Hollis and Ivy Page 3

  “This is robbery.”

  Ivy flinched at the insult. She wasn’t deliberately trying to cause problems, but she had a business to run too. “It was in the contact, Ms. Franks. You agreed to it.”

  The hotel manager huffed loudly, then hung up in her ear.

  Chapter Six

  Hollis

  Hollis found North Pole Unlimited hadn’t skimped on accommodations. They’d booked him into Villa Montague. The manager had checked him in personally, and Miss Franks had told him to call her direct line if he needed anything. His hotel bed was like sleeping on a cloud. Despite the comfort, he awoke early—very early, considering the time change—and decided a walk around the upper village would be a good way to work up an appetite.

  The massive amount of overnight accumulation had been predicted but had arrived silently. The hush of the morning was slowly being broken by snow clearing equipment and people making their way to work in anticipation of the skiers and snowboarders who would soon follow. He stopped in the middle of the walkway, admiring the way the street and path lights made strange shadows on the fresh drifts. Dawn wouldn’t come for another hour.

  There was still enough light to see the graffiti covering the front of Teague Flowers. Going Out of Business. Loser. The storefront was a mess. Hollis had no idea how such vandalism had been possible with the heavy security and police presence in the area, but he supposed the thickly falling snow and starless, moonless sky had provided a lot of cover.

  His sharp ears picked up a distant gasp. Hollis turned around to see Ivy standing shock-still, hands over her mouth, eyes locked on her store in horror.

  His mission in Whistler wasn’t to help Ivy, but he hated a bully. First, she’d lost a major contract—to the person he was supposed to be helping, no less—which would be a blow to her reputation but was part of doing business. Now her store had been attacked. Annie’s words echoed in his ears. Dirty tricks. She’ll be gone soon enough. Hollis didn’t believe in coincidence, not with the literal writing on the wall. Even if Ivy was responsible for Love in Bloom’s problems, revenge was not part of North Pole Unlimited’s playbook.

  He took another look at Ivy. She appeared to be too shocked to cry. “Ivy, are you breathing?”

  She shook her head.

  Hollis ducked down until he was even with her and caught her eyes. “I need you to take a breath.”

  She shook it again. “If I breathe—if I move—I’m going to burst into tears.” She didn’t realize they’d already started. Hollis watched helplessly as Ivy’s face crumpled in slow motion.

  He’d do anything to stop a crying woman’s tears, even if he had just met her. He wrapped his arms around Ivy’s trembling shoulders. She held herself stiffly, rejecting the comfort he offered—until he spoke. “This is all fixable, Ivy,” he whispered in her ear.

  She lost it. “I am so screwed!” she wailed. She collapsed against his chest and sobbed—for about thirty seconds. In the time it took him to blink, she pulled away and scrubbed her eyes with a tissue she’d retrieved from her coat pocket.

  “I’m just one disaster after another these days, aren’t I?” she said, trying for a laugh.

  “I bet you’ve had better weeks.” His quip almost got a smile. He wanted one.

  Ivy gestured at her defaced building. “Not lately. This is going to take hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to clean. My insurance is already giving me a hard time about another claim I made for broken windows over the summer. I’ll have to pay for this out of pocket and pray they reimburse me.”

  That didn’t work for him. Neither did her being so upset. “Here’s something you wouldn’t know about me. Guess what I did as a summer job to put myself through college?”

  “Were you a magician?” Her voice was half humorous, half hopeful.

  “I did historical home renovations. I have a ton of experience with paint and paint removal.” Hollis was lying through his teeth. He’d painted his cousin’s rundown—thus, historical—summer cottage. Once. Well, he’d helped. He wasn’t great at keeping his brush in the designated areas, but this was paint removal. It had to be easier.

  Her grateful smile rocked him. Her coffee brown eyes held a spark he hadn’t seen before. The color flushing her cheeks made her look alive instead of the near-death shade she’d been moments before. “Are you kidding me?” she demanded.

  For a second, he was so overcome by the look on her face, he couldn’t remember what she was asking about. Cleaning up the vandalism, right. “Yes. I mean— No, I’m not kidding. Yes, I can fix this.” A little turpentine, a little scrubbing, a little North Pole Unlimited proprietary formula for paint removal, and he’d have the storefront looking better than new. A strange look crossed Ivy’s face, and it quickly turned to panic. She’d barely admitted she had a problem with her poinsettias. She wasn’t going to ask for help now. “I can’t ask you to do that. You’re working.”

  “I can set my own schedule while I’m in Whistler, as long as I get the job done. Give me till lunch,” he suggested. “If I haven’t made enough progress to impress you by then, you can fire me.”

  “You don’t work for me.”

  “Then you don’t have anything to lose, do you?” he argued.

  Ivy gulped. “Are you sure? I could use a hand.”

  “Is there a hardware store in Whistler?” He figured there had to be something close. With the number of tourists and related businesses, people couldn’t wait to make repairs—not even the couple hours it would take to drive something up from Vancouver.

  “Yes.”

  “I walked over from the hotel. Since you drove, why don’t you head there now. I’ll get a closer look at this mess, then text you a list beyond the standard turpentine, scrub brushes, and rags.”

  As soon as she left, he pulled out his phone, not wasting a second. He spent ten minutes on the phone begging Jilly Lewis, Nick’s executive assistant, to email him the company’s top-secret cleaning formula. He knew the Research and Development chemistry team had invented something to help out the R&D design team after one too many exploding potion incidents. After Jilly finally came through with a list of commercially available products to mix to get an equivalent to their workshop’s guaranteed paint remover, Hollis texted them to Ivy. Fortunately, she replied to say all the ingredients were readily available.

  The sun was up by the time Ivy returned and he had the mixture ready for use. The upper village was coming to life, including a stroller-pushing young mother, who gasped at the sight.

  “What a rotten mess. Isn’t it terrible?” Hollis asked as he squirted fresh turpentine on a squiggle covering the signage above the door. He was grateful Ivy thought to purchase spray bottles. They allowed him to keep one hand on the stepladder.

  “It’s horrible,” the woman agreed.

  “I’m going to have paint thinner fumes in my nose for a week. Thankfully, I can go inside for some fresh air,” Hollis said. Come on, take the bait.

  His comment drew her attention from the vandalism to him. “Oh, is the flower shop still open?”

  “Absolutely. They have some wonderful poinsettias available.”

  Hollis could tell the moment the decision had been made. Her smile deepened, and her baby girl gurgled at seeing her mommy happy. “We’re visiting my mom. She loves flowers. I bet she’d love some on the dining room table,” the woman said.

  Hollis climbed down the ladder, set his scrub brush on the window ledge, and held the door open for her. She wheeled her stroller into the store, and Hollis mentally added one to Ivy’s “Poinsettia Sales” column.

  After she left, he carefully spritzed Jilly’s mixture on the section he’d soaked with turpentine. An entire section of spray paint bubbled away from the bricks and took years of soot and ground-in dirt with it. He grinned when he rinsed off the area. When he’d finished cleaning, the storefront looked better than new. Ivy was up to her elbows in a flower delivery when he went to tell her he was done, so he left without a word.
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  He’d see her again. It was a small town.

  It was smaller than he thought. By the time he returned to his hotel to change and walked back to Love in Bloom, Annie already knew about it. “I thought you were in town to analyze my business, not help my competition,” Annie said. “Ivy probably did it to herself for sympathy. She’d do anything to drum up business. Did she say I was responsible?”

  He didn’t have to justify his actions, but he wanted Annie to know where he stood. “No, she didn’t. And by helping her, I was helping you. Some people might have looked your way considering what was written. “Going Out of Business” points a circumstantial finger at the competition, which, in this case, is you.” Her comments had his brain spinning. Why would Annie’s first assumption be that Ivy would accuse her? Was it a guilty conscience?

  “Do you think I’d do that?”

  The thought had crossed his mind briefly, but he’d never make an accusation without proof. “I don’t think you’d be so obvious and clumsy to do something like vandalism.” Now that he’d discovered the animosity between Whistler’s two florists was mutual, he had to look at the possibility Ivy truly was behind the complaints against Love in Bloom—but he didn’t want to. “You looked pleased when I came in. Good news?”

  “I sourced the poinsettias I needed. It’s a great opportunity since the larger hotels in the area have their own suppliers. The independents are easier to break into. Teague Flowers used to have a monopoly, but they’ve been losing customers. I picked up their fall mum order from a bed-and-breakfast collective earlier this fall. If Ivy can’t compete, I’ll happily step into the void. She can’t match my prices anyway. Ivy has been losing ground ever since her mother died. It would probably be better for her to close her doors and move away to get a fresh start.”

  Losing the fall flowers had to have been another blow for Ivy. In Hollis’s experience, there were only two reasons someone switched vendors: poor quality or better prices. He’d seen Ivy’s shop, so the first didn’t seem to be a problem. The second would show in Love in Bloom’s books. He made a mental note to look for it; now he was curious.

  Interlude

  North Pole Unlimited Headquarters

  “Okay, Hollis, you’re on speaker. How’s it going at the top of the world?” Nick Klassen asked, much to the amusement of the women listening in. The office had a pool of how long Hollis would survive in Whistler before demanding they bring him home. Nick had already lost his chance, having put his money at the twelve-hour mark. Jilly, however, was still in the running as long as Hollis lasted past the three-day mark. He was two days in.

  “Are we alone or am I on speaker?”

  “My grandmother is here with me.” His office was smaller, but this way, he didn’t have to drag all his files around the building. His assistant had broken out the good cookies as soon as she heard Adelaide would be joining them.

  “In that case, everything is going swimmingly and I’m not freaking out at the elevation all the time at all,” Hollis said with a laugh. “Are you ready for my report?”

  “Are you finished already?” Adelaide Klassen asked. Nick knew his buddy was good, but he hadn’t thought he was that good.

  “I wish.”

  “Was it worth the trip?”

  “My acrophobia says no. But for the company, yes. We have a serious issue here,” Hollis reported. “Annie Findlay, the owner, is denying she’s having any problems. She insists that all the customer complaints are fake and were instigated by her competition in Whistler.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Nick said. Internet review sites and comment pages could be a cesspool, even for something like a flower shop. “What’s your impression of Love in Bloom?”

  “I’m not seeing any problems on-site. Except for her books. They’re perfect.”

  Nick must have misheard. Usually, his auditors complained about a company’s accounts being a mess or missing altogether. “Why is that a problem?”

  “Have you ever once seen a company with perfect books? I haven’t. I’m spending most of my time organizing receipts, but absolutely everything has a balanced, matching entry. It gives me the creeps.”

  “Perhaps Miss Findlay is simply well-organized,” Adelaide suggested.

  “How often have you known a company to order two dozen of something and have that exact number of sales every two months for five months running?” Hollis asked. “Nobody is that good.”

  “Have you found anything verifiable? Or do you want to come home?” Nick asked. He trusted Hollis’s judgement. They’d seen all kinds of scams over the years, some of which were truly inspiring. But the bloodhound auditors in Mergers and Acquisitions eventually sniffed them out. It was why North Pole Unlimited paid so much to hire the best accountants money could buy.

  “Not yet, but I want to stay. I suspect I’ll find something if I dig deeper.”

  Nick’s grandmother looked smug, which did not bode well for Hollis. “Jilly said something about our cleaning compound. What’s that about?” she asked.

  “Ivy’s store was vandalized. I was helping clean her sign and needed something that takes paint off easily. She doesn’t know what I used, so your secret formula is still secret.”

  “Who’s Ivy?” Nick asked.

  “Ivy Teague of Teague Flowers. Love in Bloom’s competition. Both stores have been in Whistler for years, but Ivy is struggling right now. I don’t believe it’s all natural selection. I’ve seen how she operates. She’s smart and talented and innovative. I think someone is helping her fail. If it’s Annie Findlay at Love in Bloom, we need to know. We don’t want anyone muddying up our brand.”

  “Definitely not,” Adelaide agreed. “You stay there as long as you need and get to the bottom of this. North Pole Unlimited’s reputation is everything. We can’t afford to have a bad apple in our business barrel. I want answers, Mr. Dash.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll send my next report when I have news. I’ll call anyway in a couple days if I don’t,” Hollis promised before he ended the call.

  Nick reclined in the leather chair his predecessor had left behind. “We could be in big trouble here. Did you hear what he said?” he asked his assistant.

  Jilly’s eyes crinkled, which made her looked like she wanted to laugh. “Yeah. I heard exactly what he said,” she replied. She only lasted a second before she and Adelaide burst into giggles.

  Nick got the impression he’d missed something important.

  Chapter Seven

  Ivy

  Her week had put her through more ups and downs than the ski lifts she could see from her store windows, and Ivy was more than ready for her weekend. Ivy shut down the shop at six on Saturday, which left her an hour to prepare for a night of epic proportions.

  She might be exaggerating a little, but her annual Leg-Breaker party had quickly become one of Whistler’s unofficial declarations of winter’s arrival. Before the ski season got into full swing, the winter tourists invaded, and the slopes became a gambler’s paradise of who would make it down the black runs intact, the locals had a final pre-holiday hurrah. Ivy hosted other shop owners and permanent hotel staff in a night of early Christmas celebration, since they would not be able to gather on the actual night.

  Ivy hadn’t finished decorating yet. With the number of American tourists who came up for the first ski of the season over their Thanksgiving weekend, she still had a few fall decorations around the store, in contrast to the exterior, which had been Santa-ready since the day after Hallowe’en. The last of her Thanksgiving orders had gone out that day, leaving her lots of blank space on tables and shelves to be filled with glasses and food that night. She’d drag herself in the next day to clean up and finish decorating the shop for the third busiest time of year.

  “Ivy, where can I put these?” Maggie came through the back door carrying a large circular platter covered with tinfoil. She was wearing a hideous, green, knit top with colored balls, which were supposed to resemble Christmas lights. T
he sweater was as much a tradition as the goodies on the tray—if it contained what Ivy hoped it did.

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  “If you’re thinking iced sugar cookies, you’re wrong. If you’re thinking coconut Christmas trees in three flavors, you’re right,” Maggie teased.

  “I love being right.”

  “No sampling beforehand.”

  “But I’m your boss.”

  “The tinfoil doesn’t come off until after the first guests arrive. I don’t want to be asked why I only brought half a tray of cookies. Again.”

  “One time!” She’d found an unguarded plate of coconut and chocolate with a delicious icing holding it all together. The grumbles she’d received from Maggie and the other partygoers had been totally worth it. The sugar high had lasted all weekend.

  “No sampling.”

  Ivy heroically resisted temptation until the party started, mostly because Maggie kept her busy on the other side of the shop. The store was half full before Maggie came to her with a peace offering and said, “By the way, I invited that Hollis guy as a thank you for cleaning off all the graffiti.”

  Hollis. The graffiti. For a couple minutes, Ivy had managed to forget about her latest disaster. She’d kept an eye open for Hollis at both the Coffee Run in the mornings and in the shop over the lunch hours, but she hadn’t seen him since the day he scrubbed her storefront and made it sparkle. She still hadn’t said thank you. “When did you see him?”

  “He stopped by this afternoon. I forgot to tell you. But he said he’d show sometime tonight.”

  Ivy was glad she’d worn her nice Christmas sweater instead of her goofy red one that matched Maggie’s. It hugged her curves nicely, and the metallic threads sparkled when she stood beside the row of twinkling lights she’d wrapped around the poinsettia display. That was all she’d had time to put up. The back room was stuffed with plastic tote boxes full of Christmas decorations she hadn’t looked through yet.