All The Way. Beverly Bird

drive right now, not like this.

      Liv pulled over. She let the fury blaze through her, so immense, so alive it literally made red dots dance in front of her vision. How dare he?

      She’d given him every opportunity eight and a half years ago to love her enough to stay put. To fight for her. To give her the simple sweetness of knowing that he’d do whatever it took to keep her from marrying another man. Instead, he’d walked out. Out of that bar and the Flagstaff resort, out of her life. He’d gone.

      Now he dared to act as if he had some sort of rights in this situation. As a father. He dared to threaten her. To imply that she had done something wrong.

      He wanted a fight? He’d have one, Liv decided.

      It took Hunter five full minutes to remember that Liv Slade had never been able to drive worth a damn.

      He went upstairs to his room and washed the Remy from his face. He shoved his damp shirt into the bag for the laundry. His blood was pumping.

      Over the years he had learned to curb his temper. Bumper-to-bumper, quarter-panel-to-quarter-panel traffic at 180 MPH was no time to give vent to anger over some infraction committed by another driver. A retaliatory tap of metal against metal at that speed could send another man to his death. He’d learned to contain anger, to control it, to wait to finish things off after the race if need be. By then his fury had usually waned.

      But now it was liquid fire in his blood, scouring the inside of his veins with something painful and blistering, and it showed no signs of abating. He couldn’t get rid of it.

      She’d dumped him eight and a half years ago like a minor inconvenience. She’d gone chasing after her picket fences with his child. He’d taught her to laugh, to love, to ride, to drive—

      To drive.

      She’d once plowed his pickup right into the side of a barn. And she hadn’t been angry at the time. She’d actually been concentrating.

      Hunter rubbed the back of his neck at the remembered whip-lash pain and went to the phone on the nightstand. He picked it up, held it for a long moment, then he slammed it down again. Who the hell was he supposed to call to let them know there was probably a maniac on the road? He didn’t quite hate her enough to bring the cops down on her head.

      Well, he did, but that would be a particularly low blow. Not his style.

      Damn her. She hadn’t needed him eight and a half years ago, and she hadn’t needed him once in all the time that had passed since then. If she was angry now and erratic, that was her problem.

      Except she was somebody’s mother. His kid’s mother.

      Hunter swore and grabbed a T-shirt out of one of the drawers. He snatched the keys to his rented SUV off the top of the room’s 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.