Chapter 8

Eight

H e'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?"

"The guys are going to be mad. I just sent them to the grocery store for ice cream." Zahara leaned in and he gave her a quick peck on the cheek, passing her the large basket of goodies from his bakery. "Sounds like a perfect combination if you ask me. And I don't think those two could ever get mad at you. Even if they had to go to the North Pole for the ice cream."

Zahara's smiled widened. "True. Come in." She waved him in and he dusted the snow from his shoulders.

Warmth surrounded him as he walked through the door, greeted by the smell of something simmering on the stove. "Smells good." He inhaled long and hard. Good food always calmed a man's nerves but his stomach clenched with an uneasy queasiness.

"It's really coming down out there. It must be something pretty big that brings you here. What's up? Something happened between you and my sister?"

"Always perceptive, aren't you?"

"I call it mommy genes. It's like little Spidey senses that go off with anything that concerns Ivy." Zahara busied herself in the kitchen putting all the little pies from the basket out on a platter. "Grab a bowl and help yourself. There's cornbread in the oven and apple cider or beer if you prefer."

"Thank you." Growing up in a town the size of Savage Ridge where everyone really did know everyone, going back decades and long before he and his brothers were born, he knew refusing a plate when offered was a sign of disrespect. He served himself a ladle full of beef stew and thanked Zahara for the bread she placed on the counter for him as he pulled up a stool.

The modern apartment looked much like his over the bar and bakery with the exception of a larger kitchen. Something Zahara had insisted on.

He took a bite of the stew but the usual pleasure of Zahara's cooking didn't settle on the tongue as easy as it normally did. "It's delicious. Thank you."

"Liar." She tossed at him with a kind smile. "I know when a man fakes and that frown on your face says a thousand words without even trying. Now tell me, why are you really here?"

"First, you doing okay? The babies?"

"Yep, Holden and Riley nearly had a heart attack when I showed them the ultrasound of two little heads and two sets of legs and arms."

"Do you know if they are boys or girls?"

"No. Little critters wouldn't show us this time around and Holden said he'd rather be surprised anyway so you know. Ethan, on the other hand, is having a hissy fit drawing up the plans for the nursery."

"Serves him right." Damon chuckled. He paused a moment. "Can I ask you something?"

Zahara reached out and patted his hand. "Damon, what's on your mind? You look like a bear with a thorn in his paw."

Adequate but it was more through his chest at the moment. "It's Ivy. What the hell happened in your childhood that has her so damn hell-bent on shoving everything good that happens to her to the side?"

A sadness slipped over Zahara's face, and he cursed under his breath for even bringing the subject up. "Look. Maybe I should just ask Ivy. Make her tell me even if it takes a set of cuffs to keep her from running away."

"Good luck with that. You think I'm stubborn. That girl suffers from many things including stubbornness."

Damon finished his plate and pushed it to the side as Zahara settled a cup of coffee in front of him and grabbed one for herself.

"There's something you need to know about Ivy and me. We didn't grow up in a family like you did. Where mom and dad were there for us when we fell flat on our faces or when we scored good grades. No one to cheer us on and support us. We had four walls most of our lives and at least one good meal a day. But that was the silver lining."

"Son of a bitch." Damon fisted his hand and bit back the stronger string of curses he wanted to let loose. "How much fucking worse did it get?" He really didn't want to hear this. If anyone had hurt her, he'd hunt them down and make them fear the simple act of drawing breath.

"What really killed my little sister inside were when people, moms and dads, walked into the orphanage with the nuns and looked at all of all the kids playing or studying or whatever we were doing at the time. They were not supposed to let us know they were looking to see which of us would fit into their lives the best, but this was a small place and the nuns didn't really follow all the rules. I can't tell you how many people would pass over us like puppies in a pound or worse, trash." Zahara paused and he could see the past weigh on her as she fiddled with the new wedding band around her ring finger. "The nuns loved us in their own way, and Ivy and I even managed to get adopted by a family." She looked up and offered a small smile.

"Before you and your sister came to Savage Ridge I never thought much of fate really. Now it's grabbed me by the balls and well, here I am. So what happened with the family who adopted you?" The more he heard about their time the more he might be able to decipher how to help Ivy.

"The wife was a sweet lady, but when her husband fell ill and lost his job they couldn't care for us anymore so, back we went. It really hurt Ivy, too. She took a real liking to the lady. A year later I turned eighteen and took my sister out but not before all the rejection messed with her head."

"There was more than one family I take it."

She nodded but didn't give him any more. He thought he was a clam. "She said something about your mom. What happened to your parents?"

He watched her for the slightest clue to the answers he needed, but she gave none away as she contemplated her thoughts before answering. "She should be the one to tell you all this, not me. We share the past, but I don't know. It seems like it all should come from her."

"We slept together tonight, Zahara. I've claimed her in ways I never thought possible for a man and I'm not entirely talking sexually. She's left me wondering about Christmas miracles and soul mates. Hell, not even that. She has me knowing they all exist." He didn't mean to blurt it out but it tumbled over the tip of his tongue and dropped like an atomic bomb in the middle of his lap.

Zahara cupped both of her hands of her mouth. "And she's wanting to run."

He nodded. "Now I see why. She's afraid I'll leave her high and dry like all those other assholes in her past."

His hand went to the back of his neck as a wave of heat consumed the entire circumference of his neck. He stretched at the neck of his shirt but it didn't help. "Anything else you can tell me might help me break through this wall she's erected against anyone who wants to get close. Do you know who your parents were?"

"Dad was a workaholic and left to work here of all places. Not Savage Ridge, but Alaska back when they installed the pipeline. Mom couldn't take care of two kids on her own when he left and her recreational fling with narcotics became a lifelong passion until she took one pill too many. I found her one morning dead and Dad might as well be dead. His last trip out he never came back."

"Some people do not deserve to have kids."

Perched on the end of her stool, Zahara looked at her plump belly, and the sudden urge to see Ivy with his child sucker-punched him in the gut and nearly blew him off his own stool.

"There's something you need to understand about Ivy, Damon. She's fiercely independent and fears looking weak or in need. It took me months just to get her here and only the news of the babies got her moving." She clasped his hands between hers. "I know she's dropped out from her classes, but I'm not all that sure if that's what is bothering her. Or if she's done wanting to be a doctor. But she won't talk to me. I think she believes her problems would be a burden with the little ones on the way. I'm worried. She's keeping something pent up inside and I think you might be the only one to help her. Honestly, I'm afraid she's going to pull away entirely. I can sense it."

"You would be right."

A cold blast of air rushed through the open door as Holden and Riley pushed it open with their feet, their arms laden with a variety of ice creams and toppings in several different bags. Holden kicked off the snow as Riley rushed in behind him. The cold didn't really bother them but they were more worried about their woman getting cold with the door wide open, as he would be for Ivy. "We didn't know what you wanted so we got everything."

"More like we didn't want to mistake what the next craving would be so we got everything and then some," Riley corrected Holden.

"That too," he admitted with a laugh.

Damon shoved aside his personal problems for a moment and helped unload the bags from their arms so they could brush off the powdery snow before wetting the floor.

"Hey, man, thanks. What's brought you by?"

"Can't a brother come over and keep a sister company?"

"Sure, especially if you bring those little pies you make."

"Check," Zahara offered like she'd won the lottery. "Didn't let him through the door without them." Holden walked over to Zahara and placed a tender kiss on her forehead.

"Glad to know you guys have your priorities all lined up. I also had the head baker place in a few other things. New breads and pastries I'm trying out."

Armed with a little more information than what he began the night with, Damon clasped hands with Riley and then Holden before giving his sister-in-law a hug. "Thank you. You take care of my little nieces or nephews. I'm already working on a special little something down at the bakery in their honor."

Zahara beamed up at him, and his heart lightened a fraction at seeing her smile return.

"Are you not staying, bro? What's the rush?"

Zahara wound her hands around Holden and Riley. "You boys let him go. He has some work to do."

Both looked at him but didn't say anything else. Didn't have to. Both his brother and the new brother that came into the family with their union with Zahara understood instantly.

He turned and palmed the handle to the door. When he was on the job he would become focused like a laser beam. He could feel tunnel vision coming on now and one black-haired green-eyed angel was his sole focus.

"Hey, Damon."

He turned back to Zahara where she stood in the kitchen with her men. Her new family. Something he wanted to give Ivy if she would only let him show her what that kind of happiness meant.

"Yeah?"

Zahara crossed the apartment and grabbed a scarf he'd seen her work on here and there when she would visit the bar. She wound it around his neck and waited to speak until he raised his gaze to hers. "Be gentle with her. She's trying her best and when she is ready, she'll let you in. Just show her the love I know you have in your heart and she'll be unable to deny the gravitational pull you Savage men have over a woman."

He nodded. Before Ivy his heart didn't want love and he was perfectly fine with hooking up with one-night stands and tourists that liked an adventure with a mountain man. Now he only wanted her.

"There's one more thing you should know. Be ready for her to run. I did it and if Loren and Riley hadn't stopped me I wouldn't be here."

"Yes, you would. We would have crawled our way to Texas to find you and beg you to take us as your husbands."

He wouldn't let her get that far without a fight. He was foolish to try to fight the connection he felt and looking back, it was ridiculous to even try. He wanted her plain and simple. Now he had to peel back the layers for her to see them without the jaded past blocking the full view.

"That's an entirely different conversation, boys," she chastised with a gentle slap to Riley's shoulder.

He excused himself and stepped out into the cold. Fat flurries whipped through the biting cold air and kicked into an angry whirlwind that mirrored the chaos going on in his head.

He slammed the truck door closed and sat there in the dark as the snowstorm raged just beyond the windshield.

He tightened his fingers around the wheel. Fire and determination dripped into his bloodstream and wouldn't stop the more he thought about the smell of Ivy that clung to him. The fear of losing her. The heat of her body against this and the way she moaned as he took her.

She was his. No matter what he had to do, she would believe him if it took his last breath to convince her.

How the hell did he get through to a woman that didn't want his help? Didn't understand the love of a family, and sure the hell didn't want anything to do with Alaska?

He scrubbed a hand down his face and brushed off the snowflakes that landed in his hair and used the back of the scarf to dry off the little drops of water that clung to his hands. He paused. He smiled. Why, of course.

Looking out over the hood, he pointed the truck back to town and gunned it as a new plan took hold.