television. He jogged down the stairs and outside.
As he peeled out of the parking lot, he double-shifted for more immediate speed. The engine of the SUV gave a squeal of pure shock at what was being asked of it. Hunter didn’t know what he was looking for as he sped down Main Street. He didn’t know what kind of car she was driving these days. His eyes scanned the roadsides for a heap of smoldering metal. Mountainsides were harder than barn walls.
Then he spotted the BMW pulled to the side up ahead, just idling there. She was fine. She’d had the sense to pull over.
He stopped behind her. His headlights threw the interior of her car into a glare brighter than full noon on the high desert. He saw her fumbling with her armrest as he jumped down out of the SUV, probably trying to find the lock button. He ran to drag the door open before she could manage it.
She screamed.
“It’s me.” Hunter caught her elbow and dragged her bodily out of the little car. She fought him like a madwoman. Maybe his words hadn’t penetrated. Then again, maybe they had, and she really hated him this much.
He caught her wrists as she pummeled his chest with them. “Stop it!” He shouted this time. “Stop it!”
“I hate you!” she screamed.
Right on the second try, he thought. She’d known it was him. “No problem. You’re real low on my list of favorite people, as well.”
She reared back. “What are you doing here?”
Losing my mind. “You can’t drive when you’re upset. Hell, you can’t drive on a good day.” He sounded like an idiot, even to himself.
“This from Mr. Anaheim,” she spat.
He scowled at her. “Mr. Who?”
“Anaheim! That’s where you went when you left me!”
It took him a moment, but he made sense of it. Pritch’s trial track.
“Let me go.” She tugged against his grip.
“Calm down first. And you left me.”
“The hell I did! But I will now if you’ll get your hands off me!”
Hunter let her hands go but grabbed her shoulders. He wanted to shake her. “You were pregnant when you told me to leave that bar!”
“And you left!” she shouted back.
Then she started shaking.
He felt it under his fingertips, tremors that grew and shuddered. Hunter pulled his hands back fast. For more than eight long, cold years, he’d imagined ways to punish her for leaving him as if he was yesterday’s garbage. Now he couldn’t let her emotion rock him.
“I’m going to be a part of that little girl’s life,” he said more quietly.
For more than eight desperate, aching years, she’d imagined ways to make him hurt as badly as he’d hurt her, Liv thought. Her breath chugged a little, then she finally got her voice back. “No. You’re not. Because I won’t allow it.”
He leaned closer, pinning her back against her car. He stopped only when his face was inches from hers. “You have no options here, Livie. I’m bigger than you are. You can’t stop me if I decide I’m headed somewhere.”
“Try me.” Liv’s fist found his gut. She was rewarded by a grunt of breath.
She started to twist away, but then something in his eyes stopped her. His gaze turned heated and speculative at the same time she realized what she had just said. “I didn’t mean—”
“Why, Livie. Was that an invitation?” He pulled her back and his mouth found hers.
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