A Broken Kind of Beautiful (39 page)

He took the picture with half his heart. Was it too late to find Ivy and re-invite her?

“I can’t believe you’re twenty-three, Sara.” Mom’s dewy-eyed gaze swept over Sara as if she were rewinding the past twenty-three years and reliving each day. “Your father would be so proud of the woman you’ve become.”

The mention of Dad didn’t help Davis’s mood. Dad never would have treated a woman the way Davis treated Ivy tonight.

A throat cleared. Jordan Ludd stood awkwardly to the side, cheeks stained scarlet, holding a single white rose in his hand. “Hello, Sara.”

“Hello, Jordan.” Sara stepped away from Mom and reached for Jordan’s hand.

“Happy birthday.” Jordan twined his fingers with hers and handed her the rose. “It’s white. Your favorite.”

“Thank you.” She blushed and buried her nose in the blossom. She resurfaced with the same question she asked before. “So where’s Ivy, Davis?”

He looked at the door, willing her to walk through it. To tell him to shove aside because, regardless of what he’d said, regardless of the way he’d treated her at the boutique, she cared about Sara and she’d be attending her party. His attention fell on Sara and Jordan’s interlaced fingers. They wouldn’t be together if not for Ivy butting in when he told her not to. And Sara wouldn’t be wearing the delighted expression she wore right now.

He tugged at his collar. “I’m going to go pick her up right now.”

Ivy’s heels clicked down the deserted strip. Shafts of white moonlight peeked through ink-blotched clouds, then disappeared as she turned down a darkened path—one that led through a small park. Jose Cuervo sloshed inside her belly and made her legs feel like overplucked bowstrings. She wasn’t drunk. She knew what that felt like. But after two months of zero alcohol, she was plenty tipsy. She walked beneath a canopy of Spanish moss and listened to the crickets’ serenade.

Davis was at the party right now, probably telling everybody about the changed location for the show. Well, she could help. When she got there, she would help. She’d also make him listen. She hadn’t been manipulating him. Maybe at first, but not later. Not after he stood up for her to Marshall or protected her from a belligerent Doyle at the festival. Not after watching him take pictures of Twila or the hug he gave her afterward. Not after falling in love with him …

Her heart stuttered. So did her stride.

Is that what was happening? Was she in love with Davis Knight?

An image of her mother flashed through her mind—wasting away, slipping away, losing more and more of herself every single day James remained absent and left her phone calls unanswered. The only reason Mom made Ivy go on those summertime visits was so she could stay linked to James somehow. Ivy reached out trembling fingers and felt for the lone bench alongside the path. She gripped the backrest and eased onto the seat.

Davis Knight.

Her heart throbbed at the thought of him, which was reason enough to walk away. She imagined going to New York and never looking back. She forced herself to picture it. The thought of never seeing Davis again made the alcohol in her stomach turn sour.

She hugged her middle, digesting the truth. Ivy had gone and done what she promised herself she’d never do. She’d fallen in love. The image of
Mom’s wasted form blurred out of focus, and in its place came a different one. Of Jordan when he looked at Sara. Sara when she listened to Jordan. The tenderness they shared for each other. Maybe love didn’t have to be bad. Davis wasn’t anything like James. Maybe loving a man like him wouldn’t ruin her.

Ivy’s chest flooded with hope. She kept her eyes closed and clamped her arms tighter around her middle, like the feeling might leak out of her if she didn’t hold everything together. Could she let herself love Davis? She bent over her knees. What if Davis didn’t love her back? What if he didn’t want anything to do with her ever again? Ivy exhaled the worry.

One thing was clear. She wouldn’t find any answers huddled into a ball on this bench. She needed to get up and find him. She needed to try. Gathering the hope close, she straightened from her scrunched position and noticed that the dark path was no longer deserted.

A big man stumbled toward her, beer bottle in hand. That man wasn’t Davis, either. It was Doyle, and he was already much too close for comfort. Her heart spiked, shooting heated prickles all the way into her fingertips. She was alone. In the dark. In a deserted park. With a man who was clearly drunk and, according to Davis, had an ex-wife who felt threatened enough to get a restraining order against him.

Relax. He’s not an ax murderer. Or a rapist
.

He could be. She didn’t know.

A long-ago warning tumbled through her mind, words from a friend she missed.
“One of these days, you are going to mess with the wrong man. Tread carefully, my friend. You don’t want to get hurt.”
All of a sudden, Annalise’s lighthearted warning felt terribly prophetic.

Taking a deep breath, Ivy reached inside her purse and clenched her fist around Marilyn’s keys—her only weapon. Pinpricks of perspiration wrapped beneath her arms and slicked her palms. Blood whooshed past her ears so loud and fast she could hardly think. She looked down at her shoes.

Run, you idiot
.

Her muscles poised for flight, but it was too late to run. Doyle stood right in front of her, his meaty fingers wrapped around the neck of an almost empty bottle of beer. He sure hadn’t wasted any time finding another place to get his hands on one.

“We just can’t seem to stop running into each other.” The tail end of each word slurred into the beginning of the next. He wobbled in place, like the ground rocked him back and forth.

Her attention zipped left, then right, as if searching for an escape. She looked ahead, past the canopy of live oaks, their gorgeousness morphing into a death sentence. Nobody from the street could see them. She took a few steps away.

Doyle’s hand darted out like a snake and wrapped rough fingers around her elbow. Apparently, he wasn’t so drunk that he’d lost his reflexes. “Hey now, where you going?”

A scream built in her lungs, but would anybody even hear her? Judging by the empty strip, it seemed everybody was crammed into Hoppin’ John’s, enjoying Sara’s birthday party. She looked past the trees, into the darkness, and cursed the sea turtles. Doyle’s fingers bit into her flesh. “You’re hurting my arm.”

He released her as quickly as he’d grabbed her but didn’t step away. Instead, he narrowed his eyes. “I really don’t like women like you.”

Ivy took another step back. Closer to the street.

“Full of yourself. Too good.”

Another step back.

He took a swig from the bottle. Beer dribbled down his chin. “Just like my first ex-wife. Two peas in a pod. I can tell.”

Two more steps. Her heart squeezed.
Thump. Squeeze. Thump
. She was getting closer to the street. Farther from him. But he demolished the gap in two long strides. He grabbed her chin, mashing it between rough fingers. “You know what?”

Ivy’s heart jumped to her throat.
Please, God …

“I think it would serve you good if you didn’t have that pretty face.” He shoved her back, jarring her neck.

Ivy stumbled. Recovered. Turned to flee. Escape. Breathe. But he grabbed her elbow and wrenched her arm. Pain exploded in her shoulder as if he’d ripped her bone from its joint. She gasped. She couldn’t lift it. She tried to pull a ragged breath into her lungs, but they wouldn’t work. Nothing worked.

And before she could run away, Doyle brought the empty beer bottle back and crashed it against her cheek.

An explosion of pain.

Then nothing but blackness.

Davis jogged down Palmetto Boulevard, anxiety mounting the farther he got from Hoppin’ John’s. Why was he so unsettled? He didn’t stop until he came to Something New and peeked into the display window. But he knew it was no good as soon as he spotted the darkened awning.

The lights were off. Ivy had already left. He tapped the middle of his forehead with his fist. He had told her he should have listened to his grandfather. He threw money at her feet and walked away. All her life, men treated her like nothing and she believed them. Tonight, he’d added himself to the mix. Of course she wanted to model for Vera Wang. She loved modeling just like Sara had loved painting. Why did he have to be such a jerk about it?

He pulled on the door. It gave a centimeter and clicked. Just to make sure she wasn’t sitting in the dark, he rapped on the window. He tried her cell again but got shuffled to voice mail.

Come on, Ivy, where are you?

She might have walked back to Marilyn’s or maybe to the beach or the bar. Trying to think, he looked both ways down the strip. Only one light was on, and it filtered from the windows of Piper’s Bar and Grill. Might as
well try there. Davis jogged in that direction, peering at the beach as he did. Except for a distant flicker of firelight—probably a teenage beach party—he found nothing but darkness. One more block and he reached Cal’s. He swung open the door to the twang of country music and cigarette smoke and spotted a couple, heads dipped together in a corner booth. Cal was wiping down the bar top.

“Hey, Cal.”

“Well, hi there, Davis. Isn’t your sister celebrating her birthday tonight?”

“She is.” Davis stepped farther inside. “Hey, you haven’t happened to see a girl around, have you? Tall and beautiful? Pretty hard to miss.”

“Sure have. She had two rounds and headed out.”

“Do you know where she was headed?”

“Can’t say that I do. But I can say Doyle Flanning was giving her grief when she arrived.”

Davis’s uneasy feeling quadrupled. “Doyle was here?”

“Sure was. Had one too many, like usual. I kicked him out before he could get too nasty.”

Oh, man. This was not good. Doyle had harassed Ivy, got himself kicked out of a bar, and now Ivy was out there somewhere, not answering her cell phone. Davis thanked Cal and slipped out of the bar, back into the night, his heart still thundering. He took a deep breath and wiped cold sweat from his palms, trying not to let panic have its way. Ivy and Doyle did not leave the bar together. She was probably fine. Davis would find her and apologize. Maybe he’d even agree to go to New York with her. It was only one photo shoot. After all she’d done for the fashion show, couldn’t he give her that much?

Help me find her, Lord. I need to find her
.

He twirled around, searching for a clue. Searching for direction. He spotted a familiar path up ahead. Palmetto Boulevard curved like a C around a small park. If a person wanted to take a short route from one end
of the strip to the other, that person would cut through the park. He could do it now and head back to Hoppin’ John’s. Maybe that was his best bet. Maybe, despite his harsh words, she’d gone to Sara’s party. It wouldn’t be the first time she ignored his requests. He picked up his pace and jogged down the path leading through the park. He didn’t stop until he heard something rustle.

His muscles coiled. “Hello?”

A low groan—up ahead.

He squinted through the darkness and saw the outline of a person on the ground. Davis hurried forward, his shoes crunching over glass. The person lay on the ground, long tangles of hair splayed across the pavement.

Oh God …

It was Ivy. Dread lodged in his throat as he bent over and touched her hair. Warm and wet. He brought his hands in front of his face, his fingers wet with blood. He put his hand on her shoulder. Another moan escaped her lips.

Oh God, oh God, oh God …

As gently as possible, he scooped Ivy into his arms and spun in a frantic circle. What could he do? How bad was she hurt? He couldn’t see anything. He only knew there was a lot of blood.

Lord, tell me what to do!

Moonlight peeked through the clouds and filtered through the canopy of Spanish moss. He stepped out from under it and spotted the top of a familiar antebellum home not more than a block away.

He cradled Ivy to his chest and sprinted to Doc Armstrong’s.

As soon as he got there, Davis pounded on the door. The deep bark of a dog sounded from the other side. Davis pounded again, air thick in his throat, Ivy limp in his arms. Had he hurt her by running? How much pain was she in?