Chapter Seven

Ivy stormed through the house, reaching with every long stride for the refuge of her bedroom.

As a kid, she got good at running these halls to get away from her siblings in a game of tag. In her teenage years, she perfected tiptoeing around any creaky floorboards when she snuck in after curfew. Not that her father would have ever noticed. Nobody cared enough to discipline her after their mother passed. Instead of giving her any direction in life, they told her to go be Ivy.

Now she just wanted escape—period.

She rushed into her room and whirled to slam the door behind her, but Meadow was there, hand braced against the door.

Her sister wasn't going to let her get out of telling her what happened with Hunter back at the saloon. She flopped down on her bed.

"Do you know what that man did?" she demanded before Meadow could even open her mouth.

Meadow's blue eyes were so close to their mother's that her gaze scrambled Ivy's thoughts. Forest and their father had brown.

She was the oddball with the only green eyes in the family.

"I know exactly what he did to you."

The anger that hadn't yet begun to cool inside her erupted. "Humiliated me!"

Her sister sank to the side of the bed. "Men like Hunter—like Colton—only know one thing—how to protect. You triggered that response in Hunter—"

"I triggered it?" Her voice rose in outrage. "So I was asking for it? What about the things he triggered in me when he threw me over his shoulder and…and…"

She broke off as lurid sensations slithered through her body. Memories of how his big, hard body felt beneath her as he carried her to the truck.

And his hand leaving a white-hot imprint on her buttocks.

The spot burned enough that she could trace the exact outline of his palm and fingers.

She slung her arm over her eyes to hide her face from Meadow, who knew her so well.

"He spanked you." Meadow's voice was pitched low.

"Yes!" Her own was choked.

"I know all about that."

She sat up so fast that Meadow jumped. She gaped at her. "You know all about what? Did Colton—"

"Yes. Been there. Done that. Would do it again." She bit down on her bottom lip, but the smile spread across her beautiful features regardless of her attempt to hide it.

Ivy shook her head. "I can't believe you!"

"Oh, c'mon. Admit it—you really wanted Hunter after that."

A spike of desire shot directly to her core, the same one that had been striking over and over again like lightning targeting the same point until her entire body felt like it quivered with electricity.

She groaned. "Shut up. He's terrible. I wouldn't even be nice to him if not for Forest."

She eyed her sister warily. Part of her really wanted to know what went down between her and Colton. But if she learned anything in the past months on her own, it was to mind her own business. Getting nosy could mean trouble she wasn't ready to handle.

Like that time in Madrid when—

Well, she didn't want to think about what almost happened to her, if she hadn't been so quick and smart.

Meadow grabbed a pillow and propped it against the headboard to lean against. Then she picked up a throw pillow and drew it onto her lap, settling in to have one of their old talks.

Ivy did the same, sitting beside her on the big bed. "What happened with Colton?"

"We didn't exactly hit it off at first."

She studied her sister, but her expression gave nothing away. She'd just have to be patient and wait for the story.

Meadow didn't make her wait long. "I didn't take things seriously like I should have. I went to Badlands and got myself into a little trouble. Colton…impressed upon me…how much respect I should have for myself. He made me think about what I was giving up."

"Which was?"

"My body…my virginity."

Ivy's eyes went round. "Are you telling me that you never…before Colton?"

She shook her head. "I was saving myself. When I realized I was saving myself for him all along, everything fell into place."

"Well, there will be no Hunter and Ivy. I can't stand the arrogant alpha-hole. He thinks he knows everything. And if he ever tries to manhandle me again…" She broke off, feeling those long, heated fingers stretched around her buttocks. Liquid heat melted her core and she resisted the urge to squirm at the mere thought of his hand on her.

When he'd pinned her to the truck door, for a heart-throbbing moment she thought he would kiss her.

Her insides quivered.

Shaking her head again, she denied how he made her feel to Meadow and even to herself. "I'll never speak to him again. Or even look at him."

Meadow patted her on the arm. "You've had a long day, Ivy. Sleep on it. We've got a lot to do tomorrow."

That made her sit up straighter. Any chance to distract herself from the topic of discussion—all six foot four of him—was more than welcome.

"What do we need to do?"

"Go visit Daddy for one."

The thought of those beeping machines and the sterile odor in the air made her stomach ache.

"What else?"

"There's a lot to do around here. The business needs attention. I let the horses go for too long after news of Forest's death. But I'm back on track now. I've been working with them as much as possible."

"What can I do to help on the ranch? Can we find me something to do in the morning?"

Meadow brightened. "Definitely. Meanwhile, try to go easy on Hunter."

That got her hackles up again. "Go easy on him?"

Meadow slipped to her feet, looking down at Ivy, and nodded. "You know, half the squadron died that day in an attack hours after Forest did. Hunter almost lost his leg."

She blinked at her. She never would have guessed Hunter had sustained an injury. He didn't walk with a limp or have any other indicator that he'd been hurt.

Suddenly she felt like the spoiled, bratty princess the man believed she was.

"That's terrible." She wet her dry lips and moved off the bed to embrace her sister before she turned in for the night.

After Meadow left her alone, Ivy stripped down to her panties and crawled between the cool sheets.

But everything in her was hot and bothered.

She couldn't quit thinking about Hunter. How he felt, how he smelled. The dark fury in his eyes when he threatened that guy on the dance floor.

How his hand felt on her backside.

The first swat had awakened every nerve in her body, leaving them throbbing with awareness. When he touched her again, cradling her ass in one broad palm, she felt like she was electrically charged.

Even when he put her down, he'd let her body slide down his entire chiseled length, allowing her to feel every ridge—and bulge—on him.

Oh god. Did she have to remember that?

Hunter, her brother's best friend and the newest employee on the Gracey Ranch, had been hard for her.

* * * * *

Hunter was face down in the dirt. Hard rocks cut into his cheek. Blood coated his lips.

His ears were packed with cotton, cutting off all sound. When he twisted his head to the side and opened his eyes, he was staring at thick black smoke.

Then the smoke cleared enough for him to make out the scene before him. At first, he couldn't make sense of it. The bodies on the ground. A few feet away, his own boot lay on its side, ripped off his foot by the blast.

Unable to understand anything about what he saw, an image rose in his mind. A photo that Forest had shown him, the snapshot of his family taken right before he left for the Navy.

They stood on the front porch of their home, a backdrop of log exterior behind the four of them. Their mother was missing from the unit, but Forest still had a family left to go home to.

Hunter clung to the memory of that picture while a medic hovered over him. Before he delivered a dose of morphine for the pain, Hunter held that image of Forest's family in his mind, gripping tight to it because he didn't have one of his own to bring him back from the edge of death.

With a jolt, he sat up on the bunk and smacked his head on the ceiling. Pain rocketed through his skull, but it woke him too.

Grounded him.

Pain, he knew. Family, not at all.

The room was still dark with night, but in Germany, it was the time when the nurses made their early morning rounds to hand out painkillers or medication to dull the mental anguish of losing everything in one blast.

Going into that fight, the entire squadron had known Forest was dead. They were trained to stuff down those emotions, compartmentalize them to the point where they couldn't think or feel—only act.

After a drone dropped a bomb on them, few men were left alive. Hunter was one of the lucky ones. At least they told him that.

When he eased out of the top bunk, Marks, sleeping below him, wheezed a light snore and rolled onto his side. The cool floor under Hunter's bare feet woke him even more.

His parched lips felt too much like the blood dried on them after that hellish night when a bomb blew him right out of his boots. The only thing that had saved him was the force that threw him out of the way.

Hunter knew he was lucky as hell, but knowing it and feeling it were two separate things.

Quietly, he moved to the kitchen, guided by a small light left on over the stove. He looked in the fridge for a bottle of water, but it only held beer. He grabbed one and cracked it open. After a long swig of the earthy brew, the dream lingering in his head washed away, leaving him clear enough to remember other things.

Like what happened at Badlands just hours before.

Without willing his feet to move, he drifted out of the bunkhouse. There was no porch to speak of, only a small roof overhanging the door to offer a bit of respite from the weather. He paused there for a moment, filling his lungs with deep breaths of the fresh mountain air and the tang of rain driving the breeze across the ranch.

He stepped out into the yard, enjoying the cool earth under his bare feet and the cold beer in his hand.

No chill could erase the fire in his gut when he looked to the house and saw a light on in the window on the far corner.

Only someone still running on European time would be awake.

Ivy.

Goddamn. The last person he wanted to think about. It was bad enough they were forced into each other's company on the ranch, but he'd made things so much more awkward when he spanked her.

Chest tight, he raised the bottle to his lips and sipped. Icy beer slipped down his dry throat.

Had she woken up thirsty too? Was she easing out of bed right this minute to go find a drink of water?

He pictured her in that sexy sequined skirt. Those long, trim legs were the stuff of dreams for the lonely men serving their country. Legs a woman could wrap around a man and hold him tight while he drove his cock deep inside her.

Only Hunter did not want Ivy that way.

So why was his cock stiff and tenting his boxer briefs?

Fuck. She wasn't just the wrong woman, she was completely off-limits.

Even if he could take her for a roll in the hay so conveniently placed twenty yards away from where he stood, it wasn't as if he could do a hit-it-and-quit-it like his days when he was on military leave.

And he definitely wasn't in a position to have a relationship. He didn't even want one.

He stared at that small square of light in her window, willing his body to behave, for his cock to stop surging with lust for a woman he could never touch.

Tonight he'd head down to Badlands again, solo this time. He'd take a seat, with a drink in hand, and find out what he could about the attacks taking place on the ranch.

After that, he'd find an eager woman and let her take him home for a night.

Even as the thought entered his head, it fled with a hard pulse of need in his cock. A small figure walked in front of the window and stopped.

Christ. Was Ivy looking outside? Was she staring up at the crescent moon hanging low in the sky with a bright star as its companion?

He swung around and yanked open the bunkhouse door. Instead of returning to his bunk, he dropped to the leather couch and spent the next half hour sipping his beer and reminding himself of all the reasons he'd come to the ranch.

It was not to babysit a princess.

It wasn't to teach her a lesson, no matter how much his palm ached to do so.

It definitely wasn't to fantasize about what Ivy was wearing when she stood in that window.

If she wore anything at all.

He had to secure the ranch. Find out who had a vendetta against the Gracey family. Though Colton already had a bead on Sean Gracey being a target.

There were only two reasons why a person would go after someone—money or revenge.

It wouldn't take a lot of digging to find either. He just needed access to the right sources to uncover the truth.

Hunter sat there watching the sun rise. While he tried to keep his brain on task, it kept slipping to something he hadn't thought about in a long time.

His own family.

God, it was all so long ago. He'd been on his own for so many years, with only his brothers-in-arms to call family. It had brought him across continents, all the way to Montana, to be with one of his best friends in the world—Colton.

Nox didn't know it, but he'd saved Hunter from self-destruction. He'd come to the ranch at Colton's call for help—his call to arms—because very few people in the world understood what he'd endured after that failed op.

Colton did. Not only had his buddy witnessed Forest's demise firsthand, but he'd been there at the final battle. He'd seen them all die.

Hunter admired the hell out of his strength. With Colton as an example, he could draw on his own reserves and stand strong too.

He had to—for his fallen brothers. For Forest. For Colton.

Goddammit. For the woman who needed protection from whoever was threatening the Gracey family—Ivy.