Villa Blue (2 page)

Ivy moved off the pedestrian path, hopping on one foot to avoid smearing the gum any further, and reached for the paper that was now glued to the bottom of her shoe.

It was an all black business card that had a name in white lettering displayed dead center. Ivy read the name, Warren Townsend, as she slowly pulled it—along with an elastic stretch of gum—from her shoe. Being visually oriented, she glanced over the odd design, checked the backside, and vaguely registered that there was no other information—no email address, no telephone number—only the first and last name.

Concluding that it was created to inspire intrigue, Ivy used the obscure card to scrape away the remaining goo from her shoe’s sole. It would take a lot more than a name to intrigue her.

She finished the task with irritation pressing between her brows, then scrubbed the remnant stickiness away in the dirt, and stepped back onto the path.

Apparently she required a muse to help her around both artist’s block and random bits of bubblegum.

Annoyed with the day, she ignored the fifteen or so tourists that ooo’d and aww’d their way past her, each pointing in different directions at the myriad of—ironically—inspiring views.

Ivy shaded her eyes from the sun and scanned the small handful of exiting ferry passengers for a lone man—the latest guest at Villa Blue. When she spotted the only single man, she noted the layers of wrinkles, the rounded back, the tight grip on the glazed wooden cane.

She approached, her shoe only slightly sticking to the pavement with each step, as she ignored the ring emanating from her pocket. “Welcome to Parpadeo. Here, I’ll take that for you.”

“Well isn’t that nice. Thank you, young lady.” The man tipped the brim of his stylish fedora.

Rethinking the walk back up to the peak of the island, and vaguely noting that Donatella had an interesting gauge of what made for a sexy voice, she led the man to the tidy row of wooden benches. “I’m just going to make a call and have Donatella bring the cart down. I forgot you’d have luggage. It seems I left my brain along with the cart back up at Villa Blue.”

“Villa Blue.”

The man’s face rippled into even more lines that, as a painter, Ivy appreciated the life and texture of.

He let out a lingering whistle. “Haven’t been there in years. How’s that woman, Danielle, doing?”

“Donatella.”

“Yes, Donatella. If memory serves, and more and more it doesn’t, but if it does today, she was a true woman. You know, a
woman
.” His hands motioned the shapely curves of a female form.

Being more on the slight and petite side, Ivy could appreciate a man’s view of the buxom Donatella. She’d seen guests, especially the male variety, drool generously at Donatella’s feet. Which always made it easier for Ivy—who had no personal interest in male drool—to slip away through the shadows. “You’ll see her as soon as I call her to come get us.”

“What’s that?” the man asked as a woman about the same age as the man approached then leaned in toward him for a kiss. For an unhurried minute, the pair swam in each other’s eyes.

Lost in the dreamy bubble of witnessing the moment, Ivy watched the interaction with fascination. Had they been in love for most of their lifetimes? Had they just found love together? Were they having an affair? Her imagination went to work.

The couple looked at her in unison, reality interrupting imagination. “Sorry. I suppose you’re not staying at Villa Blue, are you?”

“Renting a place at the end of the harbor, dear, why?” the woman asked.

“I’ve mistaken you for someone else,” Ivy explained. “Did you happen to see another man by himself on the ferry?”

The old man’s wrinkles burst around his eyes as he glanced to the side of her.

She followed the direction to where a man with dark brown hair—thick and windblown—sunglasses, and a smirk, leaned against the railing between land and sea with his legs casually crossed at his ankles. Ivy studied the lines of him, the white T-shirt, the toned and tanned arms with a shiny watch glinting at the wrist of his left hand. Lanky, she decided. He’d been lanky once, then had filled in.

Enjoying the story her imagination created, and appreciating the image of him as just that—an image—she wished she didn’t have to interact with the actual man. Instead, she wanted to paint the vital, cocky stance of masculinity.

Attempt
to paint, she corrected with some annoyance.

Ivy turned back to the couple, offered a quick goodbye, then moved toward the lone man.

“Staying at Villa Blue?”

His extended hand answered her question. “Aiden James.”

Points for Donatella, she decided as she reached out, shook his hand. Though his words were sparse—which she could appreciate—the man’s voice was a potent mix of depth, edge, and gruff amusement. Even still, Ivy would’ve preferred to paint him from afar. Then she could let the myth of him play through her mind without having to interact. She wanted desperately to capture the lean on the railing, the lean of the man who’d been waiting patiently for her to simply turn around and see him.

And he hadn’t gone after her attention, had he? He hadn’t interrupted to say he was the one she was looking for to take to Villa Blue. He was a man who must not have one flitter of nerves, one thought of unease within him. He looked like a man who had all angles of life inside of him, a man who’d experienced all facets of what life had to offer. And that was what she wanted to capture on paper.

When her phone interrupted her meandering thoughts, she checked the screen out of reflex, then sent the call to voicemail and shoved it back in her pocket.

“What’s your name?”

Her phone rang again. Annoyed, she brought it out and hushed it.

“Ivy. Yes, like the toxic plant,” she told him, used to the question that followed. “Do you have any bags or are you okay to walk up the hill?” She motioned up to the sprawling blue villa nestled between tall, tapered cypress trees at the top of the hill.

He reached down, picked up a distressed gray leather bag from beside his feet. “Lead the way.”

When her phone rang again, she took a deep breath and figured she may as well get the call over with. The continuous disturbance was annoying and the likelihood that she’d take the energy to call her ex-husband back later was nil. Plus, the man in front of her appeared competent enough to lead his own way up the hill.

“Just head up that road, up the hill until you reach the villa. Donatella will greet you when you arrive. Just follow the smell of rosemary bread. I need to take this call, excuse me.”

She turned, wandered down the center of the main road through town, not noticing the line of golf carts—the only mode of motorized transportation allowed on the east side of the island—that swerved, making way for her.

The serious-faced woman, who looked more like some kind of fairy than an actual person, amused him. At first glimpse, he’d pegged her for a polite rule-follower, one of those people who tiptoed through life then arrived at the end as if there were a halo waiting for them for good behavior. But she hadn’t been polite—at least not overly—nor did she appear to pay attention to rules like walking on sidewalks instead of streets, which bumped up the mild amusement into keen fascination.

He watched as she wandered away with her phone clutched at her ear, and he took in the moving maze of tourist activity—strolling pedestrians, bicycle riders, golf carts—observing in awe as it parted for her wherever she went.

A young guy on a bike rode past, then glanced over his shoulder, giving Ivy a once over, ringing the bell twice on his bicycle trying to get her attention.

Enjoying that the slight and slender woman was seemingly oblivious to all around her, Aiden decided to head into the nearby bar, grab a beer, then sit back on the patio and watch the show. A single-minded woman maneuvering through the seaside town was bound to provide some entertainment.

The fact that the woman had blue eyes that looked to be on the verge of dipping into daydreams, a full, soft mouth that somehow balanced out the carvings of her finely featured face, and hair that looked like it was about to burst from its hold on top of her head…well, it just made things interesting.

And he was a man skilled at finding what interested him wherever he went.

After glancing around at the neat lines of colorful shops, the narrow streets dotted with golf carts, and the boats moored in the harbor moving with the rhythm of waves, he stepped into the bar that was bustling with the buzz of vacationers and scented by an abundance of fried food.

This might be one hell of a business trip, he decided.

She stopped midstride and a tourist bumped into her from behind, but she barely registered the collision. “You’re what?” she asked into the phone.

“Getting married.”

The voice of her ex-husband sounded like a remnant echo from the other side of a long, flimsy tube that burrowed through time.

“Sorry, what?”

“Married, Ivy. Married. I’m getting married and I, well, I wanted to see if you wanted to come. Or maybe that’s too weird. But I wanted you to know, and I wanted you to know that you’re invited.”

Her mind stunned into silence and she reached for words, grasping for something to say. “Married?”

“You were my best friend for five years, Ivy. I was hoping you’d want to be there. But it’s okay if you don’t. I get it.”

A lump lodged in her throat, allowing only a whisper to escape. “You couldn’t possibly get it. Our anniversary…” She cleared away the clog, testing her voice. “You called me on what would have been our anniversary to tell me this?”

“What? Babe, I can’t hear you. Reception keeps cutting out.”

Blinking away the tears that stung, she began walking without aim. She just needed to move. “I’m…” She stepped around exclamatory announcements on sandwich boards—buy one pair of flip-flops, get one free!—giggling kids with ice cream smeared on their sun-soaked faces, men leisurely gripping fishing poles. “I’m happy for you,” she settled on the basic yet complex truth.

“There’s one more thing. If you decide to come to the wedding, and we hope you do, but you should know that we’re pregnant. Well, she’s pregnant. Whatever. Can you believe it? It all happened so fast.”

Tears spilled over and words evaporated from her mind, not necessarily out of sadness, or even frustration—she’d dealt enough with that. More out of the confusing poignancy of the moment, like a microscope focusing in on a nick in time, one that had begun to heal over with new life but that had left behind a commemorative scar.

“Babe, oh, I gotta go. Heading into surgery. But think about it, about coming to the wedding. It’s this Saturday. I’ll email you the details. Okay, love-you-bye,” he said as if the three words were lumped into one.

As the call ended, she frowned at the phone. His voice reverberated through the haze that had descended. Love-you-bye? Hadn’t that basically described their marriage?

Frozen in place, hearing the words over and over, her eyes widened when a hand, competent and strong, appeared through the fog of her thoughts, reaching for her.

She squinted, searching up the length of the man’s arm to his face that was shadowed with dark stubble. What was his name? Aiden something?

“Take my hand.”

“What? No,” she managed to say.

“Take my hand. You look like you need a distraction. I have an idea.”

She didn’t take his hand but felt his clasp around hers anyway. “Did you get lost on the way to Villa Blue? Where are we going?”

“I don’t get lost. Being lost is just an alternative adventure. And you look like you need one.”

She offered no resistance as the shock had overwhelmed her senses. “I’m not really an adventurous person.”

“You won’t be able to say that five minutes from now.”

“Why? What’s happening in five minutes?”

He continued to hold her hand, easily taking her to the edge of the harbor. “You’ll see.”

“If you’re going to murder me, you may as well just get it over with now.”

They trudged up a hill that snaked along the rocky edge where the sea collided with land, then stopped at the end of the cliff that jutted out like a long, craggy finger between the harbor and the bay. Before them, ribbony waves of blue stretched toward the California coast.

“I’m not going to murder you, Ivy.” His voice was rich, calm by comparison to her commotive mind.

She looked out at the horizon and her eyes leveled with it. “If this is some version of ‘take in the view, see the beauty, blah, blah,’ I don’t want to hear it. And I don’t want to hear any life advice either. I get enough of that from my mother.”

“I’m not going to give you advice.”

He stepped between her and the stretch of sea, looked directly at her, into the depths of what stung beneath the surface. “I’m going to help you forget about whatever hurts.”

Suspicion scrunched her face into a frown as realization crept through the fog. “I’m not interested in kissing strangers at the moment, thanks.”

A side grin slid onto his handsome face. “While the idea is a good one, I’m not into kissing crying women. But I am going to help you.”