Chapter Sixteen

When Ivy stretched, she felt all the delicious little tugs in her body—the ones that told her that Hunter was a very thorough lover.

Her inner thigh muscles twinged from the workout she got when she rode him to completion for a second round. When she brushed her fingers over her breasts, they tingled with the memory of his rough lips. Glancing down, she saw the pink streaks of his beard burn marking her too.

With a satisfied moan, she rolled out of bed and padded to the bathroom. In Europe she'd experienced a variety of facilities. She'd had the hottest of hot showers, and the most frigid ones too. Quickly she learned that cooler ones stimulated her and gave her more energy, so she switched the tap to a cool temperature and stood under the spray.

After she finished and dressed for the day, she found herself standing alone in the middle of the empty kitchen. In fact, the entire house was empty.

She was all alone.

For the first time, she realized how painful this must have been for Meadow when Ivy was gone. Waking alone, speaking to no one. Her sister obviously learned to operate solo and was continuing in that pattern by heading outdoors with her horses—or maybe Colton—as soon as the sun rose.

Ivy listened to all the sounds of the house. The hum of the refrigerator. A small creak of the house settling.

She looked around herself and then drifted to the counter and then to the kitchen table. She reached out and stroked the fat pottery jug in the center of the table. Years ago, her mother used to pick flowers and place them in that jug. The small gesture cheered up the space and the family members who saw them whenever they entered the kitchen.

Lilacs in spring, daisies in summer. In the fall, she'd place fat sunflowers that she grew on the border of her kitchen garden in the jug.

It stood empty now. Just a vessel. But Ivy could find some flowers that grew around the ranch and fill it.

Something else her mother always did was take a morning walk through the house. Ivy remembered tagging along behind her, just watching her mother's face as she moved through the rooms.

Once Ivy was old enough to put her questions into words, she asked her mom why she did this. She told her that she liked to take stock of the house, to appreciate all that they had and to be grateful for it.

She drifted to the living room. The big window overlooked the verdant green field that rolled into grazing land for the cattle. Beside the window sat a small table with a lamp. The shade could use a dusting, but Ivy could manage that too.

As she turned, her gaze fixed on the wall and a gallery of photographs her mother had hung. Meadow, Forest and her, from babyhood to their older years. Abruptly, the photos stopped getting hung when their mother died.

A hot tear trickled down Ivy's cheek, followed by another and another. They ran too fast for her to stop. When the rough sob escaped her throat, she plastered her hands over her face.

No, no, no. She wasn't a crier. She held it in. She prided herself on her self-control.

There was no holding back now. She was really crying. She'd never cried like this.

Dropping to the leather chair in the corner that her mom preferred, Ivy cradled her face in her hands and let the tears out for the first time ever.

Every emotion she'd bottled up for years and years bubbled out, overflowed. She cried for the parent she'd lost and the one who'd wallowed in his own despair and depression when he lost his wife. She cried for the childhood that she, Meadow and Forest had lost when they had to grow up too soon.

Then Forest. God, losing her brother had been like having a huge portion of her heart carved out of her chest. Her brother had been Meadow's protector, but he was Ivy's too.

Tears streamed down her face, and her sobs couldn't be muffled anymore. She stopped caring if anybody heard her. Let them—she had to let this out or explode.

Finally, everything had come to a head. Or maybe Hunter was the reason—he cracked her open and made her start to feel again.

After long, long minutes, her tears stopped flowing. She stood and walked to the bathroom to find tissues. After blowing her nose, she stared at her reflection. Her eyes were red-rimmed and glittering from the tears, her lashes wet. But she was drained dry.

Turning inward, she examined her inner workings the same way that she had the house. She took stock of her emotions…and found that she was blessedly lighter than she had been in…forever.

She had to tell Hunter. Last night after making love, she drifted off to sleep and woke to an empty bed. She got a text that he was going to Badlands and she shouldn't leave the house.

That ominous text was a bucket of icy water after what she just shared with her lover. It kept her lying awake for half the night too. When the sky began to lighten from midnight black to deep blue, she drifted off again into a fitful sleep.

After splashing her face with cold water and patting it dry, she walked out of the house. The ranch appeared to be just as deserted as the house. At this time of day, all the ranch hands were busy with various tasks. Where would Hunter be right now?

A sound came from around the back of the barn. When she rounded the corner, she spotted Webb with a hay bale in hand.

"Hey, Zack!"

He looked up at her. In a pair of dark sunglasses to shade his eyes when the brim of his hat didn't do enough, he looked like one of those cowboys from the movies. Zack was tough as nails and gave zero cares about what anyone thought of his decisions around the Gracey Ranch.

She always admired that in him, but was secretly glad that he wasn't destined to be her brother-in-law and had shifted his sights away from Meadow. She liked Zack, but he wasn't right for her sister.

"What's up?" He paused and dropped the bale to the ground.

"Where are you taking that?" She extended the toe of her boot toward the hay.

"To the late calves and mommas in the brooding shed."

She bobbed her head. "How many calves will we have when they're all born?"

"About seventy."

"A lot." Good money too, once they were old enough for auction. Problem was what her father would do with that money if given control of it. And how could he not be in charge? He owned the ranch.

"Do you happen to know where Hunter is?"

Her question made Zack's dark eyebrows draw together over the frames of his sunglasses. "Be careful, Ivy."

She bristled. "What's that mean?"

"Your dad would want you to be cautious."

"Dad's not here."

"But he's coming home soon, right?"

"Yeah. He is." She tilted her jaw up in defiance. When he did, then what? She would stand up to him and demand to know exactly what was going on with the finances. She would confront him about his gambling.

"Hunter's busy working on the fence with some of the guys." Zack's statement distracted her from the flow of her agitated thoughts.

She gave him a nod. "Okay, thanks."

Zack picked up the bale again and continued toward the hungry momma cows. Ivy set off toward the training pen.

Her sister was off to one side, working with a young pony. The horse pranced around, tugging against the rope that Meadow used to guide it. When it tossed its head like a defiant toddler, a smile spread over Ivy's face.

Meadow was too busy to take notice of Ivy. She leaned on the fence rail, watching, for another minute or two. Then a thought struck.

She'd done her mother's walk through the house and extended her gratitude for the comforts she had. She would show her appreciation to everyone on the ranch by delivering another nice lunch to them all.

She would place an order at Badlands and go pick it up herself. It also gave her a chance to ask Livia if she'd noticed Hunter there the previous night. More than anything, Ivy wanted in on the secret of why Hunter went to the saloon.

She wasn't one of those women who stalked their man to make sure he didn't cheat. She trusted Hunter not to pick up another woman. She only worried what he was hiding from her—and he definitely knew more than he was letting on.

While Hunter and Colton took their roles of protectors seriously, Ivy and Meadow deserved to know if there was more unseen danger.

The memory of that dead man floating in the pond filtered into her mind. Nobody knew who killed him—or if it was the same man who attacked Meadow in the barn.

Despite the warmth of the sun beating down on her, her body broke out in goosebumps. She didn't know much about the attack, but she didn't want to either. No more than she wanted all the harsh details of what happened to her mother when her car careened off that mountainside…or how Forest fell.

She just couldn't handle it. In this case, she would take the advice to go be Ivy and stick her head in the sand.

All these heavy thoughts were erasing the good that her cleansing cry had done. She checked to see if Meadow had noticed her. Her sister was still absorbed with the pony, so Ivy moved away from the training pen.

In the front entry of the house, she grabbed the keys to Meadow's truck and hopped behind the wheel. She paused before backing out, waiting for Hunter to jump in and stop her. But she'd be fine. She'd done this a hundred times. She'd go directly to Badlands and come straight home.

With the window down and the breeze trickling through the strands of her hair, and the radio playing top forty country songs, she took every advantage offered by her drive through the countryside to the small town of Eden.

On the way, she called Badlands and placed an order for all the barbecue and sides on the menu for her ranch family. It wasn't much, but she wanted to step up and show her appreciation. If not for the workers, the ranch would have been run into the ground long ago.

It still might be if they couldn't find a way to get her father out of his gambling debt.

Rolling past the grocery store and three churches the town had to offer, she set her sights on the big saloon at the end of the block.

Once her friend Livia took over the bar and distillery, she put time and money into improvements. When Ivy left for Europe, the exterior of the building had been a drab tan color. Now it was painted a modern black with accents of aged wood. The sign was made of wood and punched metal, bearing the same look as the labels she slapped on the rum she distilled.

The thing that really drew the people to Badlands wasn't the rum so much as the atmosphere. A honkytonk bar with all country music and line dancing on a Saturday night brought people from all over Montana. They also had decent food.

Ivy parked near the front door and climbed out of the big truck. Only a few other cars were in the lot, it being a bit early for the lunch rush.

As soon as she walked through the door, the scent of rum and beer flooded her senses, along with the tang of barbecue.

At that moment, Livia pushed through the kitchen door. Her red hair was piled on top of her head, and she wore jeans and a cropped top with the Badlands name across the front.

She spotted Ivy and smiled ear to ear. "Hey! I'm glad you came to pick this up. We really have to get together and catch up. I want to hear all about Europe."

Ivy moved to lean against the bar. "You should go someday. It's an experience you'll never forget."

"And leave all this?" She held out her hands to indicate the bar.

Ivy laughed. "You've fixed the place up so nice."

"Thanks. I've put in a lot of hard work trying to make the budget stretch. Most of it went to the rum business."

"Is the rum catching on with the customers?"

"It's slow going. Everyone prefers the five-dollar pitchers of beer around here."

"Of course. Speaking of customers, did you happen to notice Hunter last night? He texted me that he was coming to Badlands."

"Ooh, Hunter. The big guy. Mr. Hot SEAL."

She gave Livia a sharp look. "How did you know he was a SEAL?"

"I knew Colton was. I figured Hunter was too since they're such close friends."

She nodded. "They were both friends of Forest."

Livia sobered and touched Ivy's arm. "I'm sorry about Forest."

"I appreciate it."

A beat of silence fluttered between them. Then Ivy steered the conversation in the direction she wanted—one of her reasons for coming here.

"So you did see Hunter and Colton here last night?"

She nodded, making her hair wobble. "I served them some drinks."

"Did they sit at the bar?"

"They made a sweep of the place. We were slammed all night, and I never got out from behind the bar. But I saw them talk to a few guys and then they left." She bit down on her full bottom lip.

Ivy pounced on the gesture—a tell if she ever saw one. Livia needed to work on her poker face.

"What is it? Tell me."

Livia compressed her lips as if trying to hold back information she didn't want to share with Ivy. After a heartbeat, she spilled it. "There was a brawl."

"Oh god!"

"If it weren't my bar they were smashing up, it would have been kind of hot."

"What in the hell happened?" Ivy demanded.

Livia shook her head. "No idea how it started. I just looked up when I heard a smashing noise."

She looked around at the bar. "Did they break a chair?"

"No. Hunter smashed a guy's face into the table."

Her insides turned to water. "Shit!"

"The bouncer kicked them out and they took the fight to the parking lot. After that, nobody came back in."

She shivered, envisioning all of it. Hunter taking offense to something a guy said and smashing his face off a table. Anger rising, somebody throwing punches. Glasses swiped off the table and hitting the floor, shattering.

The place was completely cleaned up, though, leaving no trace of what might have taken place.

"Who did they beat up and why?" Her voice was somewhat breathy—which it shouldn't be. Her lover and her sister's boyfriend couldn't just go around picking fights with people.

Livia didn't answer.

"Livia. Tell me."

"I think it had something to do with the attacks."

"You know about that?" She shouldn't be so surprised, yet they were all keeping the matter so hushed that she didn't think about another person catching wind of the attacks.

Livia nodded. "Word gets out. The cops were in here questioning a few people for an entire week after they found that guy in your pond."

She inwardly groaned but managed to hold it together in front of her friend. "Is the food ready? I hate to hurry, but I'd like to find Hunter and talk to him."

"Talk to him? You should be doing more than that, honey."

"Livia!"

"That man is as fine as they come. Don't pretend you haven't noticed!"

With the mood lightened, they shared a small laugh. Livia told her she would grab the food, which must be finished by now.

When she emerged from the kitchen bearing two big shopping bags, Ivy took them with a quick squeeze and some thanks. She had to hurry home and talk to Hunter.

If he and Colton had gotten physical with a man, there had to be a good explanation. She just wondered if they'd gotten to the bottom of the bad business on the Gracey…or if it had been something simpler.

Pushing through the door with her hands full, she blinked in the bright sunlight. She took one step and never took another.

Out of nowhere, somebody knocked the food out of her hands. She opened her mouth to yell, but thick cloth locked over her lips, cutting off all sound but the small noises that could still project from her throat.

She screamed behind the gag. Kicking out, she attempted to strike her attacker. But they picked her up around the waist and tossed her on the floor of a van.

Her breath came in fast pants. When she saw stars shooting across her vision, she realized she was hyperventilating. If she didn't stop—control her reaction—she'd pass out and wouldn't be able to see where they were taking her.

Her kidnapper slammed the door before she could memorize his face. All she could remember was how his breath smelled like tacos and how his tough fingers bit into her skin and left bruises.

Then the van lurched forward. Ivy tried to catch herself from falling flat on her face, but they'd bound her wrists and ankles. She was helpless to stop her fall. When pain blasted up the side of her face, she cried out.

But just like when she was alone in the house, no one was around to hear.