Chapter Ten

Ivy fidgeted in the passenger seat, twisting her fingers again and again and alternately chewing her bottom lip.

More had happened to her in a few days than all nine months she spent in Europe. The top concern in her mind? The body that floated up from the depths of their pond.

Her stomach knotted every time she thought of it.

Then she promptly had to question how Hunter ended up kissing here right there on the shore.

Or how he landed in her bed.

It had to be fear that drove her into his arms. Who wouldn't be terrified after seeing a dead man?

"Ivy." Meadow brought a hand down gently on the back of hers, stopping her from wringing them. "You don't need to worry so much about visiting Daddy. This morning his nurse gave me a wellness update, and he was doing great. They moved him out of ICU and into a regular room this morning."

"I know. You told me at breakfast, remember?"

"So what has you so keyed up?"

She compressed her lips, holding back the desire to blurt out everything. Starting with how she'd been thinking nonstop about that spanking from Hunter and ending with taking him—bareback. In her childhood bed.

She really had to redo her bedroom. Entertaining a man with cute, innocent little stuffed animals for an audience wasn't exactly sexy.

Her mind swung back to the bigger situation. The worrisome question was why that man was dead. And how much did Meadow know? Colton and Hunter said they were taking care of it—but what did that entail? Were the cops being called? Did they need her to give a statement about what she saw?

This all felt wrong.

Finally, she could stand it no longer. "What do you know about the dead man in the pond?"

Meadow fixed her stare on the road, but the tight way she held her lips gave her a way.

"You know."

She gave a small nod.

"And you know who he was?"

Again, she nodded. "We called him Dude. Or we did." She scrubbed a finger between her eyebrows as if her head ached. "After I was attacked—"

She jerked in her seat, turning to face her. "Attacked? When? Who attacked you? Why?"

Meadow centered her attention on her. "There's a lot you don't know."

She folded her arms. "Well, did you ever plan on telling me? I think as a Gracey I need to know!"

She nodded. "You're right. I'm sorry. I was just…"

"Protecting me? I'm no longer a child who needs protection, Meadow."

"You're right. There's a lot to share, so don't interrupt until I'm finished."

She began to talk about the odd things happening on the ranch. It began with trespassers and one of her horses being killed and ended with a man taking her hostage and threatening her life.

"Oh my god! Meadow! Why didn't you tell me this sooner?" She didn't know how her sister continued to drive as if she hadn't just shared a real-life horror story.

"You weren't around. And I figured you had enough to process when I told you about Daddy having the heart attack."

Ivy's chest burned. Thinking about how close she'd come to losing her sister made her want to burst into ugly tears. But she held back.

"So who is behind it all?" she asked once the thick lump dissolved enough to speak.

"We don't know. But Dude was at the ranch that night, supposedly watching over me. He went missing, and we hoped he'd just run off."

"You're saying he was murdered? Oh god, that's so much worse!"

"We're still trying to find all the pieces to the puzzle."

"But you have the camera footage."

Her sister gaped at her. "You know about the cameras?"

"I saw the bill on Daddy's desk." She didn't tell her that it was unpaid. Seeing that it was probably important to protect the animals on the ranch, Ivy had quickly renewed the service before it expired.

Since she hadn't yet gotten to the bottom line of what amount of money Daddy had in the ranch accounts, she'd paid for the service out of her own funds. Now she was glad she did. If it protected them, it was worth every penny.

"Did Colton set up the surveillance system?"

Meadow shook her head. "Daddy did months ago. Some of the neighbors' cattle was going missing, and we thought it was a good idea."

"That means he's got the footage on his phone from that night."

She nodded. "The cameras download to his laptop too. We already checked."[MOU1]

"Has any of this been turned over to the police?"

"Yes, of course. They're at the ranch as we speak, investigating Dude's death."

She shuddered at the memory of that body surfacing among the reeds while she and Hunter sat feet away, each of them trying to find a spot of peace.

"And Hunter is here to help secure the ranch."

At that, a shiver ran through Ivy. So the big SEAL hadn't traded his helmet for a Stetson after all. He was still on guard duty, keeping them all safe and secure.

All of his protective actions—at Badlands, and the way he shielded her from seeing the body and distracted her with his kisses—took on a new level of meaning.

She scrubbed her hands over her face. "I can't believe this is real."

They pulled into the hospital, and Meadow found a parking spot. After she put the truck in park, she looked at Ivy, her big eyes imploring.

"Don't breathe a word of this to Daddy."

"I won't upset him."

But the entire walk to the elevator, and the ride up to the third floor too, she thought about getting her hands on his phone and seeing that camera footage.

She mentally shook her head at the insanity of what Meadow just told her. Her sister attacked. A man dead.

What enemy did the Graceys have? No one seemed to know.

Bypassing the signs that led to the intensive care unit was a relief. The fact that their father had been moved to a regular room was a good sign of his progress.

When they located the room, she entered first. Walking straight up to the bed, she looked down at her father. He was resting, eyes closed. The vitals displayed on the screen seemed steadier than they were the previous day.

She settled a hand on the back of his worn one. Those rough fingers knew hard work for his entire life, and it showed. His long fingers were tanned from the time he spent in the sun day after day. And they bore more than a few scars too.

Most of his scars were internal—all the Graceys' were.

Meadow moved to the other side of the bed. Her and Ivy's gazes met over their sleeping father.

At that moment, he stirred and opened his eyes. His machines beeped steadily.

"Ivy." He croaked her name.

"Meadow's here too, Daddy." She pointed at her sister. Their father let his head loll on the pillow as if he hardly had the energy to do more.

She took his other hand. "How are you feeling?"

"Been better. Been worse too. I have a cup of water around here somewhere."

"It's right here." Meadow reached for the cup on the sliding table and held it up for him to sip from the straw.

"I can do it. I'm not a damn baby." His grumpy attitude sure sounded like the father Ivy knew, and she stifled the smile that tried to perch on her lips.

Meadow put the cup in his hand and pulled up a hard chair.

"Would someone find my phone for me?"

Ivy looked at him. She wanted to see that phone too. "Do you have it here at the hospital?"

"Yes." His sullen response had her and Meadow exchanging a questioning look.

"I'll look in the bag of your belongings." She moved to rummage around in the closet. His cowboy boots sat at the bottom side by side, and a plastic bag filled with the clothes he'd been wearing when he was brought in hung off a hook.

She searched the bag. "I don't see it in here."

"That's because they took it from me. Bastards."

Her brows shot up. "Who took it?"

"The nurse."

Meadow's eyes widened. "Why would she do that?"

"I'll go ask at the nurse's station." Ivy moved toward the door. As she walked down the hall to the nurse's desk, her mind was spinning.

One of the nurses looked up from the computer screen with a smile. "Can I help you?"

"Yes. Sean Gracey is my father, and he said one of the nurses took his phone."

She gave her an apologetic look. "That's true. After we settled him in his room, we saw that his blood pressure was shooting up and his heartrate got too high. We went into the room and saw him on his phone. He looked really upset by something he saw there."

Stunned by this information, Ivy blinked.

"We asked him to put it away, but when he refused and got visibly more upset, we took it for safekeeping."

"Can I have it? I won't give it to him."

"Of course. Let me get it for you." She got up and went off to another area. When she returned, she handed over the device to Ivy.

Ivy took it with a word of thanks. Then she drifted slowly away from the desk to inspect the phone.

The device was locked with a password. Ivy tried the number of the Gracey Ranch address. When that failed, she entered her father's birthday. That wasn't it either.

Her mother's birthday opened the device, and with a pang, Ivy stared at the lock screen, a photo of her parents. One of the final pictures ever taken of them, at a local banquet to benefit wildlife preservation.

Her mother was blonde and beautiful, smiling for the camera. Her father's arm was around her waist—and he was looking down at her with love expressed in his eyes.

God, what it must have been like to lose a love like theirs. No wonder her father had never recovered.

She swiped the screen and saw there weren't any messages. There was a flurry of notifications from the camera security system installed at the ranch.

A quick scan of them revealed that the cameras had been pinging his phone with new footage since the day he entered the hospital.

She paused outside the door of his room and opened one of the notifications. She clicked the link to view the footage and stood there staring at the tiny screen.

The cameras were set to video any movement. The first one was a ranch dog running past the camera.

Great. This could be a futile search if there were ninety notifications about Brutus running around chasing their chickens.

After viewing a few more, Ivy wondered if her father really had been upset by something he saw on his phone.

Then she opened a video of the pasture overlooking the pond.

Her stomach bottomed out. A camera focused on the pond would definitely be incriminating evidence against whoever dumped Dude in there. After flipping through a few screens, she saw that the pond was not in view at any time. The cameras seemed to pick up views from everywhere but the pond.

If foul play was involved in Dude's death, it seemed they couldn't rely on the cameras to provide the evidence.

It also cut off the kiss she and Hunter had shared.

She searched more of the videos and froze at what she was seeing onscreen.

A man in dark clothes crouched beside the fence. He looked to be cutting the wire.

God, Hunter wasn't just an alpha-hole. He had been protecting her for a very good—and terrifying—reason.

Ivy jolted into action, stowing away the phone and walking into her father's room.

Meadow and their dad looked up at her entrance. She held up her hands. "The nurse on duty isn't sure where the other nurse placed the phone. She's going to ask during the shift change."

The bald lie would probably earn her a lot of bad juju, but she didn't care.

Something fishy was going on, something that upset their father enough to send his heart rate through the roof.

But it didn't slip by her that he didn't mention what that was. If it were a mere matter of a trespasser on the land, he wouldn't hesitate to say so. In fact, he'd get an army of neighbors out there with their guns to protect the perimeter at night.

So why wasn't he doing just that? What stopped him from protecting what was his?

What stopped him from paying all those bills—ones due months before he ever had that heart attack?

She had to show Meadow, Colton and Hunter the phone. Tonight, they'd go through the footage together.

* * * * *

Hunter took a seat at the kitchen table next to Colton. "Sorry I'm late. I had to grab a shower."

"We're glad you don't smell like cow shit." His buddy cracked a crooked smile, one of the genuine ones from the old days before years of battle wore them all down. "Besides, Ivy isn't here yet."

As if she'd just been waiting for her name to be announced, Ivy appeared in the doorway.

Hunter stared at her harder. No, he couldn't be seeing…

He peered closer.

Son of a bitch. His vision was perfect, as always.

"Where did you get that?" His gaze moved over the shirt she was wearing. No way could she just pull that garment out of her closet. It was one of a kind.

She stopped midway to the kitchen table. "What?"

"That shirt."

"Out of your closet."

His old football jersey had been stowed away in the bottom of his duffel bag in his closet. Though he never wore it these days—it didn't even fit him after all the muscle the military had stacked on him—he kept the jersey for nostalgic reasons.

"What? How? When?" His voice rose slightly louder in pitch with every question. He settled his palms on the table in a quiet and purposeful move.

Colton gave him a sharp look. Any of his fellow SEALs knew when Hunter made that move he wasn't messing around. First Ivy begged him not to tell Colton about sleeping with him. Now she was flaunting it?

Not surprising that Ivy was unaffected by his clear frustration with her. She walked over to the table. In his jersey. That she'd stolen out of his closet. Like she owned it.

She looked like a forbidden treat in it too.

It was too large for her, and hung off one narrow shoulder. She'd knotted it at the hip to make it more fitted, which drew his attention to those same hips that he'd grabbed over and over again while thrusting his cock deep in her tight, grasping heat.

She waved her hand like a royal acknowledging the attention of the masses she ruled over. "If you will follow me into the living room, I have the camera footage—"

"Ivy."

She swung her gaze to him, a gleam of irritation in her eyes at his interruption.

"When were you in my room? In my closet?"

She tossed her head on a laugh and sashayed away, leaving him, and the others, gaping after her.

"We need one of those cameras on the door of the bunkhouse," he muttered to Colton.

He only chuckled. He must understand the Gracey women better than Hunter did. Otherwise, why would Colton ever put up with Ivy's dismissive behavior?

Hunter scraped back his chair to follow Ivy into the living room, his mind looping between Ivy in his shirt and her beautiful face as he slid balls-deep inside her.

She took up too much damn space in his mind.

At least it wasn't the same old memory of the battlefield. His memory of those stolen moments with Ivy didn't carry the same weight or torment as an op gone wrong—not at all. But it did echo inside him with a different strength he didn't want to consider.

The only parts of the house Hunter had ever been in were the kitchen…and Ivy's bedroom.

The spacious living room had a vaulted ceiling with rustic wood beams. The furniture was dark leather, but the room was surprisingly homey thanks to a calming shade of gray-blue on the walls.

A thick oriental rug anchored the seating group, and along one wall was the big-screen TV. Several laptops were set up on the distressed wood coffee table. Each computer and the TV had a video queued up.

Ivy twitched her cute little body over to the sofa and gracefully dropped onto the cushion. Hunter's gaze fell over his player number—52—stretched across her breasts.

For a moment, he drowned in a memory of their forbidden moments. Her nipples were so damn sensitive. Her responsive skin broke out in goose bumps wherever his tongue caressed.

Meadow looked around. "Ivy, what is all this? How did you set this up?" She sat on the opposite sofa with Colton, who eyed the setup.

Again, Ivy waved a hand. Christ. Her nails were freshly painted a shade of red to match the numbers on his jersey.

"I'm good at these things. It's no big deal." She picked up a remote and clicked it at the TV. The view split into four screens, each with a different angle of the ranch on it. "What you're seeing is today's footage. We can keep an eye on it while we search the footage on the laptops. Meadow, you and Colton can work together. Hunter, you're with me."

He cocked a brow at her and sank next to her. He pitched his voice low. "You gonna tell me when you were in my room?"

She shot him a secretive smile. "You're not in there all the time, are you?"

"You already kept one of my shirts."

"I like this one." When she tilted her head to study him, that wicked gleam in her eyes set off his libido like a trip wire. His cock swelled behind his fly. Heat razed in his core.

When she settled in to work, it left him no choice but to do the same. But sitting so close to her distracted the hell out of him, which wasn't him at all. He was always laser focused.

Yet each time she moved to bring up a new video for them to watch, he caught a whiff of her perfume—light…warm.

As he leaned in to peer closer at the screen, his elbow brushed against her side, over her soft breast.

She stilled, turning her head to pierce him in her stare. While thrusting into her sweet, tight heat, he'd studied her eyes up close, but they struck him anew with just how lovely they were.

How had he ever believed her vapid or brainless? Her eyes revealed intelligence and feeling that most women he'd known did not possess.

Her stare dropped to his mouth. Dark desire whipped at his core. Was she thinking about kissing him?

That had him staring at her lips. The dainty pink pucker was glossy with a trace of wetness she'd smoothed over it with her tongue.

His gut clenched. He started to reach for her, his hand moving on its own to cup her nape.

Before he ever reached it, she switched her attention back to the screen. She sucked in a quick breath and tapped a finger on the keyboard to pause the video.

"Oh my god, look!"

"What did you see?" Meadow shot off the couch to crowd in over Ivy's shoulder. Colton did the same.

She reversed the footage. "Dammit, these guys didn't only trespass on the ranch once."

"What are you talking about?" Hunter's voice grated.

"Daddy's phone gets notifications. I watched a video of one where a man was cutting the fence."

Meadow gasped. "You said the nurse couldn't locate Daddy's phone!"

"I lied." She never moved her eyes from the screen. "There! See it?"

Hunter peered harder, trying to pick up on what she saw.

She groaned. "Oh, c'mon, guys! Don't you see that the grass moved?"

Again, she rewound the video and let it play forward.

She jabbed a finger at the screen. "See that black spot?"

Hunter scrubbed a finger over his upper lip. Colton outright shook his head.

"C'mon, guys! You're special ops."

With an exasperated sigh, she blew the video up larger. This time when she played the footage, he caught the slightest movement.

Meadow whirled to Colton. "Someone is crouched by that fence. They're cutting it! That's how they got in and killed my horse!"

"Stop the video." Colton's order had Hunter on high alert and the ladies shooting him questioning looks. "You ladies don't need to see what happens next. Leave that bit of footage to me and Hunter."

Ivy looked like she wanted to argue, but after a beat of silence, she nodded and switched to another video. This one revealed a man approaching the front door. The man knocked, and a tall, older man Hunter recognized as Sean Gracey stepped out of the house.

He appeared stiff, his shoulders barricading the door. Several times he moved to shut it, but the man braced it open with a palm on the wood.

Hunter's senses prickled. The menace in that move had Hunter's inner alarms blaring.

"Daddy doesn't look happy with that man." Meadow's voice wobbled.

"No, he doesn't," Colton agreed in a gritty voice.

Hunter waved at the screen. "Ivy, download that video. We'll send it to the police so they can run facial recognition."

"Doing that now. But first I'm going to…" She broke off, lips twisted in concentration as she enhanced the image of the visitor. "Aha!"

She dragged and dropped the image in a search bar on another screen. In seconds, a dozen or so photos popped up, including a social media profile of a man who looked just like the one who'd come to the door.

His eyes were hollow, his expression cocky.

"That man is not a friend," Ivy said very slowly.

Hunter gently moved her aside to get at the keyboard. He did a quick search of the name. After a moment, information appeared on the man.

Ivy sucked in sharply. "Is anybody else seeing what I'm seeing?"

The man's office was located out of his home, and his friends on social media were sketchy at best.

"He's a loan shark." Ivy's whisper held a sharp edge.[MOU2]

And judging by the way all the color left her face, she knew more than she was letting on.