Page 235 of Screwged for Christmas

The soft click of the front door resounded in her head and the final wall around her heart crumbled as the tears silently slipped from her eyes. “Christmas can go to hell.” The fact she never wanted to feel again solidified like a shield around her heart.

Fact: Love sucked and love at first sight was bullshit.

CHAPTER 8

He’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.”

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