Page 65 of The SEAL's Duchess
Her mind flicked back to the photograph on his shelf—the blonde woman.
“There was a picture at your place. Ellie’s mum?”
He rolled his hands on the wheel, knuckles pale.
Silence stretched, filled only by the rumble of tires on frozen asphalt.
“She left when Ellie was three months old.” His lips pinched.
Ivy didn’t breathe. The noise of the tires was the only proof the world hadn’t stopped.
“I came off a shift—my mom had Ellie. Just a fucking note from Miranda on the counter.Sorry, I can’t do this.That was it.”
“You don’t know why?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. She made her choice. Ellie didn’t get one.” He flexed his hands. “I won’t let that happen to her again.”
His words were stripped bare, but the muscle in his jaw told her the wound still bled.
When the road ran out, Ryder killed the engine and came around to her side of the truck, opening her door. He helped her down, his hand firm on the small of her back. When her feet hit the snow, he didn’t step back. Instead, he leaned in and pressed a kiss to her mouth, slow and certain.
“Whatever happens when we find out what this data means,” he murmured, “we’ll figure it out.”
We.The word rose inside her like warmth after frostbite.
As if they were already a team. As if the life she was imagining with him wasn’t just wishful thinking but something they were building together.
She was falling for a man and potentially becoming part of a family.
Her eyes burned and her throat constricted.
Hope.
Reckless, impossible hope that maybe she could be enough. That maybe she could stay.
And this time, she didn’t fight it.
27
The cabin satat the end of a road that had stopped being a road two miles back. Ryder kept his hand locked around Ivy’s as they navigated the icy path, his other hovering, ready to catch her if she slipped. Trees pressed in on all sides, dense enough to muffle sound, isolated enough to make his instincts flare.
Her fingers were icy cold.
“Here.” He pulled his gloves from his pockets.
“I’m fine?—”
“Put them on.”
She did as she was told and satisfied, he plowed on.
His mom had called Henderson a hermit who didn’t suffer fools. What she’d left out was how far off the grid the man had gone.
The cabin itself looked like it had been assembled from salvage—mismatched logs, a tin roof patched with what might have been road signs, windows that didn’t quite match their frames.
He wanted to turn around. Wanted to take Ivy back to his truck, drive her somewhere warm and safe, kiss her until neither of them could think straight. But she needed answers about thedata Jack had given her, and damned if he was letting her face this alone.
He knocked. The sound echoed flat in the cold air, while his breath puffed white.
