Seconds later, an operator’s voice echoed over the line, and Ivy explained the situation.
“I’ll send Sheriff Boles right over,” the operator said. “Are you sure you’re all right, miss?”
Ivy squeezed the phone so tightly her fingers grew numb. No, she wasn’t sure. Matt Mahoney’s steely look had started her heart pounding.
“Miss?”
“Y-yes, just send the sheriff.”
“All right. Hang tight.”
Ivy’s hands trembled as she placed the handset back into the cradle. “The sheriff’s on his way.”
Matt grimaced. “It looks like someone doesn’t want you in town, Ivy.”
Her frayed nerves shattered at his blunt tone. “But no one here knows my real identity.”
A deep sarcastic chuckle rumbled from his chest. “Apparently someone does.”
She shuddered. He was right. The sideswipe incident earlier suddenly took on a more dire meaning. But who had figured out her identity? And why would they want to run her out of town?
Matt cleared his throat. “I imagine they won’t be too happy to see me, either.”
She bit her lip, a million questions racing through her mind. “Why did you come back?”
“Why do you think?”
He stepped closer, so close she inhaled the scent of soap, something clean and fresh like Irish Spring. But another more woodsy odor radiated from him, as well, all primal male. A muscle ticked in his jaw as he waited for her reply. But she couldn’t find her voice.
“I came to see you,” he finally said in a gruff voice.
“Me?” Her voice quivered. “But…why?”
He lifted his big hand and twirled a damp strand of hair around his finger. Tension radiated from every pore in his body, the heat between them igniting a mixture of fear and excitement in her belly. He had the darkest, deepest eyes she’d ever seen. Brown. No, black. He looked so lost and angry. So alone.
The way she’d felt so many times.
His pain drew her. She suddenly wanted to wipe it from his eyes. Assure him that life wasn’t all evil.
Miss Nellie would say she was a sucker.
That erotic dream floated back. Matt Mahoney kissing her. Stripping off her clothes. Touching her in secret places. Eliciting feelings she’d never felt before. Making her come alive.
A bold and sexy look flared in his eyes. Hunger. Lust. The urgent need of a man to take what he wanted.
She backed away, frightened by the potency of that desire. Half wanting it, half terrified of the desperate need that accompanied it.
He chuckled sardonically. “Don’t worry, Ivy, I’m not going to attack you.” Still, he moved closer again, until he was only a breath away, until his masculine scent trapped her like honey did a fly. With a soft sigh, he traced a finger down the side of her cheek, and her skin tingled.
“I’ve been waiting a long time for us to meet face-to-face, so you could explain why you didn’t tell everyone what happened that night,” he said in a husky voice. “Why you let them throw me in a cell to rot for the rest of my life when you knew I was innocent?”
MATT STEELED HIMSELF AGAINST the pain that flashed on Ivy’s face. He had every right to be angry. To confront her. After all, he’d waited fifteen damn years to do so. Half a lifetime, during which his life had disintegrated, where he’d been shunned and cast aside. But he hadn’t banked on the fact that frightening Ivy would carve a pit of guilt in his belly. Make him feel like the low-down criminal everyone thought him to be.
Or that the sudden attraction he felt for her might be reflected in her own expressive eyes.
No, he’d imagined her reaction. Been so desperate for a woman that he’d twisted fear into desire. Ivy was too young, too beautiful, too innocent for a man like him.
She licked her lips and his throat went dry.
“I…I’m sorry, Matt.”
“Sorry?” he hissed. “Sorry doesn’t make up for prison, Ivy.”
“I know.” Her eyes flickered with regret, and he silently cursed, wishing he could drag his gaze away from her soft, luscious-looking mouth. The other half of him wanted to kiss her. Taste those sweet pink lips. Swirl his tongue inside and watch her fall apart in his arms.
Damn. Ivy was not a little girl anymore. And he wanted her with a vengeance.
Yet, just as they had fifteen years ago, emotions moved inside him, careening around like he was on a free fall ride. A gut instinct to protect her rifled through him. Even if it meant protecting her from him.
Only Ivy did that to him. Made him think. Feel. Want things he couldn’t have. Dreams he couldn’t afford to acknowledge.
“I don’t remember what happened that night, Matt,” she said in a low, strained voice. “I…that’s the reason I came back here. I need to remember.”
He flattened his mouth in a thin line. Wanted to tell her he didn’t believe her. But the truth radiated in her tortured eyes.
Disturbed by his reaction to her, he dragged his gaze away. Scanned the room. Saw a dingy-looking, cloth Santa perched on top of the faded wooden dresser. Memories crashed back. Ivy clinging to a Santa doll that night. Dropping it in the mud. Him picking it up and carrying her, trying to shield her against the rain.
His gut clenched as another memory followed. One he’d forgotten. Ivy in town, stopping to give half of her peanut butter sandwich to a homeless blind man begging on the street. Her clothes had been hanging off of her, her shoes ratty. She’d barely had enough to eat herself. But she’d been kind to the old man.
A siren wailed from outside, and Matt swallowed, every nerve in his body bunched tight. She’d seen him looking at the Santa, and her face had turned ashen. Had she really blocked out memories of that night?
The siren grew louder. His first instinct urged him to flee as fast as he could. But running would only make him look guilty, just as hiding out the night of the Stantons’ slaying had.
Good God. How had he landed himself into this mess his first night back in Kudzu Hollow?
A pounding on the door brought reality back, and Ivy rushed to answer it.
A.J. Boles, his teenage buddy, stood in the doorway, wearing a sheriff’s uniform, rain dripping off the brim of his hat. Matt couldn’t have been more surprised if his own sorry-assed daddy had returned to welcome him home.
A.J. had been a hellion in their day, had liked vandalizing cars, playing with fire, drinking and women. Yeah, he’d especially liked women. He’d even bragged about screwing the married ones, choosing who to bang just because he hated their rich husbands. A.J.’s own daddy had been pretty well-off, was some big shot real estate developer. Matt had
