Page 138 of Proof of Guilt

She did, though it was impossible to see in or out of it since it was made of glass blocks. Still, it wouldn’t stop bullets like the stone.

Ivy watched the laptop, and it didn’t take long for the images from the security cameras to appear on the screen. Six total. And while the cameras covered the ranch grounds, that still didn’t mean someone couldn’t snake their way through the trees and shrubs, staying out of sight of both the cameras and the hands. Though if that happened, maybe the motion sensors would detect them.

“I used to sneak to your old house this way,” Theo said. He tapped the screen to the right of her parents’ house. No one lived there now, but once there’d been a trail of sorts that led from the road and then coiled around to the back of the place where Ivy met him at the back door and let him in.

“Sneaked him in” was closer to the truth. Her parents had never been keen on her seeing Theo, so to avoid the arguments with them, it was just easier to let them believe she wasn’t seeing him.

“I remember. My bedroom was on that side of the house, and sometimes I’d sit in the window and watch for you when you were coming over.”

Actually, she’d done that even when he hadn’t said he would be over. Theo had pretty much dominated her thoughts in those days.

In some ways, he still did.

Like now, for instance.

His attention was on the laptop, but in profile she could still see enough of his face to bring back the old memories. Of their first kiss. The first time they’d made love. Ivy had been a virgin—Theo hadn’t been—but it had felt incredibly special. Like something that’d never happened between two people before.

She silently cursed just how naive she’d been in those days. Because many couples probably felt that way. Couples who had managed to stay together and not be ripped apart by something as tragic as murder.

Theo went to another screen, this one on the trail that led from the old house to Gabriel’s. Something caught her eye, and it must have caught Theo’s as well because he zoomed in on a spot on the ground. She sank down on the floor next to him, their backs

against the vanity while he made the necessary keystrokes to get the right angle.

Ivy hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until she got a closer look and then relaxed. “It’s one of the blue bows that’d been on the fences. A wedding decoration,” she added. “It must have blown off and landed there.”

Theo made a sound of agreement but zoomed in even more. Maybe to make sure the bow wasn’t covering something like a weapon. But it wasn’t. They were able to determine that when the wind blew it again and it skittered against one of the shrubs.

“Blue, Jodi’s favorite color,” Theo remarked. “She used to plan her wedding to Gabriel when she was just a kid. She had a notebook with pictures she’d cut out of magazines.”

Ivy nodded. “I remember. I also remember Gabriel always saying he was too old for her.”

“At the time, he was. Five years is a big gap when she was just thirteen, and he was already legally an adult.”

Yes. But that hadn’t stopped Jodi from making those plans or her feelings for Gabriel. Now, here all this time later, she would finally get to marry the man she’d dreamed about, the man she loved.

“I used to plan our wedding,” Ivy mumbled. Oh, mercy. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud, so she quickly added, “You know, when I was a kid.”

Actually, she’d been a teenager and was still planning it right up to the time of the big blowup and murders.

Theo turned to her, and she got a much better look at his face now that it wasn’t just his profile. And she felt that old punch of heat. Definitely not a good time for it, so she looked away.

Theo didn’t, though.

From the corner of her eye she could see he was still watching her. Probably because he was stunned by what she’d just said. As a teenage boy, he certainly wouldn’t have been into wedding planning and such.

“Did you ever hate me for leaving?” he asked.

Now she was the one who was stunned. “No.” It probably would have been a good time for her to at least pause and pretend to think about that. A good time, too, for there not to be so much heat in her voice. It was probably in her eyes, too. They’d been skirting this attraction since they’d come back to Blue River, but the skirting stopped suddenly.

Theo slid his hand around the back of her neck, pulled her to him and kissed her.

* * *

THIS KISS HAD mistake written all over it. And worse, Theo had known he was going to kiss Ivy from the moment she sat on the floor next to him. He also had known it would be good.

It was.

But that still didn’t mean they should be doing this. For one thing, it was the quickest way for him to lose focus. Of course, Theo’s body had a comeback for that—at the moment, there was no danger, and if that changed, the sensors would alert them to it. Still, this wasn’t the right time or the right place. Too bad the thing that overrode that solid argument was that while everything else about it was wrong, Ivy was the right woman.

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