Facing the Music (Rosewood 1)

She hadn’t intended to get her revenge by writing a hit song and signing with a record label, but it had done the trick quite nicely. She also hadn’t intended to tell anyone who had inspired the song, but a tabloid reporter dug around and found out she’d been dating a famous college quarterback. The next thing she knew, Blake’s embarrassed face was plastered on every trashy gossip magazine lining the checkout stand.

Irritated with herself for reminiscing about the past, she leaped out of her chair and went back inside. She didn’t need to be sitting around, anyway. She needed to be working.

Ivy plopped back down at the table and stared blankly at the paper. Periodically she would have a case of writer’s block. It had happened after her first album was so successful. She’d spent weeks feeling the looming pressure to not become a one-hit-wonder and end up on some As Seen on TV music compilation. Her sophomore album had to be a success to cement her place in the music world. But she’d had nothing. If she tried to hum a new melody, she’d realize it was to the tune of “Old MacDonald.”

She’d cured her ailment with a three-week fling with a sitcom heartthrob. That was enough to inspire four new songs, one of which became her next hit. She quickly learned that a bad relationship was certain to earn her enough angst to stimulate her creative juices and inspire the type of music her fans liked.

But part of her lying low in Rosewood included avoiding all types of men, especially the kind she liked best—the ones who would break her heart and inspire great lyrics. Ivy couldn’t afford any relationship scandals right now, so she had to find another way to break through this dry spell.

Whenever she ran into a sticking point with her lyrics, Ivy found that water helped her think. Maybe it was because she was born under a water sign. Maybe it was all the summers she’d spent at the community pool. Either way, it often did the trick.

Back in Malibu, she’d saunter right out into her heated, illuminated infinity pool overlooking the Pacific Ocean. If she

was in New York, she’d climb into her spa tub.

Here, she could either take a hot shower or swim in the lake. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Willow Lake it was.

Ivy dug her swimsuit out of her drawer and eyed it with concern. The dark blue string bikini with cherries on it looked good on her, but it was a little skimpy for her hometown. Her mother would probably have a stroke if she saw it, especially since the tiny bottoms had the tendency to ride up and get even tinier.

Back in California, the paparazzi would snap her picture and plaster her on the cover of a gossip magazine. It would either be a “Depressed Ivy Puts On the Pounds” cellulite shot or a “Brokenhearted Ivy—Skin and Bones!” rib cage shot, depending on the angle. But since she hadn’t seen a single soul on the lake, she figured she’d be safe for a swim.

Ivy slipped into her suit and gathered her accessories. She made a neat pile by the door with her towel, her phone, and a book she’d bought at the airport. She slathered on sunblock and was starting out the door when she realized she didn’t have her sunglasses. It took a quick hunt through the cabin, but she found them.

She stepped outside, swinging the door closed behind her. Taking half a step forward, she came to an abrupt stop. Something suddenly jerked her backward until her shoulder blades slammed into the cabin door. She couldn’t step away.

Aha. The strings on the bikini top were too long, and they’d caught in the door when it shut. Ivy turned around and grasped the handle only to feel the tight resistance of a locked door.

Ivy groaned and tried leaning forward to look into the nearby window. Her keys were on the kitchen table. Right where they belonged. Awesome.

Ivy pulled hard against the door, tugging and groaning, but she wasn’t going anywhere. The only option left was going around to try the front door.

It might still be unlocked from when she had unloaded some things from her car earlier that morning. The only catch was that she’d have to leave her bikini top behind.

No big deal, right? It would just take a few seconds. And she could use her beach towel to . . . Ivy paused and looked around. Her towel was inside, too. With her phone. Folded neatly by the door, just as she’d left them. Now she couldn’t call her father to come with the extra keys.

She’d have to man up and do this. Ivy untied the strings around her neck. Using one hand to hold the top up, she wiggled out of her confining swimsuit like she was tangled in a shrimp net. She tugged and twisted, squirmed and bent. Things seemed to be working.

Until they weren’t. At the critical moment when the suit was wrapped around her head and arms, leaving her blinded and completely topless, she got stuck. Feeling the warm summer breeze on her bare breasts while she stared at the navy fabric covering her face like a giant eye patch was extremely disconcerting. With her luck, a local Boy Scout troop would march by. Or her daddy would come to check on her.

With renewed fervor, she flopped and wiggled frantically until she finally got loose. Free at last, she brushed her hair out of her face, covered her breasts with her hands, and looked around for witnesses to her undignified dance.

So far, the coast was clear.

Ivy bent down to open the door to the porch while still keeping her lady parts covered. She moved quickly down the wooden steps to the mix of grass, mud, and sand that surrounded the lake. As she tiptoed delicately through the grass, the rougher blades and the occasional rocks reminded her she was a little more tender-footed than she used to be.

At the front of the cabin, she climbed up the stairs, fully exposed to the road, the sun, and anyone who might roll by in their pickup truck. Ivy reached desperately for the knob and—

Nothing. It was also locked.

Ivy was barefoot, topless, keyless, phoneless, and standing in the yard in a cheeky pair of string-bikini bottoms with cherries on her ass. “Well, shit!” she yelled, stomping her bare feet on the wood and lodging a splinter in her big toe.

“Ow, dammit!” Ivy howled, unable to pull out the splinter without exposing herself to the road. “You have got to be kidding me!” She hobbled down the stairs, walking on her heels back around the cabin.

“Think, Ivy. There is a solution to this problem.”

She was about to try one of the downstairs windows when she heard a loud wolf whistle from the lake. Her head snapped around in time to see an expensive bass-fishing boat come into view. It was navy sparkle-coated with orange racing stripes and the name Tiger swirled on the side. It would be the pride and joy of any Auburn University alumnus.

And that’s when her heart dropped into her gut with a dull, nauseating thud. An Auburn alumnus.