With every step, Ivy fought the urge to collapse under the weight of yet another bad decision. Following Johnny to California had been a mistake. Running from his brother Poe had been a calculated risk.
“Stay the course,” she whispered. The mantra was a remnant of her time at the Second Chance women’s shelter back in Shell Cove. “You can do it.”
The warm light of civilization came into view, and Ivy breathed out a sigh of relief. Hungry, tired, and cold, she limped into the town of Endurance, California, population 1,333 per the marquee. In her guesstimation, the late-night interstate stroll had been at least four miles. Yet, she’d netted a big fat zero on the relief scale; zero all-night diners, zero truck stops, zero convenience stores, and zero motels. Either she’d stepped into the twilight zone, or the township had endured in the land that time forgot.
Ivy took a right off of Miramar Boulevard passing a fancy museum that housed the public library. At the town’s center, a very regal looking City Hall building with a marble portico and an intricate pediment sat next to the sheriff’s office, and then she came to a crossroads. How appropriate. She was at a crossroads with a lot of things in her life. She had a choice to make. Either she could go straight ahead onto Saratoga Springs or venture a little farther off the straight and narrow and take a right onto Miller Road. Would her destination hold more closed doors and dead ends?
From the intersection, the end of Saratoga Springs Road stared back at her. All of sudden, a sedan zoomed by, kicking up a cloud of road dust and pebbles.
“Hey,” she railed, shielding her face with both hands, as she jumped out of the way. “Watch out, nut tart,” she shouted to the vehicle’s twin red lights. Coughing, she waved away the suffocating dirt swirl as the car disappeared from sight. Not wanting a close encounter of the deadly kind, she decided to avoid the road altogether.
“Alrighty then, Miller Road it is.”
She passed Bee-Bee’s bookstore. The quaint teal-colored stucco building had a neon sign shaped like a nineteen fifties coffee cup resting on a saucer. This was definitely a throwback town. Everyone knew coffee came in sixteen-ounce tall cups. The street was locked down tighter than a pill bottle in a nursing home. She wondered if this bargain bin Smallville even had a hotel, motel, or an Endurance Town Inn.
Prepared to give up and turn back, Ivy warmed when she saw a faint red glow coming from the far end of the street. Dragging her sore limbs forward, she approached the place with caution. There were velvet curtains at the two giant windows, the kind you might see at a fine restaurant known for patron privacy. The sign overhead the building read No Limit Bar and Grille. Looking back over her shoulder at the darkened street, she smirked. The town of Endurance definitely had a limit that probably didn’t welcome wanderers like her. Ivy reached for the door handle and gave it a firm tug.
Nothing happened.
Giving it more muscle, Ivy gripped the faded wood, curling the fingers of both hands around the lever and yanked. On uneven heels, the added force and momentum had her wobbling on exhausted legs.
Still nothing.
Ivy felt the tears swell in her eyes. Don’t cry. But, a familiar burn started in her nostrils, and then she felt the traitorous things flare in frustration. Dang it, she was going to cry. All of a sudden, the door flew open. Before she knew it, her body was in motion, flying backwards, and her behind hit the cobblestone road, hard.
“Crap,” she grumbled, followed by a few choice swear words as she sat on the ground, contemplating her misfortune. It seemed she had an invisible bad luck symbol etched on her forehead.
A guy, a blonde haired mountain with steel blue eyes glared down at her, his height imposing from this position. She tried to stop her eyes from taking a walk up his impressive form. Cowboy boots, darkened with age, covered his large feet. Denim jeans, not too tight, not too loose, clung to legs defined with muscle. His thighs looked like he could support her weight for hours and not tire. A plaid shirt, buttoned up the front, did little to conceal his broad shoulders and sculpted abdomen. Yep, those pecs could be in one of those Sleep-Right commercials. Every woman she knew would claw her best friend’s eyes out to have a chest like his cradling her head.
“We’re closed,” he growled, face locked in a stony expression.
She waited for him to extend a hand to help her up. After all, it had been his fault that she fell.
She waited some more. Okay, still nothing. Rubbing her hands together to rid them of the ground debris, she winced as loose gravel scraped across her abraded palms. She looked up at ole blue eyes.
“Your sign says you’re open,” she said, removing her backpack.
He gave the sign a cursory glance, and then frowned. “I’m not.” He bobbed his chin in her direction. “You’re trespassing.”
Unless there was a new ordinance expanding the trespassing law to include sitting on your butt in a public street, he was wrong. Ivy came to her feet, no thanks to him. Looking up, she craned her neck. Whoa, he was tall, and kind of cute in a small-town Scrooge way.
“Then you should turn the lights off,” she said with a scowl.
He gave her a twisted smirk. “You from the bank?”
She reared back, staring up at him in confusion. Dressed in her best pair of ripped jeans and a University of California sweatshirt she’d grabbed off a Goodwill clearance rack in Imperial Beach, there was nothing business-like about her. Why, in her current state of dress, he would think she was from the bank confused her even more.
“Nope,” she told him, adding a bit of sass to her tone.
He grinned, baring his teeth. Scary, but going without Maslow’s hierarchy of needs frightened her more.
“Then, don’t tell me what to do, lady.”
Her stomach growled, and he narrowed his eyes on her. When it screamed out again, the blue-eyed grumpy-pants stepped onto the sidewalk peering down at her. He looked up the street, examining the dark shadows where she’d come from.
“Where’s your car?”
Her eyes widened in surprise at his question. This morning, she’d hitched a ride outside of a San Diego rest area with an overweight trucker named Ralph headed to San Francisco with a trailer load of garlic bulbs. Eight hours into the trip he confessed to never having slept with a woman of her persuasion. He spewed some nonsense about her reminding him of a lovely black unicorn, and then proceeded to grope her with his sausage-sized fingers. When the heck had Ralph the trucker ever seen a unicorn? Maybe, the pervert had puffed some of Cali’s medical marijuana. Either way, Ivy had screamed for him to stop the rig, giving little attention to the where and when as she exited the semi-truck.
“What?” she managed to stammer.
“Where,” he drawled, his voice deliciously deep with a masculine base, “is your car?”
She looked around. Nervous energy started to bubble in her gut. Okay, she was alone, in some one-traffic light town, with a suddenly angry bar owner towering over her. Maybe she should have tested her luck back in the truck with the last black unicorn hunter.
“I walked,” she confessed, acutely aware of her vulnerable circumstance.
He kept his eyes on her. “The five miles from the highway?”
He practically growled the words. And now, Ivy was officially scared.
She lifted her chin, speaking with more confidence than she felt. “Walking through God’s country never hurt anybody.”
He stared at her. And on a stack of hotel bibles, she could have sworn she saw fire roar in his eyes.
“At night it can,” he snapped, but a cord of sadness hung on each word.
A mountain of pain erupted in those telling eyes, but then it vanished. Something much harder and menacing replaced it. Okay, time to put some distance between her and blue-eyed hell boy.
“Look,” she said, slowly inching back. “I was looking for some food. I saw the sign but—I’m really sorry I disturbed you, sir.”
As she talked, Ivy inched further away, putting distance between his
body and hers in case she needed to pull a ‘don’t-go-into-the-woods scream’ and run down Miller Road. Then, the oddest thing happened.
He smiled. “I’m sir now?”
The smile, the eyes, the body all worked for her. He truly was a handsome grumpy pants.
“I’ll call you whatever you want,” she swallowed. Psycho alert, she thought.
Ivy gazed at the darkening street ahead. She could make a break for it. With a hint of luck, she might make it back to the highway. Just then, a child appeared in the doorway, rubbing his eyes with small balled up fists.
“Daddy, what’s taking you so long? I’m ready for my bedtime story.”
A little boy with straw-colored hair, lighter than his father’s, pushed a half-hidden torso from behind one of those long legs. He wore an Ironman sleep romper that covered his feet and zipped up to his neck. It looked like there was a cape or something behind him, but in the low light it was hard for Ivy to tell.
“Go back inside, Cai,” he told the child.
At least, the kid was interested in books, rather than video games. It was the first indication that the man was human after all.
“Who are you talking to?” the child demanded.
She couldn’t hide the shock on her face. Mr. Grumpy Pants had produced a little demanding version of himself.
“Nobody,” he said in his firm father’s voice.
Ivy gritted her teeth. Now, why did he have to go and say a thing as bone-headed as that? It almost hurt her feelings that he equated her presence to a non-entity. She had been discounted most of her life. No way would she permit this stranger to deem her invisible.
The same blue eyes as his fathers regarded her, and she thought she heard Mr. Grumpy Pants say the boy’s name was Kyle. The little sleepy head reached for his father’s giant hand.
The child asked, “Who’s that lady?”
“Cai, I said—,” the man interjected.
Ivy interrupted. She could feel his eyes on her, intense and scrutinizing. Looking at Cai, she ignored the father. True, it was beneath her to use a child to save her own hide, but her belly and body had reached their limit.
“Hello Cai. My name is Ivy Summers.”
He laughed. “That’s a pretty name.” He shook his daddy’s hand, capturing his attention. “Isn’t her name pretty, Daddy?”
Grumpy Pants’ frown deepened. “It’s alright.”
She scowled back. She didn’t know what his problem was, and she didn’t care. She needed food. That’s when she felt strong fingers grip her elbow. Ivy squeezed her eyes shut prepared for a crushing pain. Instead, warmth, tingling, and an ‘oh so delicious’ sensation wound its way up her arms. His fingers contracted where they touched, and then relaxed. Had he felt it too?
“Come inside, Ivy. I’ll feed you,” he said in that deep sexy tone.
That voice was already feeding something wicked inside of her. A lingering hunger she’d neglected to feed for a long while salivated at his deep timbre. She’d have to make sure to keep quiet over whatever meal he put in front of her. The last thing Ivy needed was his voice distracting her from a full belly.
“Are you sure your wife will be okay with me grabbing a quick bite before moving on?”
When he didn’t answer, she looked up to find him watching her again. His eyes were doing that dancing fire thing once more as he took her all in.
“She’s not here,” he said, his voice dropped low and somehow vacant sounding.
Ivy pulled up short. Married men were a hard limit for her. She wasn’t looking for any trouble, yet the way his eyes drank in her features before settling on her mouth, she got the impression that food was the last thing on his mind.
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Staying The Course: https://www.books2read.com/u/bOaQwJ or
Amazon US: https://amzn.to/2Fy7qoO
About Olivia Gaines
As a multiple award-winning, best-selling Amazon author, Olivia loves a good laugh coupled with some steam, mixed in with a man and woman finding their way past the words of “I love you.” An author of contemporary romances, she writes heartwarming stories of blossoming relationships about couples not only falling in love but building a life after the hot sex scene. When Olivia is not writing, she enjoys quilting, playing Scrabble online against other word lovers and spending time with her family. She is an avid world traveler who writes many of the locations into her stories. Most of the time she can be found sitting quietly with pen and paper plotting more adventures in love.
Olivia lives in Hephzibah, Georgia with her husband, son, grandson and snotty evil cat, Katness Evermean.
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About Siera London
SIERA LONDON IS A USA Today bestselling author of contemporary romance and romantic suspense. She crafts stories of diverse characters navigating the challenges and triumphs to find lasting love. Intelligence, wit, emotion, drama, and sensual romance are between the covers of every Siera London novel. Siera lives in California with her husband, and a color patch tabby named Frie.
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