Page 283 of Screwged for Christmas

Through tiny breaks in the trees, splashes of yellow and red broke through the naked branches, but she couldn’t quite get the full view. Ivy squinted then shot up as Aspen pulled the truck around one last bend.

“You said she lived in a yellow bus.” Ivy leaned forward and wiped at the frosty windshield with the back of her glove.

Aspen, evidently the resident expert on everything that made a man easy on the eyes, smiled, a spark of pride in his eyes. “Ah... yes. I might have left out a few details.”

She had the image of green benches, cracked old paint and clunky kerosene heaters.

Not the palace on wheels she saw now.

Ivytsked. That was just like him. Kennedy men were as stubborn as mules. No different from the Winters, come to think of it. It was why their families got along so well.

Ivy scooted to the end of her seat.

“Well, what do you know?” Her jaw fell slack as Aspen rolled to a smooth stop. Yep. That was a yellow bus, all right, but not like anything she’d ever seen.

Aspen laughed and threw the truck in park. “See. Told you. Come on. Ms. Lucille’s going to love seeing you again. It’s all her and Mrs. Winters have talked about in town for days now.”

“Oh.”

He nodded.

Their eighth grade English and math teacher was the sole reason Ivy felt bold enough to follow her dream and become an interior decorator. The dream morphed over the years and she now applied her knowledge as a real estate redeveloper and refurbisher, but she still did what she loved and that was making old things new again.

After graduating, her dreams grew. Became brighter. Flashier. Too flashy for a small town like Dixen and the weight of marriage.

She had every aspect of her life all mapped. Only thing that didn’t fit was marriage.

College degree by twenty-two, check.

Her own successful business by twenty-five. Semi-check, given her recent setbacks.

Own her home the same year. Check. Well, sort of. Did a charred and burned to the ground house still count?

Engaged and married by the time she turned twenty-seven. Again. Sort of. Her life had taken three major steps back with no distinctive answer about how to recover.

Her sisters thought something had gone wrong in the brain compartment with how she liked everything detailed down to what she would eat three days from now, but it took the guesswork out of the mundane. She liked the control writing everything down gave her. As though the written word held a kind of magic. For her anyway.

With six months on the clock until she hit the big two-seven, the magic plan she had didn’t seem all that magical anymore.

I’ve got everything right where I want it.

Ms. Lucille. She smiled, rolling the name around in her head after such a long time. Ms. Lucille also had a way of adopting everyone’s troubles as her own and had no problem meddling if it meant a happy result. So she remembered.

“It’s not like any school bus I’ve ever seen.” Ivy didn’t budge from the edge of the seat, still in awe.

“See the front of the bus where the door is?” She followed where Aspen pointed before looking back to him. His eyes lit with clear excitement and pride as he spoke, and she remembered how he loved to build things growing up. Treehouses, birdhouses, motors... you name it and he could build it.

“It still has the original chrome bumper and the original hinge door.” He pointed. “And all the headlights, rear lights. If you pop the hood, the motor purrs like a kitten. I tinker with it from time to time but Ms. Lucille doesn’t really like it moved.”

She doubted that the beast’s motor sounded anything like a kitten, but it was wonderful to see a smile replace the sadness that was there when they were talking about his brother.

“I can see why.” It seemed Gran and Lucille conspired to buy out all the red-leafed plants they could find across town. There had to be over fifty poinsettias between the wooden stairs lined with railing pots, the window planters and the raised beads that hugged the entire perimeter of the bus.

Just like the B&B.

“It looks like this bus smacked into the posh side of a home makeover store and came out looking like a Cadillac. I had no idea anyone could get a simple school bus to look so cool. We used to hate riding on these things, remember?”

“Yeah. It took years before we made back of bus status.”

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