking Ivy, then that was that. But Dallas was lying. Maybe not about Ivy, but he was lying about something. Just like Boone was.