Finding Love in Ivy Falls

Chapter One

MANNY

Encased In Nothing But Tight Blue and Red Polyester

Bright. Royal blue. Tights.

Why, why, why had I agreed to this costume?

I clutched the vacuum-sealed package, glaring at the image of the deceptively happy guy on the cover. There was only one person in the world who could get me to play superhero, and she was currently standing in front of me with her hands on her hips, lower lip set in a determined pout.

‘Superman always wore blue tights, Pop. You have to put them on!’ Lou adjusted the plastic gold crown on her head, her matching Wonder Woman wrist cuffs sliding down her arms.

‘What about letting me be Clark Kent? I could wear a suit and fake black glasses,’ I practically begged my pint-sized daughter, who had all the determination of an orca pod flipping a fishing boat.

Lou tapped her foot. Shook her head. She was a month past her eleventh birthday and already as stubborn as I was. I could only imagine how much trouble I’d be in once she was a teenager. High school. Driving. First love and broken hearts. My pulse rocketed up, and I quickly shook away all the worries of what was yet to come for my only child.

It was times like these my heart ached for Gina. With each passing day I saw more of my late wife in Lou. The way she tipped her head to the side when she was curious. How her black hair looked almost blue in the early morning light. The fire in her eyes when she saw any kind of animal. Dog. Cat. Hamster. It didn’t matter. If it had fur, Lou loved it and usually wanted to bring it home.

Our house was already a menagerie of creatures. Our old Irish setter, Fergus, whose eyesight was so bad he constantly bumped into walls. A rescued African grey parrot named Mr Peepers who constantly demanded raisins and sang out the F-word – an unnerving habit I didn’t know about until we got him home. Then there was Lou’s beloved ferret, Reggie, who currently stunk up the entire house. I’d tried to keep our three-bedroom Craftsman neat and tidy, but with a small child, animals and a busy work schedule, that was nearly impossible.

I moved around the kitchen collecting day-old coffee cups and food-encrusted plates, loading them into a dishwasher that had seen better days.

‘Did you clean Reggie’s cage like I asked?’

‘Pop!’ Lou huffed again. ‘The fall festival began an hour ago, and you promised we’d be superheroes together.’

I must have been out of my mind when I’d agreed to this costume. Flustered was more like it. My renovation business with my partner, Torran, was booming. Our TV show, Meet Me in Ivy Falls , was doing well in the ratings after being on the air for nearly six months.

According to our producer, Lauren, the show was continuing to get good buzz (whatever that meant). We’d begin shooting a second season in a few weeks and were waiting to hear if the Hearth and Home network would sign us for a third. All of that amounted to a lot of distraction, which explained why I’d absentmindedly agreed to this Halloween pairing.

Lou loved the festival held in the town square every year, and the trick-or-treating that followed in our friend, and my partner’s sister, Tessa’s neighborhood. We never walked our own block because Lou swore they handed out the best candy – Sour Patch Kids and Twizzlers – near Tessa’s house.

Tessa. I groaned, glancing at the package again. What would she think when she saw me in the ridiculous outfit? If I had to guess, she’d press a hand against her beautiful mouth and do her best to stifle a laugh. Too worried she might hurt my feelings.

In years past, I’d agreed to be the Scarecrow to Lou’s Dorothy. Luke Skywalker to her Rey. Those were all fine costumes to be seen in, but the tights were pushing me to the limit. I wanted Tessa to think of me as a warrior. A fighter. Although Superman was one of my favorite DC heroes, the thought of her seeing me, and my nuts, encased in nothing but tight blue and red polyester, was messing with my already anxious brain.

‘Come on! You promised.’

When Lou pushed out her lower lip, she was hard to resist. Lately I’d been so busy with work that guilt wore me down. As much as I grumbled about the costume, I owed her this.

After we restored the house on Huckleberry Lane, I thought I’d have some time to breathe, but offers to fix other run-down historical homes in Ivy Falls, and nearby towns, came flooding in. Torran and I agreed after talking with the town council that our next project had to be the old Thomas Place that’d been vacant for way too many years. We’d just started work on it last week, and wood rot, termites and corroded pipes had forced us to take what was left of the skeletal structure down to the studs, giving me barely enough time to run Lou to school and make dinner at night.

‘Fine, Lulubean. Give me a minute.’

I walked into the bathroom, my hooded eyes revealing the toll of the last few years. Shoving a hand through my black hair, I grimaced at the small bits of white popping up near my ears. Dammit. I was only thirty-three. How was it possible I was already going gray?

I’d never been much into my looks. In college, I’d spent hours studying, and in the weight room training for football. My hair grew long and shaggy until I finally gave in and went to the barber. Once I’d married Gina, I’d tried to keep my hair cropped short the way she liked it. Honestly, I’d have shaved my head if she’d asked. She was my whole world before Lou, and I never thought I’d be single again. Now, nine years after Gina’s sudden death, here I was in the bathroom contemplating if Tessa would see my premature grays as sexy or a total turnoff.

‘Hurry up!’ Lou knocked on the door. ‘We gotta go, or all the special donuts will be gone from Sugar Rush.’

Great. Just what she needed. More sugar.

My thoughts wandered back to Gina. She’d tell me to take a breath, close my eyes and remember this moment. That Lou wouldn’t always be this age.

I yanked off my T-shirt and jeans and tore open the package. The feet of the tights dangled in front of me. I turned them in my hands trying to figure out the front from the back. How the hell was I going to get the thin material over my thighs?

One day Lou would go to a dance and want to wear tights. This was a test to teach me how to do it right so that when the time came, I’d be prepared. She came first – now and forever. At times like these, pride didn’t matter. I had to be both mother and father, and I wouldn’t let my daughter down.

My phone squawked on the counter, and I refused to pick it up. Torran had set my ringtone to the sound of a growling bear every time I got a notification, telling me it was exactly how I sounded when I complained about another change she wanted in a house.

Usually it only went off for two reasons: a text from Torran or the ESPN app alerting me to the latest college football scores. But since the show started airing, the social media apps had gone berserk. At first, it was simple comments or questions about the changes to the house on Huckleberry Lane. People asking for renovation tips or inquiring about the stain used on the refinished staircase. In the last couple of weeks it’d gotten, well, a little weird.

People had started asking personal questions. How tall was I? Were my eyes really that gray or was it a filter? Most uncomfortably, was I single? And let’s just say that once that floodgate opened, the propositions started flying.

I took in a long, slow breath and tried to push that worry out of my head. Tonight my only job was to follow through on my promise to Lou.

Once I was seated on the edge of the toilet, I cursed under my breath and worked the blue material up my hairy legs. Proof that I was willing to do just about anything to make my daughter happy.