Daisy got more whipped cream on her nose than in her mouth. Shelly matched her, and Daisy giggled hysterically about it.
“You two are so silly. And I love it.” Ivy bit into a warm churro, twisted and dusted with cinnamon and sugar.
“Heavenly,” Shelly said, swooning. Daisy climbed into Mitch’s lap, chocolate-smeared and content, examining a tiny gourd she’d somehow acquired.
Mitch whispered something that made Shelly laugh, and her cheeks flushed.
Bennett pressed his knee against Ivy’s beneath the table. “There’s still love there.”
“Here, too.” Ivy took another sip of cocoa, feeling its warmth spread without quite reaching the small knot beneath her ribs. She planned to call Misty later. Just a casual check-in. Nothing weird, like Shelly said.
Though knowing herself, she’d probably make it at least a little weird.
Bennett spoke low enough that only she could hear. “You got quiet. Are you okay?”
“Just thinking.”
“About?”
She glanced at Shelly, who was trying to stop Daisy from waving her churro like a magic wand. The little girl was tapping it to fling sparkly sugar all around them.
Ivy smiled at that. “Daughters. And the things they don’t tell their mothers. Misty in particular.”
“She loves you,” he said. “That part doesn’t change.”
Ivy knew that. She did. But loving someone and telling them everything weren’t the same thing. Maybe that was a lesson she still needed to learn with her daughters. How to let them go and not expect them to tell you everything.
Unless they wanted to, she told herself, crossing her fingers behind her cup of cocoa.
20
Ivy stood in the entryway of the inn with her hands on her hips, surveying three large bins overflowing with canned goods and boxed items.
Sunny had volunteered to run the project. The handwritten sign she’d taped above the bins, “Holiday Food Drive,” had generated more response than she’d anticipated.
Mentally calculating how many families they might feed with the bounty, Ivy turned to Sunny. “The response was good. These are nearly full.”
“Mom, you have no idea.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Follow me.”
With her strawberry blond hair streaming past her shoulders, Sunny led her to the storage room and opened the door. “What do you think?”
“Oh, my goodness.” Ivy was astounded at the effort Sunny had put out.
Boxes of food stood in stacks against the wall. Bags ofrice, pasta, canned vegetables, and even some toiletries and gently worn jackets and sweaters filled the boxes. This was far beyond what she’d imagined they might collect.
“This is truly amazing. We’ll need to make two trips to deliver everything. How did you manage all of this?”
“I put up posters around town. But what really brought in the donations was the car wash. One bag of food for a free wash, and another bag for an interior vacuum.”
“Where did you do this?”
Sunny grinned. “When you were away at the pumpkin patch. I told you I had plans. I didn’t know how much we’d do, so I wanted to surprise you. A couple of friends and I talked a car wash into giving us an hour before they opened. The owner was so impressed, he donated money for us to buy turkeys. We also got all our friends to clean out their parents’ pantries.”
Sunny looked so pleased with her efforts that Ivy threw her arms around her daughter. “You far exceeded my expectations.”
