Ivy couldn’t tell which part of his confession shocked her more. His outright candor or the fact that this perfectly manly specimen did not want millions of women swooning over him for years to come. Sure, she’d sensed his aversion, but she’d assumed he’d prove her wrong.
He hadn’t; he’d proved her right instead. A rush of tingles skittered through her chest. She liked that he’d opened up to her. Liked that, in a sense, her instincts were correct.
“So if you don’t do the interview…” she said in a whisper.
“Then my sister will be furious. She’ll feel betrayed, I guess you could say. Also,” he added with a humorless laugh, “she says she won’t name her baby after me, though I doubt she’d go that far.”
Ivy felt her jaw drop a little. “She’s naming her baby after you?”
Easton nodded. “Yep. She’s thirty weeks along. Well, closer to thirty-one actually, which means that the baby is about as big as a pineapple right now.”
Holy Swoonersons! He just kept getting better. “Wow,” she said. “That’s incredible.”
“It was the size of a zucchini last week,” he said. “She fills me in on all the developments every time.”
Ivy considered that. “There are some pretty big zucchini out there. You should’ve seen some of the ones we grew in our garden. But I’m sure they mean the little grocery store sized ones,” she added.
“Let’s hope for her sake you’re right. She’s got another ten weeks to go.” Easton flashed her another grin.
Stop swooning, Ivy. She had to have a concussion, that was the only explanation. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so…so much like a crushing schoolgirl.
But really, his nephew would be named after him? Ivy liked her brothers just fine. She loved them, in fact, but she couldn’t imagine naming a child after one in a million years.
“Huh,” she managed. But inwardly she was gathering a better picture of him. A strong, protective older brother. Filled with enough honor and goodness that his own sister wanted to name her child after him. The exact type of man she could actually lose her heart to, only to find that he’d never feel the same way.
A streak of sadness crept in as she realized how very true that was.
“I guess what I’m saying is,” Easton said softly, as if his mind had carried on the conversation. “I don’t really have much of a choice. I agreed to do the interview, and if the storm didn’t somehow make it impossible, like I hoped it might…” His face turned chagrined. “Then we may as well just do it.” He pinned those dark brown eyes on her. “So, where do you want me?”
Chapter 5
Easton shrugged into a fresh tee shirt, a gloomy sense of acceptance pushing its way through his body. After all that he’d been through, he still hadn’t earned his way out of the dreaded interview. Not even leaving all of her bags behind had prevented it.
A quick glance over his shoulder said that Ivy was propping her phone on a barstool against a stack of books. She had it aimed at the rocking chair he’d been seated at moments ago, only now it sat before the fire. It was twilight out, and the overhead light that once lit up the space had gone gray, leaving the flames to do the trick.
Ivy sat back onto the stool where she’d positioned it across from the rocking chair, then leaned forward to check the screen. “Okay,” she said, her voice much too chipper for the circumstance. “I’ve got fifty-five percent left on my battery. But nothing drains this phone faster than shooting video, so we’ll have to work quick.”
Easton nodded and made his way over to the rocking chair. Once his back was to it, he sank back and ran his gaze over the sight before him. He’d be danged if Ivy didn’t make those thermals look good. Too good. He’d helped a toddler-sized Chantelle bundle up on cold nights enough times he could’ve done it in his sleep. There were times, he mused, he practically had. A shudder rocked through him at the memory.
But this…helping secure the waist around Ivy’s slender figure, it had him thinking thoughts he had no right to think about a woman he didn’t even know. Sure, he’d remained the perfect gentleman on the outside, keeping his hands and eyes from wandering further than necessary. But that mind of his sometimes went rogue.
“So,” Ivy said, squinting at her phone for a blink. “I’m pressing record, then I’ll start asking the questions.”
He gave her another glance over, half expecting her to be holding a cue card. “You’ve got the questions memorized?”
She nodded. “There are only five.”
Relief flooded over him. “Five? Sheesh, why didn’t you say so?”
A cute little giggle sounded as she shook her head. There were a lot of things he was starting to like about her. The way she’d encouraged him to speak up about the interview. The way she’d accepted the fact that they were, in fact, stuck. And even the way she sank into his arms after getting smacked by the door, he mused, still shocked it had actually knocked her out. She didn’t seem overly concerned about her hair when it was snow-drenched, or the gash in her head that could potentially leave a scar.
She was easy going, he guessed, compared to what he’d expected anyway. It seemed the two of them had a certain compatibility. Chemistry, even. It would make botching the interview hard, but hopefully not impossible.
“Hey, Ivy?”
She hovered her thumb over the screen. “Yeah?”
“Don’t expect this to be…anything special, okay?”
Her face scrunched up in reprove. “Tsk, whatever. You ready?”
No. He nodded anyway.
“Okay, here we go.” She straightened back up then, her shoulders tall, her posture poised, as if she’d transformed into some professional reporter in a blink.
His face warmed as he stared into her blue eyes. She was pretty, there’d been no doubt about that from the first moment they’d met. But as he sat across from her now, as she stepped into her element, he saw her in a new light. A confident, self-assured light. It was…attractive, he decided. And intimidating.
“So, Easton,” she started, “in a competition where twenty-five guys will compete for the attention of just five girls, what do you think will set you apart from the rest?”
Ugh. These were going to be harder than he thought. The last thing he wanted to do was sell himself. He tipped his chin down and gave her a pleading look, willing her to remember how very much he did not want to do this.
Ivy gave him a knowing grin, then nodded encouragingly.
“What makes me different from other guys, huh?” He shrugged, dropped his elbows to his knees, and let out a sigh.
“Oh,” she blurted, “I think if you lean down that far you’ll get cut off.” She tilted sideways to check the screen. “Actually, no. It’s…perfect.” Her cheeks flushed pink.
“I guess what sets me apart is the fact that I don’t need a bunch of modern day luxuries to be satisfied. Give me a place to lay my head, a fire to roast my latest kill, and I’m a happy man.”
“Your latest kill?” she echoed.