Surviving Ivy Read online

  “Double fudge hockey sticks!” Ivy glared at the empty plastic bag as it swayed in the breeze. She dumped the other bag onto the passenger seat and looked down at the ground where the groceries from the torn bag had fallen. Only a few of the items were there. Ivy quickly scooped them up and started looking for the other things.

  One of the cans was rolling toward the basket stand, just across the road from Ivy. Pushing the basket to the stand, Ivy bent down and scooped up the runaway can. With a huge smile on her face, and turned around only to see two cans under her car. The bag of oranges had also broken open when it hit the asphalt. Several of the oranges rolled under the car parked next to her. The rest had scattered in almost every possible direction.

  Ivy groaned. There was no way around it. She was going to have to get on her hands and knees, if not her stomach, to get the items out from under the cars. Ivy glanced around the parking lot. Just because she needed some help, there was conveniently no one in the lot.

  Several minutes passed along with several colorful curses, before Ivy finally managed to get the cans and oranges out from under all the cars. As she started to get up, she bumped her head on one of the cars. Ivy rubbed the back of her head with the side of her hand as she slowly stood up. She thought about wiping off her clothes, but thought against it. It was bad enough she had touched her hair with her grimy hands.

  She grabbed a roll of paper towels, tore open the plastic wrapping, and pulled a couple sheets off the role. She wiped off her hands as best she could. Wadding the paper towels, she dropped them into a side pocket on her bag and got into the car.

  The morning had started out cool, but now the sun was out in full force, making it feel more like summer than an early spring day. Ivy blew several stray strands of hair out of her eyes. Hot and miserable only started to describe how she was feeling. She started the car and glanced at the bag that had her ice cream in it. She just hoped it wasn’t a melted, soupy mess because after the little runaway grocery escapade, she was going to need a pint of ice cream to make her feel better.

  Ivy drove the car out of the parking lot and headed back to her duplex. Her home. It was the bright side of her day, because her mate was living next door.

  Chapter 4

  Ivy smiled when she pulled into the driveway of her new home. She quickly unloaded the groceries from her car and carried them into the duplex without tripping, breaking a leg, or worse. She took everything out of the plastic bags and lined the items up on the countertops. Except for the lunchmeats and sliced cheese, she put the perishables into the refrigerator. “I need to remember to buy some reusable bags and definitely a couple of insulated bags.”

  Her stomach grumbled.

  “Would you quit acting like my throat has been cut?” she muttered as she grabbed the open roll of paper towels. Using a paper towel as her plate, she made a sandwich and then put the meat and cheese into the refrigerator, along with the mayonnaise she had opened. Ivy took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and ate the sandwich as she put away the rest of her groceries. When she had everything put away, she ate the last bit of the sandwich and drank the rest of the water.

  Her stomach finally stopped growling now that it had some food in it.

  Ivy stretched her arms over her head. She let them drop to her sides and rolled her shoulders. “As much as I wish it would happen with a snap of my fingers, the boxes in the trunk are not going to unload themselves, though it would be really awesome if I could just snap my fingers and have the boxes march into the house. Wait a minute! I could float them into the house!” Excitement filled her voice and she did a little impromptu dance.

  She stopped dancing about a minute later when reality hit her. “That probably wouldn’t be a good idea. There’s no telling what would float into the house instead of the boxes. Been there. Done that. And I definitely don’t want to do it again.” She shuddered as she thought about the last time she tried to make some objects float. It had been several years ago, she had decided to try a spell to make several rather large boxes float into the garage at her grandmother’s house. It was actually a rather simple spell that she had seen her grandmother and others in the coven use on a regular basis. So Ivy decided to give it a try. After all, she was a Braxton, and Braxton witches could do anything when it came to witchcraft.

  The spell worked.

  The boxes levitated and then floated.

  They floated right past the garage and straight up to the roof of the house. At first it didn’t seem too bad. Ivy thought all she had to do was concentrate on the boxes and make them float down from the roof. But something went seriously wrong. Instead of the boxes floating down from the roof, the mailboxes started floating into the garage. Ivy panicked because as hard as she tried, she couldn’t get the mailboxes to stop. They kept coming until every mailbox from the entire neighborhood was neatly stacked inside the garage.

  There was only one thing she could do…tell her grandmother.

  When Beatrice Braxton saw the stacks of mailboxes, she laughed so hard, she flopped down in the middle of the yard, holding her sides. At first, Ivy was worried she had down something to her grandmother. She was about to call 911, but then her grandmother wiped the tears from her eyes and told Ivy that at least she had some boxes stacked in the garage, even if it wasn’t the boxes she was trying to put in there.

  Ivy and her grandmother spent the rest of the night putting all of the mailboxes back where they belonged. Just as the first rays of light peeked over the horizon, she and her grandmother finished returning the last mailbox to its home.

  Over the next few weeks, the whole neighborhood talked about the mailbox fairies, who in one night fixed all the broken and leaning mailboxes. Beatrice Braxton’s eyes twinkle with mischief every time her neighbors speculated who was behind the mailbox fairies. Neither she nor Ivy ever told anyone what had happened, though some of the coven members had a good idea.

  The strange part of the whole incident was her grandmother made her memorize the spell, even though there was no way Ivy could ever make it work right. She had no clue why none of the spells ever worked for her. Any of the other witches in the coven could easily recite the spells and have them work perfectly.

  But Ivy couldn’t do it. The harder she tried, the worse the outcome was.

  She could never figure out what she was doing wrong. She was even more clueless as to why her grandmother made her memorize the spells when she knew Ivy would never be able to get them to work.

  Ivy shook her head. “Definitely not a good idea, especially since grandma isn’t here to fix my oopsies.” Come to think about it, Grandma’s ghost hasn’t been around since I moved here. I wonder why. Ivy shrugged her shoulders. Contrary to popular beliefs, ghosts couldn’t be controlled. They did what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it. She grabbed her car keys and walked out the backdoor. After she unlocked the trunk to her car, she put the keys into her pocket and grabbed the first box.

  Two trips later, she was already tired of carrying boxes up the steps of her small back porch. She was beginning to think she was working out at the gym on one of the crazy stair climbing machines that so many people loved to use. Climbing and climbing but going nowhere was crazy.

  Carrying box after box up the stairs was crazy.

  She hated stairs!

  There had to be a way to get the boxes into the house a little faster so she wouldn’t have to deal with the stairs anymore today. Maybe I could try the spell. It’s been a long time since I tried to cast it. Ivy seriously considered using the spell. Finally, she shook her head. That’s probably not a good idea. I need to think of something else…something that doesn’t involve witchcraft.

  Ivy studied the boxes still in the trunk of the car. She stacked several of the lighter boxes on top of each other picked them up. As she picked them up, the top box threatened to slid off. Ivy readjusted her hold on the boxes until the top box quit sliding. “Maybe this wasn’t such a bright idea,” she muttered. Because of t
he top box, she couldn’t see anything.

  She took a couple of tentative steps toward the house, and nothing bad happened. Confidence filled her. She could do this.

  “Look out!” shouted a deep, rich male voice.

  About three seconds before the warning, Ivy felt the toe of her foot catch on something. The momentum of her body sent her forward. The boxes flew in different directions. All Ivy saw was the cement coming up fast at her face.

  A pair of strong arms wrapped around her and she felt herself pulled tight against a warm hard body. In seconds, she went from staring at the cement and wondering how bad she was going to injure herself, to staring up at the billowy white clouds drifting through the sky.

  Ivy blinked.

  “Are you okay?” The deep, rich male voice was right next to her ear.

  “Double hockey sticks!” Ivy realized she was lying on top of a man. The man who had just saved her from planting her face into the cement. “You shouldn’t have done that…I mean...thank you for saving me. But now, I’m squishing you.” She tried to get up but the man wouldn’t release her. “You have to let go of me so I can get off of you. I don’t want to hurt you anymore than I already have.”

  The man chuckled, causing Ivy’s whole body to shake with his. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The sweet scent of peppermint and musky male odor filled her nose. Desire rippled through her body. She no longer wanted to get up. Instead, she wanted to roll over and bury her nose in his neck. What are you thinking? Do you even know who you are lying with?” She mentally chastised herself.

  “You are not hurting me,” said the man. “In fact, I like you exactly where you are.” He tightened his hug. “But the rock pressing into my hip does hurt. Will you be able to get up when I release you?”

  “I can get up.” Ivy wasn’t sure what was wrong with her. The thought of something hurting the man was unacceptable, but at the same time, she really didn’t want to get up.

  The man released Ivy, and as soon as she moved off him, he jumped up off the ground and held out his hand to her.

  Ivy looked up at the man. Her mouth dropped open. No wonder I wanted to stay on top of him. The man standing in front of her was Ben Anderson, her neighbor and her mate. Ivy quickly closed her mouth and took his hand.

  With ease, he pulled her to her feet but he didn’t release her hands. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Concern was etched across his face.

  Ivy stared into his deep, emerald green eyes. She bit her bottom lip as she nodded her head. He was even more handsome up close. “I’m good. If you hadn’t caught me, I have a feeling I would have planted my face into the cement. Are you okay?”

  “I’m good. I’m Ben Anderson, your ma-neighbor.” His hands squeezed hers.

  “Ivy Braxton,” she said. A strange warmth streaked through both her hands and up her arms. From the look on his face, Ben was feeling something too.

  He released her hands and hung his thumbs in the front pockets of his jeans. He looked at the boxes lying on the ground. “You really shouldn’t carry that many boxes at one. There are too many tripping hazards, especially if you can’t see them.”

  Ivy felt her face heat. She knew her cheeks were turning pink. “It really doesn’t matter if I can see them or not. I’m a bit of a klutz. So, I was bound to fall sooner or later.” She waited for his reaction, half expecting him to turn and walk away.

  “Then you need to be extra careful. I don’t want to see you get hurt.” He gestured to the boxes still in the trunk of her car. “Are all of these going inside?”

  “Yeah, they are.”

  “I’ll get these. You are only to get the small ones and hold open the door.” Ben gave her a huge smile and winked at her. “It’s the least I can do for my new neighbor.” He picked up a couple of boxes out of the trunk of the car. “Where do you want these?”

  Disappointment filled Ivy. She was absolutely sure he felt something for her. She plastered her best smile on her face. “All the boxes can be put in the living room. There’s a small stack of boxes already in there. So these can go next to them. I’ll get the door for you.” She quickly picked up one of the three boxes she had dropped and all but ran up the stairs.

  *****

  Fifteen minutes later, Ben had carried in all of Ivy’s boxes. It was all he could do to keep from grabbing her, kissing her, and marking her as his. His dad and uncles all told him when he found his mate, the drive to make her his would be hard to ignore, but they didn’t tell him it would be all consuming. The curvy beauty living next door to him was already driving him and his bear crazy. The urge to make love to her was overpowering.

  Ivy Braxton was most definitely his mate. Her soft spicy rose scent called to him and his bear in a way no other female ever had. Earlier, when he saw her fall, his heart almost stopped. At the angle she was falling, he knew she was going to smash her face into the cement. He couldn’t let that happen to her. The very thought of her getting hurt drove him crazy with need to protect her.

  Our mate! We have found our mate! Ben’s bear rocked from paw to paw. We mark our mate.

  We will mark her and make her ours, but first we have to break up with Erica, Ben told his bear.

  I do not like Erica. You should never have gone out with her. She is too clingy and too thin. Even if she had been our mate, mating her would have broken her in half. The bear stuck its nose up in the air. It pushed forward to get another whiff of Ivy. Our mate is beautiful and perfect.

  Ben shook his head. He wanted to refute what his bear was saying, but he couldn’t. We still have to be polite when we break up with Erica, even if she is clingy. And yeah, Ivy is beautiful.

  Do not want to go near Erica. Want mate. His bear growled. It sat down as if it were pouting about not getting its way.

  Ben wanted to shake his head and roll his eyes, but with Ivy watching him, he couldn’t.

  “Is something wrong?” asked Ivy.

  Ben shook his head. “No, not really.”

  “Would you like to have a glass of lemonade or a bottle of water?” Ivy nibbled on her bottom lip.

  “No, I’m good.” He glanced at his watch and then looked up into Ivy’s face. He saw the hurt look in her eyes, and it killed him, knowing he was the reason it was there. As soon as he broke up with Erica, he would make sure Ivy never had a hurt look on her face or any doubt about his feelings for her.

  He stared at her. She was beautiful. Holding her after he broke her fall was sweet torture. He ached to feel her soft curves again. He didn’t care that she wasn’t a shifter, or that she wasn’t exactly human. She was his mate, and he wanted her. But first, he had to break up with Erica, his current and last girlfriend.

  Ben glanced at his watch again. “I have to go. There’s somewhere I have to be in a few minutes.” It was bad enough he was hurting her, but what was worse, was that he felt like he was lying to her. Yet, he had the feeling if he told her he was going on a date, even though he planned to break up with Erica, Ivy would be hurt even worse. He figured not telling her was the lesser of the two evils.

  “I understand. Maybe some other time.” Ivy plastered a smile on her face. “Thank you for the help with the boxes.”

  “If you need anything else carried in, let me know.” Ben rocked on his heels. He really didn’t want to leave. “That’s a good looking Bel Air. My duplex has a covered parking space. Why don’t you park under it so that nothing happens to your car?”

  “Don’t you use it?”

  Ben shook his head. “My truck is old and dependable, but not as good looking. Park your car under the carport.” He glanced at his watch again. “I really have to get going.”

  Ivy nodded. “Thanks for the help.” She walked with him to the back door and stood watching him as he walked down the steps. “You might want to change your shirt before you go to your meeting.” She gestured at the dirt splattered on the bottom half of his shirt.

  Ben nodded. “I’ll see you later.”

  “Later.�
�� Ivy slowly closed the door and locked it. She turned and leaned back against it. she closed her eyes and sighed. Disappointment rippled through her. More often than she could count, the people who came and went in her life did so in the very same manor. There was always the excuse of having something important they had to do or go see. No one seemed to come back to see her. She hoped Ben Anderson would not turn out to be the same way. She desperately prayed he was different, especially since he was her mate.

  Ivy opened her eyes and looked around the kitchen. There were several boxes on the counter just under the cupboard. “Well holy fudge-nuggets! I might as well start unpacking. It’s not like I have a date or anything that I have to get ready for.” She pushed herself off the door and walked across the kitchen.

  She grabbed the end of the packing tape she had folded over to create a small handled and pulled the tape off the box. Ivy wadded up the tape and laid it aside. She opened the flaps and reached into the box. Gently, she pulled out her grandmother’s teapot and unwrapped the towel she had used to protect it on her journey.

  Ivy caressed the animals that someone had carefully painted on the teapot. Bears, lions, wolves were just some of the animals. Her grandmother never said where the teapot and matching cups had come from, only that they had been a special present to her a long time ago. Anytime Ivy felt blue about something, her grandmother would take out the set and make a pot Earl Grey tea. By the time they drank the last of the tea, Ivy always felt better.

  Ivy wiped away a tear that had managed to escape. She opened one of the cabinets and carefully put the teapot on the lower shelf. Gently, she unwrapped the teacups and saucers and placed them next to the teapot. With a last look at the beautiful animals painted on it, she closed the cabinet and turned her attention to the hand towels she had used as padding. Ivy folded them and put them in a drawer next to the sink.