Take a Chance on Me(79)

Ivy had wasted half the afternoon staring at her computer screen, listening to Darek’s words roll through her head.

I’m not going to give up on us.

Such strange, unfamiliar words, they almost didn’t make sense to her. Not give up. On us.

She simply couldn’t embrace them like this, couldn’t let them settle inside. Not when she had so much to push against them.

Like the truth. Her past. Jensen. Felicity.

With you, all the roaring anger in my head goes away, and I can forget. Even move on.

She wanted to cringe when she thought about her tirade. God wasn’t on her side? It was true, of course, but she’d never let that truth leak out. It sounded so . . . weak. Pitiful. Woe-is-me.

She’d learned early on in the foster system to hold in those kinds of moments. No one got anywhere with self-pity.

And she was getting nowhere with this warrant.

She saved it, reviewed it again, finished typing up the incidents of the complaint, and then printed it off.

A stack of DUI complaints from last weekend and one custody hearing still waited for review. She wanted to sink her head onto her desk.

“You picked a fine time to leave me, DJ.”

He’d stopped in this morning, on his way out of town, to ask, “You got this?”

“Of course,” she’d said as if she wasn’t sinking under piles of complaints to review. “Have fun in Yellowstone.”

“We’ll be out of cell range until Tuesday. But you have this under control. And Jodi will help you.”

“No problem.” Ivy had actually said that and waved him off as if, indeed, sixteen cases still to review by five o’clock tonight would be no problem at all.

Except she couldn’t get her mind off Darek.

She should have told him about Jensen. Should have just let the truth spill out, end things between them. But, well . . . You matter, he’d said, and her heart bought it. Turned her common sense off.

And when Darek held her like that, she never wanted to let go.

No, she’d done the right thing in not telling him. It seemed Darek wanted to leave it all in the past anyway, and what good was there in bringing up some remote, what’s-done-is-done memory that could only rake up the grief?

She’d let it go, and Darek would never find out. After all, clearly not even Jensen knew she’d been involved in his case.

See, she didn’t have to wreck anything.

Because despite her panic attack, the one that nearly had her running away, leaving before she got left . . . I’m not going to give up on us.

Yeah. She just might build a life here, with Darek Christiansen and his adorable son.

Ivy smiled and pulled out the next report, reading through it. A third-offense DUI. She opened a blank complaint form and began to type.

Darek had driven her home late, walked her to her door, kissed her again, holding her in those firefighter arms.

Oh, shoot. She deleted that last sentence.

For a long, crazy moment, she’d almost invited him in. By the look in his eyes, he might not have said no.

But—call her old-fashioned—she’d always wanted to wait until . . . what, marriage?

She shook the thought away. Marriage? She’d known the man for three weeks, tops.

Three amazing, breathtaking weeks—

A knock startled her right out of Darek’s embrace. “Come in.” Oh, she hoped she wasn’t blushing.

Diane opened the door. “Do you have a minute?”

“Sure, of course. Sit down.”

Diane took a chair, a folder on her lap. She wore her hair in a tight bun, and added to the business suit, she looked like one of those social workers who could decree your future and make you live with it. Ivy had never liked that type—they scared her.

But she had the power now. She folded her hands on her desk. “What can I do for you, Diane?”

“I think we have a situation we need to review.” She rested her hands on the file.

“Oh?”

“Yes. It’s a local. He’s . . . Well, this is his third complaint. And normally I wouldn’t think anything of it, but this time there’s some reason to believe the child might be in danger.”

A fist grabbed Ivy’s insides, tightened. How she hated children at risk. “Who reported it?”

“A relative. I went to talk to the father today, and he ordered me off his property. Refused to even listen, let alone allow a home study.” She opened the file. “I think we need to review it, see if there is enough for an emergency removal of the child from the home.”

Emergency removal. Ivy had been on the receiving end of that, once. She could still hear her tiny voice on the phone to the 911 operator, still hear her mother cursing as the social services agent tore Ivy from her arms.