Page 50 of Cruel Expectations

He appeared stiff, his shoulders barricading the door. Several times he moved to shut it, but the man braced it open with a palm on the wood.

Hunter’s senses prickled. The menace in that move had Hunter’s inner alarms blaring.

“Daddy doesn’t look happy with that man.” Meadow’s voice wobbled.

“No, he doesn’t,” Colton agreed in a gritty voice.

Hunter waved at the screen. “Ivy, download that video. We’ll send it to the police so they can run facial recognition.”

“Doing that now. But first I’m going to…” She broke off, lips twisted in concentration as she enhanced the image of the visitor. “Aha!”

She dragged and dropped the image in a search bar on another screen. In seconds, a dozen or so photos popped up, including a social media profile of a man who looked just like the one who’d come to the door.

His eyes were hollow, his expression cocky.

“That man is not a friend,” Ivy said very slowly.

Hunter gently moved her aside to get at the keyboard. He did a quick search of the name. After a moment, information appeared on the man.

Ivy sucked in sharply. “Is anybody else seeing what I’m seeing?”

The man’s office was located out of his home, and his friends on social media were sketchy at best.

“He’s a loan shark.” Ivy’s whisper held a sharp edge.[MOU2]

And judging by the way all the color left her face, she knew more than she was letting on.

Chapter Eleven

“Ivy.”

She saw the way Hunter looked at her after they discovered the man who’d visited her father was a loan shark.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She rushed toward the entryway and pushed through the screen door.

“Ivy, stop.”

She kept walking. The thump of his footsteps on the floorboards pushed her faster.

“Ivy!” He grabbed her by the arm. When he spun her to face him, she tried to pull away, but he gripped her waist and held her.

She stared up at him, heart pounding, but not from what she knew about her father’s affairs or the loan shark who’d visited him.

From Hunter’s demanding touch.

God, she’d never been that woman who whimpered over the rough types, but the way he seized her had her panties flooding.

Behind them, the screen door banged shut. Instead of moving away from her, Hunter dragged her around the corner of the big wraparound porch, out of Meadow and Colton’s sight.

“You can’t just drag me around like a piece of furniture!”

He glared down at her. “You can’t just walk into a man’s room and steal clothes from his closet.”

She raised her jaw a notch. When she’d gone into the bunkhouse looking for Hunter, one of the guys told her he was out working on the ranch, so she’d gone exploring. After finding the room he shared with Marks, she nosed around a bit.

Opening the small cupboard that held his belongings, she caught the scent of his masculine bodywash or cologne. It smelled so good that she poked around looking for another one of his shirts that carried his scent.

The tees he had hung up amidst a chambray shirt and that fantastic leather coat he’d worn on the plane from Germany didn’t interest her. Then she saw the duffel on the floor and found the jersey tucked next to a bottle of good foreign cologne—the source of that delicious scent that drove her crazy.

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