Page 78 of Up In Smoke

After showering, he threw on jeans and a thermal T. He considered a nice shirt and tie, but Ivy would have wondered what he was doing in one anyway. He took deep breaths as he drove to her house, parked in the driveway, and checked the place for damage or “for sale” signs.

The garage door was down, the house intact and each time he'd driven by he told himself that was a good thing. But was she home? Was she watching him as he walked up to the front door and knocked?

He held his breath until she answered, his heart soaring as he took in her long khaki skirt that reached almost to her ankles. The pink sweater twinset was buttoned only at the top and her hair was pulled back into a bun at her lower neck. She looked like she did when he’d first met her and just the sight of her made him smile.

But Ivy looked him up and down as though he were a stranger, checking his hands as if he should have brought flowers. “Why are you here?”

He should have brought her flowers.

“I'm so sorry about what my brother put you through. I hope you know that if I could change it, I would.” She opened her mouth to say something, but he held her off. He needed to say everything. “The time we spent together was the best time of my life. I've never been as happy as I was with you. And I'm sure you can't say the same, but—” She opened her mouth again and again he plowed ahead, far too scared to stop. “Is there any chance for us?”

She blinked at him, unspeaking. She shook her head at him, confused at the idea that he would even darken her doorstep and he blurted the words he should have said well before now, “Ivy, I love you.”

This time she did speak, her voice quiet. “You don't love me.”

He felt then everything that shattered inside him.

“Luke?” she asked “Luke?”

But he couldn’t hear her as he turned away and trotted down the steps. His head roared and the pressure squeezed his eyes and his ribs, but he tried to look normal. He tried to not break into a run as the pieces of him cracked and crumbled and fell to the ground.

It was all more than he could handle.

He held his hand up, waving goodbye to her behind him without looking back. He shook his head. The pressure mounting as he sprinted to his car, climbed in, and sped away.

Chapter Sixty

Ivy came out of the shower, towel in hand, drying her hair. “What was that?”

She looked to Lily. Her sister had come back the next day, knocking softly on the back door once the commotion had died down. Now she looked concerned. “It was Luke, your Luke.”

“What?” Ivy’s heart tightened. She missed him so much but she hadn't yet figured out what to do with her sister.

She’d called off work, grateful for yet another very valid excuse to miss—a gunshot wound to her arm would do it. She’d done everything she could to help. They'd ordered Lily's birth certificate from the hospital. Ivy and Lily had been the last ones born there. Their mother had all the other children at home. Lily had no social security number, Ivy knew, she’d had to file for her own at sixteen.

The sisters had talked for hours. Lily was married, she was Lily Baker now. And she desperately needed a divorce from a man who would sign no such papers.

Just as Ivy had suspected the moment she’d seen her sister, Lily was bringing trouble. No one left easily.

Lily told her how she'd been caught sneaking out of the commune—a commune Ivy hadn't known existed. Since she’d been kicked out, and in part because of that incident, several of the families had bought land together, built homes and a church and taken themselves further out of society.

There weren't walls, Lily said, but there were definitely borders. “I got on a bus and made my way to a women's shelter and then I made the mistake of going back for my things.”

That had been six months ago. Six months they'd held Lily until she managed to escape again.

But Luke had just come here. Lily, wearing some of Ivy's clothes—that of course fit her—looked at her sister.

“You need to do something about him,” her sister chided.

Ivy almost smiled. She damn well did. “I don't know why you answered the door.”

Lily was supposed to stay hidden. “I thought he might be delivering my birth certificate, and that I’d have to sign for it. Anyway. He told me that he loved me. Meaning he lovesyou.”

Ivy stopped, her heart clenching. Lily would be okay, Luke could be trusted.

She had to go find him.

She would have run out the door right then. But she was wearing only a towel and she had this stupid bandage to change. “What? What did you say?”

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