Wrapped Up in You (Heartbreaker Bay, #8)(62)

But those walls were down now, and knowing it was for her felt like both a gift and a curse. Because surely he’d expect the same from her, complete openness, and though she wanted this with him, she wasn’t sure she even knew how to be open and vulnerable with someone. At just the thought, she went a little cold, and shivered.

With a low murmur of regret, he pulled her closer, sharing his body heat, his expression lazy and satisfied, like a big wild cat.

“My bed is so close,” she managed to say, pointing to it, still unable to get up.

“And yet so far . . .”

She laughed, and he smiled as he managed to stagger to his feet. “So that’s funny too?” he asked.

“What, that you’re so old you can’t get me to my bed?”

“You’re just baiting me in the hopes that I’ll carry you,” he said.

“Is it working?”

“Yes, but you’re going to pay for calling me old.” Scooping her up and flinging her over his shoulder, he carried her fireman style to the bed.

Where he then proved just how not old he was.

Several times, just to make sure it stuck.



Kel came awake at the soft vibration of his phone from an incoming call. Never good at one in the morning. Reaching past a sleeping Ivy, he grabbed his cell from her nightstand.

It was Caleb. “What’s wrong?” Kel asked.

“Someone broke into the condo building and got into a fight with Arlo, who was just taken to the hospital by ambulance. I’m heading there now, but the site’s unsecured—”

“On it,” Kel said, already on the move, off the bed, snatching his clothes from the floor where he’d dropped them and pulling them back on. “Arlo?”

“Took a hit to the back of the head. Looked bad. I don’t know anything more yet.”

“And the asshole who got the jump on him?”

“Gone, but there’s blood here that isn’t Arlo’s. He told the medic he got a shot off, so hopefully the guy’s injured bad enough to end up in a hospital too so we can get him.”

“Keep me posted,” Kel said and disconnected, shoving his feet into his shoes.

Ivy sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a problem on the job.”

“Problem?”

“Someone broke into the new building,” he said, shoving his things into various pockets.

“Oh no,” she breathed. “Damages?”

“Arlo was hurt, he’s on his way to the hospital now.”

“Oh my God.”

She looked so horrified he came back to bed, and with a hand on either side of her face, leaned in and kissed her quickly.

Ivy fisted her hands in his shirt to hold him still for another second. “Come back after,” she whispered against his mouth. “When you can.”

Their gazes met, and in hers, he saw a deep concern and worry. He stroked the pad of his thumb over her lower lip, kissed it again and then did what he didn’t want to do, what he was starting to realize he would never want to do—leave her.





Chapter 22




Let’s do this



Ivy turned over in her bed for the hundredth time since Kel had left at one a.m. It was now three a.m. and he still hadn’t returned, though she’d gotten a text with an update on Arlo’s condition. Stable. She drew relief from that, which backed up in her throat at the sound of someone at her door.

Not Kel. He wouldn’t be making that odd scraping noise. He’d have let her know right away it was him, knowledge that had her heart in her throat.

Rising from the bed, she grabbed her handy, dandy baseball bat and reminded herself that she was a badass tough chick who could handle herself.

That’s when the knock came, just a single, almost soft, knock. Swallowing hard, she moved to the door and took a look through the peephole.

Nothing.

When the knock came again, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

“Ivy, it’s me. Open up.”

“Brandon?” she gasped. What the hell . . . She yanked open the door and there he was, sitting on the floor.

Bleeding.

“Oh my God,” she said and dropped to her knees.

“Merry Christmas a few days early.”

“What the hell happened?” she demanded.

“It’s just a scratch,” he said, sounding far away. “Help me inside and shut and lock the door.”

At the real fear in his voice, which she’d never heard, not once in her life, not even the time he’d accidentally set their trailer on fire and they’d nearly burned along with it, she got behind him, hooked her hands in his armpits, and dragged him over the threshold.

Then, because she hadn’t been born yesterday, she left him to go shut and lock the door. Turning back to Brandon, she found he’d scooted his way farther into the room, and still on the floor, had his head tilted back on the couch cushions, eyes closed.

Crouching over him, worried about all the blood and where it was coming from, she started patting him down, arms, chest—

“It’s my thigh,” he murmured in a faraway voice. “Bullet went all the way through. At least I’m pretty sure.”

Pushing back to her feet, she rushed to her bathroom to scrub her hands and grab her first aid kit from beneath the sink, along with a spare towel. With shaking hands, she then ran to her freezer and grabbed the vodka before moving back to Brandon.