Out to the side like a flag, Ivy’s hair whipped in the wind so violently it looked like it’d take her head with it. I, perversely, stood frozen in place as everything in my past collided with the present.
“Stop!” she yelled, the sound of her voice like a bullet in the open Montana air. It cracked through the silence and hit me in the chest hard enough that I came back to life.
“Ivy!” I yelled. Her name sounded rough in the unforgiving winter air, like it didn’t go with all the leftover snow and tranquility. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
Her ridiculous outfit was like a comedian in the middle of a full-on drama and reminded me that I didn’t know her mind at all. For as much as she looked like a woman I’d known for most of my life, a woman she was supposed to be learning to embody, her mind was something entirely different.
Maybe this was normal behavior for her. Maybe she took huge risks and led with her heart. Maybe she didn’t know how to think through a situation at all.
“Hi,” she said to Joe Morris, extending a hand out for him to shake like there wasn’t a gun pointed at her pretty face. “I’m Ivy Stone.”
Time slowed as I stepped forward. I moved with the speed of a turtle, afraid anything faster might startle Joe into pulling the trigger.
“Ivy,” I called again, but this attempt was gentler.
Neither she nor Joe was listening.
But the gun came down—one inch, two, until the barrel was finally pointing toward the lifeless ground.
“Ivy Stone?” Joe mused, rolling the hard planes of her name around on his tongue. “My wife talks about your movies all the time. What in Sam Hill are you doin’ here?”
“Making a movie,” she replied with a simple smile.
Joe looked around behind us, the squatter long forgotten as he took off at a run down the lane and out into the wilderness. I had a feeling I’d be getting another call about him, from someone else, in a couple of days. “You got a film crew here now?”
But I was done. I couldn’t stand here and listen to this shit for even a second longer. My fuse had been lit, was burning at an alarming rate, and it would be a hell of a lot better for all involved if it didn’t blow here.
“Joe,” I cut in. “Next time you have a problem, call the police instead of going for your gun.”
I couldn’t tell you his response because I didn’t wait for it. I grabbed Ivy by the elbow and dragged her back to the car, her little legs churning at double speed to keep up. When we got to the hood, I let her go with a small but gentle shove, ordering, “Get in the fucking car. Now.”
Thankfully, telling her to get in went over better than telling her not to get out. She moved quickly to jump in the passenger seat and shut her door, and I took a full breath for the first time since she’d stepped in front of me and into the line of fire.
If it hadn’t been for the cutesy wave she’d given Joe through the windshield as I put the car in reverse and pressed my foot to the gas, I might have cooled down.
Now, my fire was raging, and there wasn’t a chance in hell of putting it out anytime soon.
“You’re insane!” I shouted into the confined space. Ivy winced. The volume was enough to bust your eardrums, I knew, but I had absolutely no control over it. None. It had been abandoned, a mile of bad road back in the other direction. “A fucking certifiable lunatic! I should turn you over my knee.”
Foot nearly to the floor, I was driving way too fast, but I needed her out of the car. I needed to make it back to the station and put as much distance between us as possible before I lost my mind. I felt like my younger self, wild and violent and rebellious. I didn’t want to act like the cop I’d grown into with her here. I couldn’t. She flipped some sort of switch, and until she wasn’t around anymore, I couldn’t flip it back.
“Levi—”
I refused to let her speak.
“That’s it. No more. I thought I could be nice and try to take you along. Give you a goddamn chance, but no more,” I seethed, fear and worry and history and awful fucking memories all swirling in my mind to create rage. “You’ve obviously got a death wish, and I’m not about to cart you around, giving you chances to make it happen!”
“Oh, come on. This wasn’t about some hedonistic suicide attempt. He had a gun pointed at you!”
“Yeah, I know. It’s happened more than once, and it’ll happen again. But I’ve been trained for it! Not sure if you remember, but I’m the actual cop out of the two of us.”
“I’m the one who defused the situation,” she argued stubbornly.
God, the idea of taking her over my knee and spanking her little ass grew more desirable by the second.
“Joe Morris had as much of a chance of shooting me as you have at riding along with me ever again. He knew my grandfather. He held me as a baby. Information I took into account when I got out of the car and walked right at him. You…” I shook my head. “I don’t know what in the hell you were thinking!”
“I was thinking—”
“You weren’t thinking at all,” I interrupted. “Not one fucking thing!”
Finally—fucking finally—I turned into the parking lot of the station, pulled into a spot, and shut off the engine. I thought I’d jump right out, put the distance between us immediately, but the pull to yell at her was still too strong.
“Of all the stupid, self-destructive things you could—”
There was no notice. No time to prepare. Lungs fully engaged and voice gruff with emotion, I was halfway through my latest diatribe when she leaned forward and slammed her lips to mine.
Flesh to flesh, she inhaled, taking in my scent and replacing it with the fruity medley of her own, and I had to work to keep breathing. Her lips were sweet, and her presence was…overwhelming.
God, she tastes good.
I kicked feverishly for the surface as every hot touch of her mouth pulled me under, but the taste of her tongue was too sweet and the electricity running through my body too real.
Her lips were supple and insistent, and her tongue worked at mine intimately. It was knowing and direct, and God, it was like we’d kissed a million times in a million lives before this one.
When I finally found the will to break it off, I was half hard and angrier than ever. Angry that she’d done it. Angry that she’d caught me off guard. Furious that I couldn’t convince myself not to like it.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Her green eyes were wide, off-kilter in a way I suspected my own mirrored. But regardless of the shock, her reply was unrepentant. “I had to do something to shut you up. And since you have a gun on your hip, kissing you seemed like a better option than any form of physical violence.”