Page 14 of Up In Smoke

As she got a good look at the second face, she saw it was clearly not Luke. He’d sounded like Luke, and he was built the same, but shorter. He lacked the charming grin and happy light to his eyes. It was just the voice that sounded the same.

Luke held his arm extended away from the other man, and she caught a flash of what could only be a small baggie of drugs.

She was not supposed to be here.

Ivy gasped, and she could see from the way his shoulders jerked that he heard her.

Chapter Twelve

Luke threw the small bag of drugs back at Mario, not surprised when it bounced off his brother's chest and fell into the leaves nearby.

Shit. It would have been better had Mario caught it and gotten the hell out of here. If his brother was startled at his sudden change in attitude, he didn’t complain. After all, he'd gotten his drugs back. And Luke guessed he'd gotten his answer.

“You don’t know!” Mario yelled.

“Knowwhat?”

“Carlos—”

“This is aboutyou, Mario. Only about you!” Not again. He'd wanted his mother to be right, but now he felt the pressure at the back of his eyes from what he’d just learned. It was anger and sorrow and frustration to the point that he wanted to hit something—most likely his brother.

It had cost them everything they had to get Mario into rehab the last time. Mario made shitty decisions and they all paid for it. His brother stole from his mother and she let him, and Luke had no idea what he was going to do this time. He knew it was a disease, and it wasn’t truly Mario’s fault … but it wasn’thiseither.

He sighed. He didn't have much time for a moral dilemma. Mario leaned over and swiped the drugs from the ground. Thank God, because if he hadn't been able to find them, and they'd had to search for Mario's stupid blue pills that contained God-knew-what Luke wasn't sure how he would have handled it. He had to get Mario out of here before his brother spotted Ivy.

Putting his hand out to his side, he kept his palm facing backwards, in a motion for Ivy to stay back, and he could only hope she heeded him.

Lord knew what she was doing out here following him. When his brother was finally gone, Luke turned around, not surprised to see that she was no longer hidden but standing in the middle of the path. One hip was cocked, her arms crossed, and a glare graced her beautiful face. She was so mad, and she had no right to follow him, but every right to be upset about what she’d just seen.

“What the hell are you even doing?” she asked, but before he could answer, she shook her head. “No, I don't care. I don't want to know. Don't come back to my house.”

She turned to walk away, and he didn't know why he did it. There was simply something so harsh about her telling him not to come back. Was it because he felt a deep need to pay off his debt to her and this would stop him? The debt she didn't know that he owed, but he did.

Was it simply because he wouldn't be able to see her again? There was something about Ivy Dean that drew him like a magnet, that hit him hard in the solar plexus.

Everything was jumbled, and he had no idea why. But he reached out and grabbed her arm. “Wait a minute.”

Her eyes flared wide—in fear or anger, he couldn't tell. With an expert move, she twisted his hand until he let go. He was smart enough to release his grip before she got hurt. Ivy Dean was not going to be held on to.

“Ivy, we have to talk.”

“I don't know that we do.” She turned away again.

Out of habit or sheer need, he reached to grab her once more. But the sharp look she gave him told him that she would likely press charges for kidnapping if he even tried it.

“Please?” It was the only thing he could think of.

She spun to face him but still managed to give no quarter. “You're dealing drugs now, too?”

She wasn’t agreeing to talk, but he would have to if he didn’t want to be on her bad side. For some reason, that felt even worse than what he’d just learned about Mario. So he decided to tell her what he could. “No, that was my brother.”

As the words left his lips and he saw the reflection of his own pain in her eyes, he realized there was nothing to do but come clean. Whatever Ivy would imagine—like he’d suddenly become the local dealer—would be infinitely worse than the truth. As bad as the truth was, it was his best option.

“He's been in rehab twice. It costs my mother and me and my youngest brother Carlos everything to put him in.”

Her expression softened for just a moment but hardened again, quickly. “So he's using again and you're …What?meeting him in the woods to discuss it?”

“No,” Luke shook his head, his hand reaching up to cover his face. This got worse and worse. How could he untangle what she’d seen and what had happened and what he’d actually been intending to do when he drove out here? “How long did you follow me? All the way through town?”

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