Authentically izzy, p.31
Authentically, Izzy, page 31
PPS: Floo powder? Commuting? Luke is such a dork!
* * *
Now Izzy knew what a tug-of-war rope felt like.
As she sat around the table with the Sutherlands, and Ellen shared funny stories about Brodie, Izzy wrapped the sound of Brodie’s laugh around her. He had an arm draped casually over the back of her chair, giving full access to his scent of spice and pine. They’d discussed her new position over the first part of lunch, each additional idea sprinkling excitement like fairy dust over the future. Brynna had joined them. Though her marketing skills weren’t stellar, her artistic abilities proved fantastic, and with only a few conversations over the past several days, she’d succeeded in creating an updated logo for the bookshop. Simple. Classic. And perfect for the new look Izzy and Brynna had discussed creating for their brand.
“Their” brand! As if Izzy was a part of the family. In all honesty, apart from Anders, she’d been encapsulated into their world as if she’d always belonged, and this time she recognized the acceptance a lot better than her twelve-year-old self had.
Brodie’s fingers slipped into her hair as he rested his arm behind her, and she nestled a little closer into this family moment. Maybe fitting into this world wouldn't be so painful. It definitely had its Brodie-size perks, as well as a few Sutherland’s book-type ones too. They’d never replace her beloved cousins, but wasn’t growing up and flying all about finding where you belonged?
“The turnaround for the Skern shop has been remarkable.” Ellen took her fork and brought a fry to her mouth. Izzy was still trying to sort out eating fries with one’s fork. Brodie seemed to read her mind because he reached onto her plate and snatched one of her fries with his fingers, then popped it into his mouth, adding a wink for good measure.
“And you haven’t even put any of your ideas to work in the other shops, Isabelle-dear.”
“Now, now, we always have a good turn during the festival, you know.” Anders poked at his fish with his fork, before raising his gaze to Izzy. His eyes were more of a gray-green beneath a set of rather impressive sandy brows. “Time will be the real test for whether Isabelle’s creative ideas are making improvements.”
“Codswallop, Anders.” Ellen’s exclamation drew all eyes. “Have you ever known Sutherland’s, in all the years you’ve worked with it, to have a weekend like we’ve just experienced? The numbers were outrageous and the only difference we can account for is Isabelle.”
He made a grumbly sound and poked his fish with renewed zeal.
“As I told you all from the beginning, she’s exactly what we’ve needed all along.” Brodie lowered his arm to Izzy’s shoulder and tugged her nearer.
“A new perspective from a creative mind who adores books as much as the rest of us,” Ellen added. “Yes, she belongs so nicely. A remarkable addition.”
Ellen’s compliment warmed Izzy’s face but also settled deep. She glanced around the table. Except for Anders, she really did seem to fit among this bookish bunch.
“Remarkable.” Brodie’s whispered reply, so close to her ear, nearly melted her into the floor. Books, creativity, and that man?! Moving closer certainly brought wonderfully tactile benefits of being near Brodie that none of her cousins could replicate. And the job? Down deep, she knew it was exactly what she was meant to do.
“I can’t even imagine what you’ll do when you actually have some time, Izzy-dear.” This from Brynna, the only one in the family who referred to her as Izzy. Her bright-blue eyes shimmered beneath equally blue, glittering eyeshadow. Paired with her strawberry-blonde hair, it made quite the first impression. “Likely get us started up with ten new shops by Christmas?”
Her light laugh echoed through the room, joined in by others.
“She hasn’t made any plans to move here that soon, Brynna.” Brodie’s voice brewed into the conversation. “Though I wouldn't complain at all if she wanted to find her way to Skern sooner rather than later.”
Izzy’s gaze caught in his.
“Perhaps by the time you move back, Isabelle, I’ll have had my surgery and will see all the changes you’ve made myself,” Fiona added, her searching eyes scanning Izzy’s direction.
Izzy’s heart double-squeezed at the thought. “That would be wonderful, Fiona. Then you can give the display tables your special charm.”
The girl’s smile grew wide.
“Well, once Brodie gets the stipend for hiring you, they’ll almost have enough saved for the surgery, so it may very well be before Christmas.” Brynna added another laugh. “And what a gift that would be to the entire family!”
Brynna’s words hung in the air.
“‘Stipend’?” Izzy repeated. “For hiring me? What do you mean?”
Brynna’s eyes widened and she looked to Brodie before turning her attention back to Izzy. “It’s nothing, really.” Brynna rushed to add, her cheeks darkening. “Don’t pay me any mind.”
“You didn’t tell her?” This from Ellen.
“No.” Brodie shook his head, his gaze never leaving Izzy’s face. “I tried at one point and then we were interrupted. It never seemed to be the right time.”
“The right time?” A sudden chill branched from her chest up into her cheeks as she turned to Brodie. “What are you talking about?”
The longer he stared at her, the colder she became. Stipend to hire her?
“The government offers substantial financial incentives to anyone who can bring new people to Skymar. It began two years ago with the hopes of repopulating since many of the younger generation are moving elsewhere.”
“Liona came all the way from Indonesia to marry Cousin Kurt,” Fiona’s happy voice broke into the stillness.
Izzy blinked, comprehension making a slow and painful appearance.
So Brodie joined Heart-to-Heart in order to find a woman to bring to Skymar so he could get money to save either Sutherland’s or his sister's eyesight? Her hand flew to her stomach as the realization ignited a physical punch. But that couldn’t be right. She looked back at Brodie, searching his face. Not Brodie too.
“So you’re given a financial stipend if you hire someone or marry them?”
“What do you say to some dessert?” Ellen stood, her smile tight. “Brynna, Fiona, Anders. Help me get it from the kitchen, won’t you?”
The last sentence brooked no refusal, even from Anders. The rest scattered from the room with Brynna and a bewildered Fiona bringing up the rear.
“Isabelle, I can assure you that this is not what you think.” He rubbed his fingers over her knuckles. “Not at all.”
The voice she’d grown to adore sounded far off, strained . . . very un–Brodie-like.
“You don’t get a financial stipend for hiring someone from out of the country?”
“Yes.” His other palm lowered to her shoulder. “But that’s not why we offered you the job.”
She pushed away from the table, breaking her contact with him. Her gaze never left his, her mind clicking through nearly five months of conversations. “Is . . . is that why you joined Heart-to-Heart? Because of the stipend?”
“Isabelle.”
She stood, backing away from him. “Did you?”
“No.” He came to his feet, holding her gaze. “I mean, at first I joined because I thought ‘why not’ since I had no romantic prospects at the time, but then you showed up and I . . . all I wanted was a chance to know you better, and then it didn’t matter about stipends or governments. All that mattered was you and me.”
She drew another step back, shaking her head, her chest aching from the effort to keep her tears at bay. This couldn’t be happening. Not Brodie. He’d been everything good and right and wonderful. “How . . . how can I believe you? You started dating me to earn money?”
“No. That’s not the way of it. You must know it’s not, Isabelle.”
The gentle curl of his voice over every syllable in her name nearly softened her to weeping. But she stiffened against the desire. She’d learned how to wrap her emotions in coldness to make it through the remnants of a devastated relationship. She could do it now. Even with Brodie.
She would not change her whole life for a voice. Or an accent. Or sweater-vests. Not when all she’d been from the beginning was a check. The job instead of a marriage proposal? Had that been some sort of way to hold off a more permanent relationship and still gain financially? All the times she’d played the fool in the past stabbed into her paranoia. Had . . . had she gotten it all wrong again?
“Is that why you offered me the job? To get the stipend? To . . . to get me to stay?”
“No, please don’t take this any further in the wrong direction. I can see now how it may seem misconstrued, especially with your past relationships, but I offered you this job because it is what you were meant to do. You thrive in it.”
“It just so happens to also help your business.” The accusation slipped out and she cringed from the sound of it. She’d given him a lot of her ideas, a great deal of her energy, and all of her heart . . . for another charade?
He tilted his head, studying her. “From all you said, you seemed to want to help and I wanted to show you what I’d learned about you over the past months. I wanted you to see what you were capable of.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Perhaps I should have told you about the stipend from the beginning.”
“‘Perhaps’?”
“Would you have even gotten to know me if I had told you?” His jaw tightened. “Would you have taken a risk on seeing how well we are together?”
She looked away, twisting her fingers together in front of her. “Probably not.”
“I tried to explain on the rooftop but was interrupted.” He shifted another step closer. “And considered telling you while we were at Waithcliff, but I didn’t want you to feel I’d trapped you all the way out there without an escape. Though, I’d hoped you wouldn’t need an escape.”
“I . . . I gave my heart to you. I believed you, not just about romance but about me.”
“And those things are still true. All of them.” His voice gentled, pleading. “Don’t throw everything away because of this. We are well-suited for one another. I know you feel that. It has nothing to do with money or anything else. It’s about two hearts. Isabelle?”
She stared up at him, half of her aching to believe him and the other half terrified of making the biggest mistake of her life. If Brodie proved as false as Dean or HWLMATA, she’d be left with a much more devastating recovery than wounded pride, a broken heart, and an unpaid wedding bill. She’d have moved countries, quit her job, and started over far away from her most ardent supporters.
“Why am I always a means to an end?” She spoke the whisper more to herself than Brodie as she backed toward the hallway. “I’ve . . . I’ve just wanted to be enough.” Her voice broke and she growled against the weakness. “But . . . but every time I find out it’s all pretend.” She searched his face. He was supposed to be different. He’d carved a way deeper into her heart, her life, than any of the others. “Oh, how I wanted you to be different.”
“I am.” He waved a hand between them. “This is. Think about all our conversations. All we’ve been through. Who could pretend for so long?”
“I dated Chip for a year and was engaged to him for another one.”
“I’m not Chip.” His words ground low. “When will you just trust what’s happening here? Trust it to be good and right and very real?”
“You’re not the one risking everything. My family. My job. My life. I want to believe you’re the type of guy who would still care about me once I’ve uprooted and you get your money, but . . .”
“The fact that you even question that . . . ?” The gaze that met hers held a steely look. “Surely you don’t take me as the sort of person who’d play sport with your heart.”
“It certainly looks as if you’re the sort.”
His chest deflated as if her words stabbed him.
“I’m . . . I’m sorry, Brodie.” She’d hurt him, and instead of feeling better, her stomach churned. “Maybe I’m not what you thought, and maybe I’m . . . I’m not brave enough to risk everything for a hope that might be a sham. My heart isn’t strong enough for that.”
A sob shook through her as she turned from the room, her last view of Brodie’s pained expression branded into her mind. Her heart pulsed an agonizing rhythm as she ran up the stairs to her room, but her mind sifted through memories, moments—hundreds of them that beat against her doubts.
No. Wasn’t he like all the others? She shook her head. She needed to leave Skymar before her wounded heart turned right back around and stepped into a possible lie from which she may never recover.
Chapter 24
“Wow,” was Penelope’s only response as she sat across from Izzy in the waiting room of the hospital.
Luke only stared, dark brows high and arms folded across his chest.
“Yeah.” Izzy sighed and leaned back into the waiting-room chair, rubbing her tired eyes. She’d spent the past fifteen minutes apprising her cousins of her horrible last scene at the Sutherlands’ before heading to the airport. The flight home had been miserable. She’d practically curled up in the fetal position in her seat and wept until she’d fallen asleep. When she’d finally arrived home, it was too late to visit Josephine, so here she sat, first thing in the morning in the waiting room with her cousins, trying to hold herself together to see those twins and the new parents.
“Just . . . wow,” Penelope repeated, tugging at a strand of her strawberry-blonde hair, her bottom lip puckering into a pout.
“Places really offer money to have people move to their country?” This from Luke, who’d remained quieter than usual during the entire recap, while Penelope gasped, sighed, and commented on random aspects of the story such as, “Oh, what a sweet thing for Brodie to say.”
Which didn’t help Izzy’s much-needed feelings of self-justification.
“I’ve been researching it during layovers. The government is trying to find an incentive to increase the population since younger people seem to be moving away from Skymar for more corporate jobs in bigger cities.”
“So the incentive is for a good reason,” Penelope stated, and somehow the sentence made Izzy feel even worse. Everything seemed wrong. Off. Broken. Izzy’s tired eyes fluttered closed.
“Not good enough to use an innocent person to gain it, unknowingly.”
Luke’s statement sank through her, resurrecting a little of her ire. But not enough. She felt sick.
Silence fell upon the conversation again. Izzy pressed her palm into her stomach. She wanted to go home, curl up with Samwise in her bed, and cry for another hour . . . or twenty.
“So you just left the house without telling anyone?”
She opened her eyes at Luke’s question. “I left a note and got a taxi to the airport.”
“Well, if you feel that Brodie is the sort of guy who would do something like this, then I think you’re completely right in the way you responded.” Penelope leaned forward, her hazel eyes rounded, sad. “He just seemed so nice and real. I mean he did have a book war with Eli over you, and he fought for your ideas with his family.”
Izzy groaned and sent a glance to Luke, but he didn’t say anything, just sat there like a frowning, bearded gnome, giving her no indication about what was going on inside his head. Maybe she didn’t want to know.
“And he wore Yoda ears and made horrible puns,” Penelope added. “That isn’t the usual way people try to trick women into romance.”
“Hey, guys.”
They all looked up to find Patrick standing nearby, his hands in his pockets, and though his dusty-blond hair stood in all directions, his broad smile stretched wide. He looked a whole lot better than Izzy did after not having slept in the last twenty-four hours. “Come meet the kids.”
The trio followed Patrick down the hallway and entered a room bright with morning light and dozens of flowers, no doubt due to Patrick’s ready indulgence of his wife. On the bed sat Josephine, her dark hair perfectly arranged, her makeup almost hiding the purple smudges under her eyes, and a little bundle in each arm. One blue. One pink.
“Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!” Penelope ran forward, her smile so big Izzy wondered if it would outsize her face. “Oh, oh, may I?”
Josephine offered a tired smile and nodded toward the bundle nearest Penelope. Blue. “Meet Noah Riley Martin.”
Penelope brought the wiggling bundle into her arms. “Look, he’s so round.” She rushed over to Luke. “And he has Josephine’s dark hair too.”
The cherub face scrunched and he puckered his lips, before releasing a massive yawn that had everyone in the room . . . well, every woman in the room . . . oohing over him.
“And here is Ember Greer Martin.” Patrick took the pink bundle and placed it into Izzy’s open arms.
Luke edged close, peering over her shoulder, his lips gentled into a smile.
“You’re an uncle,” Izzy whispered, as the round blue eyes looked from Izzy to Luke.
“Yeah,” he murmured, touching Ember’s little hand until the tiny fingers wrapped around his large one. “I am.”
No one else was close enough to hear it, but Luke’s rasped reply crumbled with emotion. Izzy looked over at him and smiled. “Want to hold her?”
His eyes widened and he stepped back, rubbing his palms against his jeans. That was a yes, maybe.
Izzy didn’t wait for a reply before placing the bundle into his arms. As soon as the blankets settled, Luke's expression melted into one of wonder. Ember looked more curious than anything else, and Izzy nearly burst into tears all over again.
So tender. So gentle.
Such love.
Brodie would be that way with kids.
The sudden thought nearly undid her careful control. How could she even think that about him after what she’d learned? But . . . but the man she thought she’d known wouldn’t have used her for money. Never. He’d have been affronted at the very idea.
Just as Brodie had been.
