by Max Monroe
Without even thinking, I went after him.
“Levi!” I yelled as he rounded the corner of the building. He didn’t slow, so I sped up. Salty, slushy gravel crunching under my boots, I ran as fast as I could without busting my ass.
He had the driver’s door open and was dropping into the seat when I finally caught up.
“Levi! Wait!”
“I gotta go, Ivy,” he said, his patience waning. “The man’s waving a shotgun around if you didn’t hear. We’ll have our meeting when I get back.”
I ignored his insinuation and used all of the breath I had left after the jog to demand, “Take me with you.”
His mouth turned down at the corners. “Fuck no.”
“Please,” I begged desperately, my hands shaking as I clasped them in front of me.
I wasn’t sure whether to blame it on the cold or the thirst for experience.
This—riding along to a real-life scenario—was exactly what I needed. I could have all the meetings in the world with as many police officers as would give me their time, but I needed to be out there in the field.
I needed to feel real fear and test out my ability to make split-second decisions. Only then would I be able to understand what Grace had gone through.
“I need this. I don’t need the stupid meeting where we talk and stare at each other uncomfortably for an hour. I need to know what it’s really like out there.”
He held my beseeching gaze for what felt like forever.
When the suspense finally ended, his grunt seemed mined from the deepest recesses of his self-control. “Get in. Quickly.”
I booked. Feet pounding, arms churning, I rounded the car as fast as my lungs would allow. If I thought I could have pulled it off, I would have jumped up and slid across the hood like an action hero.
I barely had my ass in the seat, my door not fully closed, when Levi slammed his foot on the gas, put a hand to my headrest, and backed up on a spray of gravel. Wisely, I didn’t bother to try to reach for the door as it swung out of my hand, and though it was fighting valiantly to be released, managed to keep my scream inside my throat.
The door situation righted itself, thankfully shutting closed as he pulled the shifter into drive and slammed his foot onto the gas again.
I glanced over cautiously, cataloging the focus on his face for future reference.
“So…uh…do you get calls like this a lot?”
“People take their property pretty seriously around here, Ivy. If you weren’t an out-of-towner, I would have spent all last night fishing buckshot out of my skin.”
The corner of his mouth lifted upward for the first time since he’d caught me in a lie, and I thought I might faint. Hand to God, he was the living, breathing, modern-day version of Adonis.
I had to ignore it.
A couple of days in and we’d been nothing but two left feet, tripping over one another so much we had no option but to drag the other down in a bid to survive.
Finally, I felt like I’d gotten some of my coordination back. Sure, he was making fun of me now, but I would take it. Anything that kept us from being at each other’s throats and got in the way of my being able to learn what I needed to about Grace Murphy.
And thinking he was attractive—or God forbid letting that fascination grow into wanting him—would undoubtedly take us right back down the spiral to hell.
He reached forward and flicked on the lights and siren with a sinewy, veined arm, and then took the first right at an alarming speed. When he came to the next intersection, a left was our fate.
He didn’t look to anything to guide him, and another question popped into my head. “I take it you know where Joe Morris lives?” Mona hadn’t given him an address or anything.
He nodded, the strong line of his jaw flexing with the motion. “I know where everyone lives in Cold.”
“Wow.” That seemed like a lot of information to keep up with, but he was already shaking his head without my even having to say anything to that effect.
“I’ve lived here all my life. Been a cop here for a decade. And there’s not a whole lot of turnover. Most of these people have lived on the property they live on now longer than I’ve been alive.”
People didn’t move? In LA, people were looking for bigger and better places on what seemed like a weekly basis. The idea that all of these people could be happy in the same place for the span of their entire life fascinated me—especially given the reason I was here in the first place.
And he’d been a cop for a decade? Wow. That meant he had to be in his thirties—depending on what he’d done for school, maybe even thirty-five. I wasn’t sure he’d react kindly to a question about his age, though, so I kept my ponderings to myself.
“Nobody took off when the Cold-Hearted Killer was here? What about after?”
“Talking time is over,” Levi announced as my body pushed into the door with the force of our turn into Joe Morris’s driveway. I wasn’t an expert in the town, I didn’t know where everyone lived, but the guy standing out in the front pasture with a shotgun pointed directly at another guy was a dead giveaway. “Stay in the car,” he ordered as we slid to a dramatic stop and the gear shifter slipped easily into park.
He didn’t give me time to agree or disagree. He moved so quickly it seemed like one second he was next to me, and the following, he was walking straight at the guy with the gun.
I strained my ears to hear what they were saying from inside the car, but the thing may as well have been a well-constructed voice-over booth. I couldn’t hear a damn thing.
Unacceptable.
First, in an attempt to follow orders, I searched the door panel for a button to put the window down. I found it, but when I pressed the button, it didn’t do anything. The car was still running; there hadn’t been enough time to shut it off, so I had to assume police cars came equipped with child locks on steroids for any and all controls not within the cabin of the driver himself.
Dejected, I focused back out the windshield, on Levi’s back—right as Joe Morris took the gun he had pointed at the squatter and turned it on Levi.
Something overcame me, boiling deep from the pit of my stomach and turning my throat raw. I didn’t hesitate, and I most certainly didn’t think.
Because if I had, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have ended up with the gun pointed at me, wind whipping a sting into my nose as I yelled, “Stop!”
Just a minute ago, I’d been in the warmth of Levi’s police car, struggling to hear, and now, I was out in the cold, staring down the barrel of a shotgun with an angry Levi at my back. One positive, though—I could hear just fine.
“Ivy!” Levi growled. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
It wasn’t a ridiculous question. Fear and adrenaline pounded through my arms, the tips of my fingers tingling with the intensity, and for the first time in my life, I questioned whether my lack of impulse control was a bad thing. Up until this point, all of my rash decisions had only led to moments that changed my life for the better.
But this one had the potential to affect my life in a whole other way—by ending it.
Out to the side like a flag, Ivy’s hair whipped in the wind so violently it looked like it’d take her head with it. I, perversely, stood frozen in place as everything in my past collided with the present.
“Stop!” she yelled, the sound of her voice like a bullet in the open Montana air. It cracked through the silence and hit me in the chest hard enough that I came back to life.
“Ivy!” I yelled. Her name sounded rough in the unforgiving winter air, like it didn’t go with all the leftover snow and tranquility. “Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
Her ridiculous outfit was like a comedian in the middle of a full-on drama and reminded me that I didn’t know her mind at all. For as much as she looked like a woman I’d known for most of my life, a woman she was supposed to be learning to embody, her mind was something entirely different.
Maybe this was normal behavior for
her. Maybe she took huge risks and led with her heart. Maybe she didn’t know how to think through a situation at all.
“Hi,” she said to Joe Morris, extending a hand out for him to shake like there wasn’t a gun pointed at her pretty face. “I’m Ivy Stone.”
Time slowed as I stepped forward. I moved with the speed of a turtle, afraid anything faster might startle Joe into pulling the trigger.
“Ivy,” I called again, but this attempt was gentler.
Neither she nor Joe was listening.
But the gun came down—one inch, two, until the barrel was finally pointing toward the lifeless ground.
“Ivy Stone?” Joe mused, rolling the hard planes of her name around on his tongue. “My wife talks about your movies all the time. What in Sam Hill are you doin’ here?”
“Making a movie,” she replied with a simple smile.
Joe looked around behind us, the squatter long forgotten as he took off at a run down the lane and out into the wilderness. I had a feeling I’d be getting another call about him, from someone else, in a couple of days. “You got a film crew here now?”
But I was done. I couldn’t stand here and listen to this shit for even a second longer. My fuse had been lit, was burning at an alarming rate, and it would be a hell of a lot better for all involved if it didn’t blow here.
“Joe,” I cut in. “Next time you have a problem, call the police instead of going for your gun.”
I couldn’t tell you his response because I didn’t wait for it. I grabbed Ivy by the elbow and dragged her back to the car, her little legs churning at double speed to keep up. When we got to the hood, I let her go with a small but gentle shove, ordering, “Get in the fucking car. Now.”
Thankfully, telling her to get in went over better than telling her not to get out. She moved quickly to jump in the passenger seat and shut her door, and I took a full breath for the first time since she’d stepped in front of me and into the line of fire.
If it hadn’t been for the cutesy wave she’d given Joe through the windshield as I put the car in reverse and pressed my foot to the gas, I might have cooled down.
Now, my fire was raging, and there wasn’t a chance in hell of putting it out anytime soon.
“You’re insane!” I shouted into the confined space. Ivy winced. The volume was enough to bust your eardrums, I knew, but I had absolutely no control over it. None. It had been abandoned, a mile of bad road back in the other direction. “A fucking certifiable lunatic! I should turn you over my knee.”
Foot nearly to the floor, I was driving way too fast, but I needed her out of the car. I needed to make it back to the station and put as much distance between us as possible before I lost my mind. I felt like my younger self, wild and violent and rebellious. I didn’t want to act like the cop I’d grown into with her here. I couldn’t. She flipped some sort of switch, and until she wasn’t around anymore, I couldn’t flip it back.
“Levi—”
I refused to let her speak.
“That’s it. No more. I thought I could be nice and try to take you along. Give you a goddamn chance, but no more,” I seethed, fear and worry and history and awful fucking memories all swirling in my mind to create rage. “You’ve obviously got a death wish, and I’m not about to cart you around, giving you chances to make it happen!”
“Oh, come on. This wasn’t about some hedonistic suicide attempt. He had a gun pointed at you!”
“Yeah, I know. It’s happened more than once, and it’ll happen again. But I’ve been trained for it! Not sure if you remember, but I’m the actual cop out of the two of us.”
“I’m the one who defused the situation,” she argued stubbornly.
God, the idea of taking her over my knee and spanking her little ass grew more desirable by the second.
“Joe Morris had as much of a chance of shooting me as you have at riding along with me ever again. He knew my grandfather. He held me as a baby. Information I took into account when I got out of the car and walked right at him. You…” I shook my head. “I don’t know what in the hell you were thinking!”
“I was thinking—”
“You weren’t thinking at all,” I interrupted. “Not one fucking thing!”
Finally—fucking finally—I turned into the parking lot of the station, pulled into a spot, and shut off the engine. I thought I’d jump right out, put the distance between us immediately, but the pull to yell at her was still too strong.
“Of all the stupid, self-destructive things you could—”
There was no notice. No time to prepare. Lungs fully engaged and voice gruff with emotion, I was halfway through my latest diatribe when she leaned forward and slammed her lips to mine.
Flesh to flesh, she inhaled, taking in my scent and replacing it with the fruity medley of her own, and I had to work to keep breathing. Her lips were sweet, and her presence was…overwhelming.
God, she tastes good.
I kicked feverishly for the surface as every hot touch of her mouth pulled me under, but the taste of her tongue was too sweet and the electricity running through my body too real.
Her lips were supple and insistent, and her tongue worked at mine intimately. It was knowing and direct, and God, it was like we’d kissed a million times in a million lives before this one.
When I finally found the will to break it off, I was half hard and angrier than ever. Angry that she’d done it. Angry that she’d caught me off guard. Furious that I couldn’t convince myself not to like it.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
Her green eyes were wide, off-kilter in a way I suspected my own mirrored. But regardless of the shock, her reply was unrepentant. “I had to do something to shut you up. And since you have a gun on your hip, kissing you seemed like a better option than any form of physical violence.”
Nerves fried already, I nearly came out of my skin as Levi slammed his door with a crack and stalked toward the station.
Did I really just kiss him?
Sweet merciful shotgun, I was so fucking mortified, I daydreamed briefly about going back to Joe Morris’s land and having him put me out of my misery.
The decision to kiss Levi had been so sudden it was nonexistent, and looking back, I couldn’t even pinpoint it as a moment in time. I’d been sitting there, trying to get a word in edgewise as he yelled and berated and called my intelligence into question again and again. His features had been severe and intense, but I remembered thinking they were so obviously involved.
My well-being and the threat to it—that was what had him hysterical.
And, God, even madder than fire, he’d looked so good.
The next thing I knew, I was on him like white on rice.
I could still feel the tingle of his lips on mine, the recklessness with which he’d kissed me back branded on my body like a physical mark. I didn’t even think he’d known he was doing it, maybe still didn’t know that he had, but Levi Fox, one of the biggest assholes I’d ever met, had just given me the best kiss of my life.
As a result, I suspected he hated me even more. My response? The opposite.
To say I was intrigued by him would have been the understatement of the century.
For some inexplicable reason, I felt drawn to Levi like a moth to a flame.
How in the hell was I supposed to deal with that?
Flurries floated mindlessly to the ground outside the window of Grace’s house as Boyce Williams, producer on Cold, droned on from his spot at the kitchen table. The sun was setting over the tops of the still lush evergreens on the property, and the evening appeal of a good stiff drink had never looked better.
I was trying hard to listen to every word and detail as he shuffled through the beginning of the script and a few small changes they’d had the screenwriter make, but I was too lost in the chaos of my thoughts.
They were the exact opposite of the steady calm snow outside, and they heated my cheeks to a ruby shine.
I’d been the one to kiss Levi Fo
x.
But, Jee-zus, he’d wrecked me.
So much so I couldn’t fucking concentrate.
“…So, in the opening scene, when Grace was in the station alone, weaving through file after file of information on the victims, we’re going to have Levi Fox be there with her instead.”
My head jerked up at the sound of his name.
“Levi Fox?”
Boyce nodded as though I’d been following along all this time. “Yeah. The research team thinks highlighting a male and female lead will make the film resonate with more male viewers.”
I rolled my eyes. Of course, they thought people would care more about the movie if it wasn’t all about a woman.
“Plus, adding a romance aspect to the film will appeal to more viewers in general.”
“A romance aspect?” I questioned. That definitely hadn’t been a part of the original screenplay.
Grace’s determination, her strength, her character, her sacrifice? Yes.
But romance? No.
“Yes, between Grace and Levi.”
“But I thought the point was to keep it as close to factual as possible…”
Grace and Levi had been coworkers. Two cops who were striving to solve an important case in a small town. A case that involved a serial killer.
What in the fuck did romance have to do with that?
Boyce tilted his head, each degree of the cocked angle taking his condescension to a douchier level. “It’s based on a true story, Ivy. But it’s not a fucking documentary. The goal is to make money.”
Pain pricked as I clamped down on my tongue. It was gearing up to run away, I could feel it, and the last thing I needed to do was lose my job. If I blew this, it’d be the top of an ugly downward spiral to nothingness. But beyond that, I’d be doing Grace Murphy a huge disservice. I knew for a fact that no other Hollywood diva they could bring up here would care even one iota as much as I did about getting her right.
Boyce sighed. “Just go over the changes with a fine-tooth comb. Johnny Atkins will be up here in a week and a half to start filming, and the two of you will need to be on the same page.”