Best Laid Plans. Brenda Jackson

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      After her parents’ divorce, the real battle between her parents began with her caught in the middle of a custody battle. In the end, the judge awarded them joint custody. Six months of the year with each parent. She was certain that neither truly wanted her, but had used her to get back at the other. Graduating from high school and leaving for college had been liberating and seeing her parents only during the holidays had suited her just fine.

      As if Dr. Ivory Chapman hadn’t learned his lesson the first time around, her sixty-five-year-old father was dating a younger woman. This time it was someone he’d met at a club. When she had talked to him last weekend, it was obvious he was quite smitten. He’d even told her he was thinking of marrying the thirty-two-year-old and retiring so they could become world travelers. He’d sounded happy and she’d told him she loved him and had wished him the best.

      Her mother had remarried two years ago and moved to Florida. Ivy liked her stepfather, Harnett Clemmons, and whenever she visited them she saw how happy her mother was. She loved her parents and was glad they’d each found happiness, although with someone other than each other.

      Her grandfather had died five years ago, and Ivy still missed his presence whenever she came here. Nana, who’d retired years ago after over forty-plus years as an educator in Houston’s public school system, had been the one constant in Ivy’s life, which made this conversation hard. Why would her grandmother do such an outrageous thing as send Nolan Madaris those notes? Only Nana could answer that question and explain her actions.

      She got out of the car, walked to the door and, using her own key, let herself inside. Placing her purse on a table in the living room, she called out to her grandmother. She didn’t get a response; however, she knew for certain she was home since her car was parked out front. Moving toward the kitchen, Ivy figured Nana was in the backyard tending to her garden.

      Moments later she came upon her grandmother busily snipping away at her prized rosebushes. Without saying anything, Ivy just stared at her and all the love she could feel for any one person came flowing through.

      They’d always had a close relationship, which made it difficult to get mad at her about anything. But this wasn’t about just anything. This crossed the line. Nana usually gave Ivy advice only when asked. Ms. Laverne must have somehow convinced her sensible grandmother to take part in her schemes.

      “Nana?”

      Helen glanced up at her granddaughter and smiled. “Ivy? I wasn’t expecting you until later.”

      She and her grandmother had made plans earlier in the week to have dinner later today and take in a movie. “Yes, but we need to talk.”

      “Oh? What about?”

      “I think you know. I paid a visit to Nolan Madaris this morning to return his flowers, only to discover they hadn’t come from him at all. And then imagine how I felt when he showed me a note I had supposedly written him.”

      Her grandmother smiled. “So, the two of you have finally met?”

      “Yes, but that’s not the issue here. Why did you let Ms. Laverne talk you into doing something so outlandish?”

      Her grandmother shook her head. “Laverne didn’t talk me into anything. It was both our idea and one we decided to execute. You and young Nolan were taking entirely too long to suit us.”

      Ivy tilted her head to stare at her grandmother, certain the woman was an impostor who’d taken over her nana’s body. She recalled when Tessa and her family had discovered one of her elderly aunts had the first stage of dementia. One of the signs was changes in mood, personality or judgment. She could certainly attest to the fact that her eighty-year-old grandmother’s actions were out of character.

      “I am in my right mind, Ivy,” her nana said, as if reading her mind.

      Ivy drew in a slow, deep breath. “If that’s true, then we definitely need to talk.”

      “I agree,” Nana said, placing the snippers on a nearby table and tugging off her work gloves. “It’s almost lunchtime. I made some chicken salad this morning. Go ahead and start on the sandwiches. I’ll be there in a minute to make the tea.”

      Ivy nodded and turned to go back inside the house. Her grandmother was going to do more than make a pitcher of tea. She had a lot of explaining to do.

       CHAPTER THREE

      “SO WHAT DO you plan to do?” Corbin asked his brother.

      “For starters, pay Mama Laverne a visit. I’m on my way there now,” Nolan said, getting off the interstate onto the ramp that would take him to what used to be the Madaris family homestead, Whispering Pines.

      Years ago, the Madaris brothers had signed their shares of the ranch over to their youngest brother, Jake, keeping only an investment interest. That act of faith and show of confidence from the brothers had made Jake determined to make Whispering Pines succeed. And he had. It was listed as one of the largest working ranches in Texas and produced some of the highest-quality Texas longhorn cattle for the buying public.

      “Good luck. Be prepared for her to twist things to the point where it will confuse your mind.”

      As far as Nolan was concerned there was nothing that could be twisted and nothing to be confused about. He and Ivy Chapman would not get together. Under no circumstances would he allow his great-grandmother to interfere in his life like she’d done the others. He didn’t care about her success record. “There will be no confusion. I plan on letting her know where I stand on the matter and that I refuse to be a pawn in her game of nonsense,” Nolan said.

      “By the way, you never did say what you thought about Ivy Chapman when you saw her today. Is she pretty?”

      Corbin’s question immediately made Ivy Chapman’s image flare to life inside his brain. He vividly recalled how she’d unceremoniously placed those flowers on his desk. Before she’d learned the truth about the sender of them, she had looked mad, annoyed, fit to be tied. And pretty as sin. Then after finding out the truth, she appeared embarrassed, disconcerted and slightly humiliated—and still pretty as sin.

      “Yes, she’s pretty but that means nothing.”

      “It doesn’t?”

      “No. If you’ve seen one pretty woman, then you’ve seen them all.”

      “Hey, speak for yourself, Mr. One-Night Stand.”

      “Whatever. You just better hope I’m able to stop Mama Laverne in her tracks or, dear brother, you are next,” he reminded Corbin.

      Moments later, after ending his phone conversation with Corbin, Nolan drove through the gates of Whispering Pines. The twenty-four-hour security guard posted at the entrance had become a permanent fixture after his granduncle Jake Madaris married Hollywood actress Diamond Swain many years ago. The media and paparazzi had tried more than once to get on the private property and disrupt their lives.

      He had checked with his parents to verify that his great-grandmother was here at Whispering Pines. Jake was Mama Laverne’s youngest son and she stayed with him at least six months out of the year and rotated the other six months among her other five sons.

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