Free Secret Of The Rose (Legacy Of Magick Series, Book 2) by Ellen Dugan

year.” Duncan explained to me. The guys on the crew stood and cheered with enthusiasm as the drum line thundered past. Marshall called to his brother, Felicia waved animatedly, and I saw a drummer in the line nod his head in response. Obviously, the younger bother of Marshall.
    I had to smile. In the little town I had grown up in, there weren’t any Homecoming parades. It had been a fairly rural area, and the students were spread out. This was a whole new experience for me. Looking around at the local people of William’s Ford, I sensed a huge amount of home town pride. It was sweet, actually.
    The band moved onto a rousing fight song, and they sounded great. Ivy came back and was checking the photos as the Varsity football team rolled by. The team captains were being driven around in a slick convertible sport car. They wore their football jerseys and waved as they rolled past. The rest of the football team was behind them sitting on hay bales inside of a flat bed trailer pulled by a tough looking SUV.
    To my surprise, the team threw little mini footballs and candy to the kids in the crowd. I watched the little kids scramble and realized that’s why they were carrying bags. I saw candy come winging my way and caught a piece of bubble gum on the fly.
    “Hey, Ivy! Catch!” a hunky young man with curly brown hair called out from the football trailer.
    Ivy lowered her camera and neatly snagged a little football that he had thrown. The football player grinned in response, and that had me looking at my cousin carefully.
    “Is that a friend of yours?” Duncan teased her.
    Ivy waved at the football player while his teammates tossed more candy. “His name is Eric; he’s the center on the team.”
    “And?” I poked at her.
    “I’m going to the Homecoming dance with him,” Ivy said casually. She handed the football to Marshall’s little daughter in the stroller. The toddler squealed in excitement.
    “What? You never even said anything!”
    “We’ve been friends for a long time,” Ivy said as she raised her camera and took more pictures of the team. “He surprised me a couple weeks ago and asked me to the dance,” she waited a moment then added. “So I said yes.”
    “But the dance is tomorrow night. Do you even have a dress?” I asked her completely shocked that she was playing this so cool. Duncan shook his head at me and rolled his eyes. “Shut up, you,” I said to him.
    Ivy lowered her camera. “Oh my god— are you playing mom, now?”
    “Hey, a Homecoming dance during your Senior year is a big deal. Please tell me you have a dress,” I begged.
    “Relax, I have a homecoming dress.” Ivy shrugged and turned her attention back to photographing the parade.
    “Well, thank god,” Marshall said with a serious expression. “I don’t think I would have slept at all if she didn’t.” His eyes twinkled as he smirked at us.
    Felicia swatted her husband’s arm playfully at his at teasing. “Ignore him,” she said. “Men don’t understand the seriousness of the situation.”
    I laughed in agreement. “I want to see the dress when we get home,” I warned Ivy.
    “Well, I could use an opinion on what shoes to wear with it,” she admitted as she focused and took more pictures.
    “Done,” I said.
    A group of cheerleaders marched along behind the players, and the banner they held announced them to be the JV squad. Their uniforms were different from the ones I had seen Holly’s varsity squad wear. A dozen girls wore white tops with royal blue and gold trim. Their skirts were short with more metallic trim. They were close enough to us that I could see the girls were all sporting matching manis. Good grief. I will never understand the need for people to color coordinate every little thing.
    One girl with short dark hair in a pixie cut broke formation from the rest of the JV squad and took off running to an open section of the street. “Hey, isn’t that Leilah?” I asked Ivy.
    “Yeah,” Ivy said and