Ivy shoved her feet into slippers and shrugged on a coat over her nightgown. She tied the emerald green ribbon at the collar as another stone pinged against the glass. Opening her bedroom door, she glanced at her father’s. It was closed. The darkness between the bottom of the door and the floor told her he’d retired for the night. She hurried down the familiar narrow stairway and crossed the braided rug that lay in the foyer. Ivy summoned her conviction. It was time to put an end to Joel’s intrusion into her life.
The night air met her face with a gust of cool March air. Ivy buried her hands in her dressing coat pockets. The moon was hidden by the earth’s rotation, yet an early sign of spring chirruped from the bushes as crickets awoke to the night. Ivy stalked around the corner of the house. Joel would be below her window with another pebble in his palm. She could easily imagine his chiseled face. The unwelcome yearning for the friendship they’d once shared was persistent.
A hand touched her arm. Regardless of the fact she’d expected to see Joel, the touch in the darkness startled her and Ivy screamed. Her scream was muffled as a hand clapped over her mouth to stifle it. She bit down as hard as she could into the soft part of the man’s palm. The muffled cry of pain was followed by Joel’s irritated hiss.
“Ivy! Have you lost control of your senses?” Joel shook the hand she’d bitten as an instinctive reaction. As he stepped closer to her, the light from her bedroom lamp filtered down onto his face.
“I panicked,” Ivy countered, knowing how ridiculously she’d overreacted.
“I saw your curtain move. You knew it was me.” Joel held his palm in front of him. “I think I need stitches.”
“Balderdash,” she muttered.
Joel shot her a surprised look mixed with irritation.
Ivy yanked his hand toward her and leaned over it. His skin was warm against hers. She fought against the desire to stroke his palm in apology. “I can’t see it well enough. Come into the house.” She knew she hadn’t bit him hard enough to need stitches, but for some reason she wanted an excuse to be near him even though her original intent had been to send him away.
Once inside, Ivy led him to the left, through the door that connected to her father’s office. She struck a match and lifted the mantle on a lamp near the examination table. The wick took and light burst into the room.
“Sit.” She motioned to the examination table.
Joel was holding his hand to his chest, fingers curled.
Ivy lit another lamp on her father’s desk, wishing absently that one day they would be wealthy enough to install gas lamps. She blew out the match and retrieved gauze and alcohol to cleanse the wound.
“Let me see your hand.”
“Give me the gauze. I’ll take care of it myself.”
“And stitch it on your own too?” Ivy narrowed her eyes. “Don’t be a child.” She heard the sharpness in her voice and saw a flicker of hurt in Joel’s face.
Ivy didn’t apologize but took his hand gently this time. It was bleeding just a little where her teeth had broken the surface, but it was nowhere near needing a needle and thread. Shaking her head, she released Joel’s hand and prepared the gauze to clean the wound.
Her murmured apology came two seconds before the first press of the alcohol-soaked gauze onto the bite.
Joel scrambled backward on the table. “Ouch, woman!”
“Oh, stop.” Ivy tried to hide a smile as she yanked his arm down and continued dabbing the wound. He was quite whiny for such a strong, self-assured detective.
“At least apologize,” Joel said through clenched teeth.
“I did.”
“Words. Your harsh touch says otherwise.”
“I’m being quite gentle. You, on the other hand, have a remarkably low tolerance for pain.”
“You bit me!” Joel grimaced again as she gave the wound one final and unnecessarily firm blot.
“You startled me. What was I to do after being attacked at Foster Hill House and followed to the orphanage? I’ve no intentions of joining Gabriella in eternity. At least not this evening.” Ivy couldn’t help but chuckle. Relief, perhaps. Or maybe nervousness at the way his head bent so close to hers as she cleaned the bite mark she’d left on his hand.
“I was throwing pebbles at your window. You’re supposed to open the window, not come outside.” His pointed look made Ivy avert her eyes.
“So you attack me when I do?” Ivy bit the inside of her cheek. She had the choice to be furious or find the humor in the situation. There had been far too much darkness the past week.
Joel tilted his head, his expression one of exasperation. “I wouldn’t exactly call touching your arm an ‘attack.’ Besides, aren’t you a bit concerned about me? What if you were a nefarious murderer?”
She struggled to hide her grin. “A nefarious murderer in a nightdress? That should have been your first clue, Detective.”
Ivy immediately regretted calling attention to her state of dress. Joel’s eyes skimmed her body, from the green cotton dressing coat to the lacy hemline of her nightgown that peeked out beneath.
When he met her eyes, his were stormy. “Perhaps we should begin this conversation again.”
“Perhaps you should cease throwing stones at my window as if I were fourteen.”
“Perhaps you should open your window rather than wander through the night.”
They were at an impasse. Mostly because Ivy was finishing the bandage on Joel’s hand, but also because he had the audacity to slide his free hand up her arm to rest on her shoulder. His thumb stroked the base of her neck.
She stilled.
Joel leaned toward her.
Ivy stepped back, breaking the connection.
“Well then.” She cleared her throat. “I believe your hand is cared for. You may be on your way, and I must beg of you to refrain from future visits in the night.”
“My, so proper,” Joel goaded, a teasing smile on his lips.
Ivy’s insides turned to butter at his smile. The banter was almost like old times. Goading, teasing, flirtatious. She busied herself putting away the bandages. “Why did you come here, anyway?”
“Would you believe me if I said I missed you?”
Ivy froze as she returned clean gauze to its jar. She bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes. “I would believe you if you hadn’t disappeared for twelve years.”
Her mumbled words met with silence. She returned the lid to the jar.
“You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
She searched for words, but none came.
“It took me a long time to get over my own guilt of not being able to save Andrew.” Joel’s admission touched places in Ivy’s heart she wished they wouldn’t. “Once I left here, coming back felt like going before a judge and a jury all rolled into one. I knew you’d never forgive me.”
“How would you have known that?” Ivy whispered, corking the bottle of alcohol.
“Because I know you.”