Page 145 of Mountain Men Heroes
“She’d like nothing else than to see me fail, but in this case she told me I made the right call and she supported it when I went in front of the board.”
“It seems to me you have your answer right there.”
“Don’t you see, Damon?” Her voice broke and sounded ragged to her own ears. She hated weakness. She slammed her hand down on the counter but the sting of pain did nothing for the frustration and hurt that burrowed deep in her heart.
“No,” he whispered softly. “You’ll need to spell it out for me, Ivy. Because the only thing I see is you killing yourself emotionally over something that was entirely out of your hands. You didn’t shoot that woman up, make her use drugs or tell her the drug should mean more to her than her kids.”
“I quit,” she stated flatly. “So many years, sleepless nights and so many odd jobs I’ve lost count. And there’s Zahara too. She’s done so much for me and I walked away because I hesitated. What happens when I’m in the operating room and stall? Oh my God. It scares me. All I could think about was my own stupid screwed up mom and it cost three kids their mother.” Tears welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Some Christmas miracle I performed. I’ve been stumbling through the last year and a half of med school and rotations, to be honest. As soon as it became something more than books I couldn’t hack it, apparently. Only I didn’t have the balls to let my sister down.”
Propped up on the kitchen counter beside her, Damon considered. “So what now, Ivy? Run and hope your problems don’t trail after you?”
Fury burned like a hot poker in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t know, Damon. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know I can’t be here to figure it out. I thought I could come, spend time with my sister and find some answers, and now I only have more questions.”
Her heart ached. “I know what you are thinking. I see it in your eyes and how you keep eyeing that door. There’s no reason you can’t be a part of that family, Ivy.” Damon unhooked his ankles and crossed the room to here where she stood by the couch.
“Zahara will worry about me when she needs to focus on the babies.” She plucked up the few items she had strewn across the apartment and pulled on the sweater Damon tossed over the back of a chair and a pair of gloves from the counter. She swiped her guidebook too and passed Damon who stood in the middle of her little borrowed apartment, arms crossed and putting a lot of energy into the broody gaze he should own the copyright to.
“Now, I’m outta here.”
“Ivy, wait.”
“No, Drake said he had one last run tonight to pick something up from Fairbanks. I’m leaving.”
“You asked why no one has been behind the bar with me for the past four years. The answer is my wife, the one I thought would be with me until the day I died, left me. She thought being married to a cop was hot, but once the danger set in and reality took hold, she left. People leave, people hurt you, Ivy, but I’ve learned only we have the power to say when enough is enough and retake control over our lives.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and rubbed at his eyes with a long-drawn-out sigh. “Back then with the woman I thought would be mine for life, it didn't feel like this. I didn't feel like this. Maybe fate knew she wasn’t my soul mate.”
“Like what, Damon?”
“Like my life would end without you in it.”
Her mouth went slack. The sex was good. No, mind-blowing fantastic, but forever?
She paused by the bedroom door and turned to meet his gaze over her shoulder. “I think you need to go, Damon.”
“As you wish.”
And with that, he was gone.
The soft click of the front door resounded in her head and the final wall around her heart crumbled as the tears silently slipped from her eyes. “Christmas can go to hell.” The fact she never wanted to feel again solidified like a shield around her heart.
Fact: Love sucked and love at first sight was bullshit.
Eight
He’d fucked up. Big time.
Damon paused outside Ivy’s door. The urge to break the fucking wood into splinters and demand she listen to reason blinded him. But it would only make her close in on herself more.
There was a better way. When he would interrogate suspects, the easiest way to find a chink in their armor was through family and loved ones. Low yellow light drowned the small hallway separating their doors and beyond the window at the end of the hall, night had long since fallen. He flicked his door open, grabbed a shirt. His brothers would be home and so would the one person that would know how to crack through the unbreakable wall Ivy had formed around her heart. And her damn ears.
On his way out, he grabbed one of the many baskets the baker left on the counter in Big Paws, briefly checking the name on the handle. During the holiday the less fortunate people in Savage Ridge always received a basket of goodies from the Savage family. A token of gratitude and friendship his sister started way before he took over her bakery and one he would see carried on long after he passed it on to his kids. If he ever got that far. With how things were going in the mating arena kids were a long way off.
Today the basket would serve as a bribe for Intel.
Ten minutes later he shoved his truck into park and bounded up the back steps of his brother’s temporary rental while they rebuilt the original Savage home out on the property that hugged Reaper’s property. He understood why they were eager to return to such a remote area but he liked the easier convenience of living closer to town.
He knocked a couple of times and smiled when Zahara flashed him a smile as she opened the door. “Wait.” She held a hand up. “Does that have ‘the pie’ in it?”
He chuckled lightly and kicked off the snow from his boots as he stepped inside. “Yes. ma’am. Would I come over here and risk my right nut by not having your favorite pie?”