Page 50 of Up In Smoke

“Is that what youwant?” she asked. Was he simply trying to break up with her and the arsonist had become a convenient excuse?

Her heart clenched and ice froze in little tendrils through her blood. Luke being Luke, somehow seemed to see it. He walked forward, placing his hands on either side of her face and pulled her in for a kiss that said it was absolutely not what he wanted.

She breathed a little easier then. But she was still confused. “I don't think us being separated is going to change anything. It just makes us both alone.”

“Okay.” He said it as though he was conceding to something. But then he added, “Good. I want to be with you, but I need you safe. I just don’t know what the best way to do that is.”

He stepped back, reached into a dresser drawer, and magically pulled out a pair of pants that was either exactly the pair he wanted, or else he simply didn't care what he pulled out. He stepped into them.

The apartment unit stayed warm the way he liked it, despite the cold weather outside. The snow was coming down again. Ivy looked out the window, wishing she could see who was trailing them, targeting them. Because it wasn’t just Luke’s past they were burning now, it was his present.

There were so many unknowns.

The thought of stepping away from Luke was too much. They still hadn't figured out how the arsonist had managed to ring the spa with accelerant in broad daylight. Even as Jo and Ivy had knocked on all the doors they passed, the manager had taken the whole other side. But she wasn’t a firefighter. She hadn't gotten down low quick enough. She'd inhaled too much smoke and gotten too many burns. She’d be in the hospital for a while.

Ivy and Luke were hoping that Kane and Taggart would get to her for an interview soon. But if they already had, Ivy didn't know about it yet.

Whether the arsonist was one of Luke’s brothers, or even his mother—as Leo had suggested—didn’t change the damage they’d done.

Ivy felt like they’d come a long way, but still didn't know anything. Luke didn't believe it was his mother, if only for the sheer reason that she simply didn't have the spare time or the wherewithal.

Though Leo had pointed out, “She's a smoker. That makes it easy enough to start fires.” Luke had shaken his head at the time and reminded them, “But none of the fires were started with cigarettes.”

They'd all agreed it was valid. But something had nagged at Ivy and, despite having an alibi for one of the fires each, the Hernandez brothers remained at the top of her list.

In fact, they were all leaning toward Tiago or Mario right now.

She’d spent the last week trying not to bring it up, to let Sebastian Kane and Chief Taggart do their job. She tried to have faith that they would figure it out. The problem was she had to have faith that they would figure it outbeforethe next fire was set or the next person died.

The longer it took, the harder it was to keep that faith. The more she worried that the arsonist would strike again. That she—or worse, Luke—wouldn’t survive the next time.

Jo had been injured. Ivy had been in the hospital, unable to see, for twenty-four hours. And the woman who ran the spa still hadn't gotten out. There was too much on her mind and, she knew, written on her face. Somehow, Luke read all of it.

“Ivy.”

He stepped close now as she tugged her sweater on. She would have stepped into her shoes and turned to leave, but he pulled her into his arms and held her close.

“You can't control it.”

She almost snapped back that she knew that. But he was right. She was trying to control everything the best she could. In life number one, everything had been about control and modesty. She was to be seen but not heard, and not even seen if she didn't have to be. She existed only to serve others. All control had belonged to someone else.

In life number two, the pendulum had swung wide the other way. There was no control and no modesty. She'd embraced hedonism and everything pleasurable, denying herself nothing, making no plans. She’d deigned to follow a schedule only to the bare necessity of maintaining a job, so that she could support whatever pleasure she could find on her off hours.

In life number three, the pendulum swung back. She still believed in pleasure, this time in moderation. But she'd gone back to control—embracing it to its fullest, glad that this time she was the one who wielded it. She’d graduated magna cum lauda because she controlled everything. Her modesty, and her desire for others to think well of her was another issue under her own control.

She hadn't even realized that’s what she was doing until she'd fallen into bed with Luke and he’d wrested it away from her.

“You can't control it, Ivy,” he said again.

She fell into his arms, the tears coming, because she knew that whoever was coming after them wasn't finished.

Luke knew that. She’d told him everything … almost everything.

What she hadn't told him was that someone was still watching her.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

“You’re home!” Luke stood up from the table as Ivy came in through the garage. “I hope I didn't startle you.”

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