I tried to imagine Ivy as a mom, and all I could imagine was a wild-haired girl with a mile-wide grin who fed her children ice cream for breakfast and let them stay up late and watch scary movies. There was no doubt in my mind that sweet little Ivy was a fun mom.
“I should probably go see my mom tonight,” I said, “since I’m in town and all.”
“How is Tammy Lynn these days?” He glanced into the rearview mirror, checking on Ruby again.
“She’s…Tammy Lynn.” I didn’t care to elaborate.
Beau turned west and headed back down the highway toward his ranch.
“Should we continue the interview when we get back?” I asked. “We got a little off track earlier…”
“Kinda like to get a few things out of the way first,” he said, his right hand white-knuckling his leather-wrapped steering wheel as his left elbow rested on the window ledge. His entire demeanor had changed without warning, as if someone had flipped a switch.
“Such as?”
“You and I have some old business to sort out,” he said, causing my stomach to drop. “Let’s get ourselves right before we continue with our little interview.”
“You’re holding me hostage again, Beau. I don’t appreciate it.” I turned to face the window, watching field after field of lush greenery pass by.
Does he know?
“Yeah, I’m not holding you hostage,” he said, peering over the dash. “Just want to talk with you is all.”
“I didn’t come here to talk about you and me.” I leaned against the passenger door, as if the cab of the truck had suddenly shrunk and we were too close for comfort. “What’s done is done, Beau. Nothing can change that.”
“I’m a man of my word,” he breathed. “I just wanted to make it clear to you that I kept my word after all these years. Even if you didn’t. I did.”
My lips parted to fight back, but I rested my battle weapon in favor of not losing my cool and blowing the interview. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to honor the promises we made to one another when we were kids.”
“We were younger then, Kota, but we sure as hell weren’t kids.”
The second we returned to the ranch, Dakota climbed out of the truck with concerning silence. She stepped toward me with her shoulders back and crossed her arms, eyebrows raised.
“I loved you, Beau. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anything in this entire world.” Her words held a frozen, almost business-like quality to them. For a girl talking about love, there was very little emotion in her tone. “But we were over, and I’ve accepted that. I moved on.” I didn’t believe her. She was lying. I saw it in the way her eyes danced between mine and in the way her fingers twitched like they were the one part of her she couldn’t control no matter how hard she tried. She backed away from me, staring down at the gravel drive as she dug the toe of her shoe into powdery gray rock. “Being here with you in Darlington is hard for me. I just want to do this interview and go home. We don’t have to talk about you or me or what happened a lifetime ago.”
“You think this is easy for me? You being here?”
She glanced up at me with ancient resentment in her icy stare, and I was quite positive she was fighting off the urge to sock me in the mouth. Despite all that, all I could think about was touching her. Running my fingers through her hair. Feeling her lips on mine. Pressing her body against me.
“Must be. You arranged this. You asked for me. You wanted me to come here for damn near an entire week – which is unheard of in this industry, you know.” She crossed her arms, squinting toward me and wiping a rogue tear from her cheek as fast as she could.
Heaven forbid she shows an ounce of vulnerability.
“I didn’t trust anyone else to tell my story.” My argument was weak, I knew that. And only half-true. “You know me better than anyone.”
“God, you’re so stuck in the past,” she said, spitting her words at me and losing her professional cool. A defiant strand of windblown hair fell into her face. “Get over it, Beau. Get over us.”
I stepped into her space, placing my hands on her hips and pulling her into me. “Why should I get over you when you’re not over me?”
Her head whipped to the side as her eyes focused on the barn in the distance. “I am over you.”
“Then why don’t I believe you?” My hand lifted to her jaw, stroking my thumb across her full bottom lip just before I crushed her soft lips with mine. She hadn’t invited me to kiss her, but I had it in me to take what was mine. Her lips froze upon contact, but I wasn’t giving up that easy. I kissed her unhurriedly, deliberately pressing my body against hers and drawing her in tight.
Man, did she put up a fight.
The taste of her soft cinnamon mouth warmed my lips as warm sunlight kissed the tops of our heads, but the crunch of gravel under tires a few seconds later peeled her away. A gradient blush spread across her cheeks as her round blue eyes held a state of shock. Thirty feet away, a car horn honked repeatedly, ushering in little Ivy’s arrival.
“Beau!” Ivy flew out of her new Ford, blonde curls blowing every which way, and ran straight toward me. She punched my arm hard as a smile wider than a cornfield claimed her freckled face. “I told you not to buy me a car! I’m sitting there at work, and all of a sudden they tell me I have a delivery.” Ivy’s hand whipped to her hip as her eyes danced back and forth from me to her candy apple red Explorer. “You’re somethin’ else, brother.”