Chapter 18

We played a game of pool then returned to the family room. I refused to grant Mom fuel for mistrust while she was on the lucid side of the drug cartel.

The doorbell gonged, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Got it,” I yelled.

I switched on the porch lights. A tall and thick dark-skinned man in a suit stood on the porch. He held a badge in a leather bifold.

“Detective Juan Santiago. Is Alice Lynwood home?”

I gulped hard. “Yes. Can I ask what this is about?”

“I have questions for her about the death of Leo Lynwood and Jillian Jerome.”

Guilt screamed in the air. My knees grew spongy. The news headlines flashed fast and furious: Betrayed wife kills husband and lover in fiery fire for two-million-dollar life insurance policy. She leaves behind four orphans for a life in unflattering prison orange.

Excuse me while I have an out-of-body experience.

Mom found me in the entryway, closing the door behind the cop. Ashen and twisting her wedding rings, she guided Detective Santiago to Dad’s office, leaving me caged in my paralyzing fear.

Jesse found me shuddering in the hallway outside the office, my arms tight across my chest. “What’s wrong?” He raced the last few steps. “Ivy?” He gripped my upper arms and shook me out of my trance.

“A cop. He’s talking to my mom about the fire.”

He dropped his hands and hugged me, breaking the bars of terror imprisoning me. I held my arms to my side before I chucked caution to the air conditioner wind and returned his hug. I took every opportunity available to touch the boy I was falling for, crack to my Jesse-addiction.

“Probably routine to close the file.” He rubbed his cheek against my head.

“What if they have suspicions?” The evidence stacked against her added up to Mom being Big Bertha’s prison bitch. Prison would kill her in more ways than one. I’d rather she took in Dad’s bastard girl child than land in orange.

“What?” Jesse stiffened against me. “You think your mom—”

“No. No.” I backpedaled. “She couldn’t hurt an ant. Dad told her he was attending a work event and she went to a separate party. She had no clue he’d gone to Santa Cruz. No clue about your mom. I meant suspicious as in someone else deliberately set the fire.” What if Jesse believed she did it? If he thought the worst, surely he’d bolt to avoid the plague I’d developed. Nope. His arms wrapped around me, mimicking the creeping vines circling his chest and arms.

“Did Dad have enemies?” His knees brushed mine, sending electrical pulses up to the juncture of my thighs.

“None I know of, but he wasn’t the most well-liked guy. Honestly, what do we really know about him?”

He kissed my forehead. “Less and less since he bought the farm.”

We returned to the family room to await… anything. The sun had set and the room tumbled into gray twilight. I switched on a table lamp. A soft amber glow stretched across the green and gold wool rug covering the dark hardwood. Jesse sprawled in Dad’s recliner.

“You look good in his chair.”

“Because I’m the man of the house now.” He grinned, kicking out his legs and rocking the recliner.

Yes, because you’re more man than our father ever was. “Did you ever envision your life turning into this freaky parallel universe?”

He strummed mystical guitar licks against his stomach. “No way. We’re in country song hell.”

I slapped my leg. “I know! Right?”

“Honestly, I’m fucking lost. I don’t know who I am anymore. He was the only father I knew.”

Our eyes met the hard truth head on. “Me too.”

The office door opened and Detective Santiago’s voice drifted down to the family room. I jumped up to check on Mom. The meeting had deflated her. Her shoulders sagged, eyes drooped. Drugs would be on taps for dessert.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Routine questions.” Mom ushered the copper to the foyer. “They have to investigate the fire from all angles.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Lynwood. Tomorrow at ten.” The detective shook her hand and departed. The thunk of the door echoed up to the vaulted ceiling and crashed down into my rattled brain.

Jesse joined us, standing next to Mom, keeping his distance from me.

“What’s at ten?” My lower lip trembled.

“They want me to take a polygraph.”

“What?” I stamped my foot. “And you agreed? Do they think you set the fire?”

“They need to rule out motives and intent before they rule it an accident.” She twisted her rings.

“Shouldn’t you contact an attorney?” Jesse scratched his jaw, his fingers rasping over his dark evening stubble.

“It’ll be okay.” Mom squeezed his arm. “Lock up. I’m going to bed. Is Jade home?”

Jesse shook his head. “I’ll talk to her about curfew.”

“It’s still early.” Mom shuffled to the stairway. Had Santiago arrested her energy? “Midnight’s okay during the summer.”

Shocked by the extravagant curfew I’d never enjoyed at fifteen let alone seventeen, I followed her to the stairway. “Be careful,” I whispered. “You want to be clear-headed tomorrow.”

“Just one pill. I need it right now.”

Did she need it to calm her nerves? Or to chill her guilt?

My phone alarm beeped my weekly reminder. If I didn’t put the trash cans at the curb by nine, there’d be hell to pay.

“Let’s go swimming,” Jesse suggested. “I need to move, do something.”

And I needed a major time-out from dwelling on the potential destruction of our lives if my mother was pegged a killer. “Okay. I’ll meet you at the pool in ten.” I ran out to the garage then screeched to a halt and banged my fist against the door when I realized hell had been paid. The Master’s reign had ended. When would it sink in? When could I claim my life as my own?

I flicked on a light. The faint scent of gas reminded me of the hoodie and I dug out the jacket. The stench of disaster stung my nose and burnt behind my eyes. Holding the jacket between thumb and forefinger, I raced to the side yard and buried it deep in the trash can, stacking three bags of garbage on top. I started rolling the bin out to the curb when a shadowy shape loomed in the side yard. Startled, I leaped a mile, tweaking my ankle on the ride down. My foot hit the cement and pain shot up my leg.

“What’s up?” Jesse had changed into swim trunks beneath his long, baggy T-shirt.

“You scared the crap out of me.” I huffed out the extra beat of my heart, massaging my ankle. “It’s trash night.”

“Oh.” He gently scooted my hand off the can handle. “I’ll do the outdoor chores now.”

I pushed his hand away and tipped the can back onto its two wheels. “It’s my job.”

“Ivy.” Jesse gently slid my hand aside again. “You don’t have to do everything anymore.”

The need to do my chores and stick to routine pressed on my chest, a heavy weight that suffocated me. Bit by bit, cracks and holes appeared in that weight, letting in fresh, new and buoyant air.

“Okay. Thanks. I didn’t want to burden you while you figure out your place here.” The half-lie rolled off my tongue. I hid my gassy-scented hands behind my back, fighting the urge to grab the recycle bin.

He smiled his cute embarrassed or uncertain crooked smile.

“Can you manage the recycle bin while I change?” The faint stench of gas wafted in the air, or maybe in my head. I hoped he wasn’t into dumpster diving, and I prayed to the voodoo gods the hoodie ended up buried ten feet under at the landfill.

“My wish is your command, Princess Vine.”

I kicked my bare foot at his leg and he laughed. He laughed harder when I stubbed my toe and yelped out the eff bomb.

“I’ll kiss it and make it better later,” he called as I hobbled away to die from the fires of mortification.

Before I headed down to the pool, I checked on my dead-to-the-world mother, leaving her sprawled in a stupor on her bed.

Shadows loomed on the dark patio and a breeze clattered palm fronds. Jesse sat on the edge of the spa, his legs dangling in the steaming water. The lights were off, including the rainbow pool lights.

“Hiding?” I eased beside him, a respectable three inches between us. Three inches too far.

“Hey.” He didn’t move.

Mist clouded in the air, not enough to hide in. I still wore my cover-up, afraid to reveal the skimpy bikini I wore underneath. It was the first time I’d worn the suit since buying it last summer, always too self-conscious to wear it at the beach, let alone at home. Still, I was glad the lights were off. Twinkling stars in the black velvet sky granted us little illumination. Romantic and comforting, the darkness hid my fears, leveled my walls a bit.

“Are you okay?” I touched his leather wristband, sliding my finger from side to side on the worn studded leather, touching the man who’d given it to him.

“Thinking about the investigation, wondering when the autopsy and investigation reports will come in.” His phone sat on the travertine patio on his left side and kept beeping text messages at him. He ignored them all. Did he ever call his friends?

“You missing an event in Santa Cruz tonight?”

“Big party.” He shrugged. “My friends keep texting me. Jade’s wondering why I’m not there.”

“Groupies too?”

He swept his bangs off his forehead. “Yeah. The band’s got groupies already.”

“Can I be your groupie?”

“Hell no.”

“Why not?” I bristled until he laid his hand on my bare leg, his thumb caressing the inside of my thigh, close to out-of-bounds intimacy, leaving anticipation humming through my body.

“I don’t want my girlfriend as a groupie.”

Girlfriend? I met the deep, black pools of his eyes staring down at me, his face inches from mine. I scooted closer, forcing his thumb to dip farther between my legs. Tingling warmth gushed low where it had never visited. I tangled my fingers in his to halt his hand from moving farther. Although he scared me, I didn’t really want his hand to stop. Was this new sensation desire? Had I become a Jesse Jerome groupie? Color me mystified.

His lips alighted on mine, making my head spin into the ozone. Electricity arced through me, and my hands found a home buried in his thick hair, holding his lips against mine the way he’d done earlier. He pulled me onto his lap, electric fingers sliding over my bare midriff. Lips parted, tongues tangoed, and I sank below the surface of a drowning pool. Lightning exploded in my blood. Eons later, we came up for air, panting for the precious commodity. I locked his thighs between my knees. He slid my cover-up off, tossed it on a lounge chair.

“Don’t move,” he whispered, his lips distractingly soft against my ear.

All my limbs tensed uncomfortably as desire battled the need that had been building for days.

Laughter jiggled him against my shoulder. “I meant don’t move off my lap.”

“Oh.” I giggled, and he slipped us as one into the hot tub in one fluid motion. Relaxing my tense muscles, I scooted back a tad to avoid parts of him I really wanted to feel.

“You’re beautiful, so freaking hot.” He nuzzled my neck, leaving a trail of kisses from my shoulder to my ear. “Can’t believe you don’t have a boyfriend.”

“Umm… thank you.” No one other than my mother had ever called me beautiful. It left an embarrassing heat all over me as hot spa bubbles popped against my skin, tickling and burning, masking my lame discomfort. In the throes of the desire he’d created in me, I arched my spine, giving him access to more bare skin, pushing my chest out to wanton land. “It’s hard to make new friends due to our constant relocating. It always sucked to leave them behind, so I kinda just did my own thing.” Unstoppable, the words spilled out and I realized how freeing it was to expose that piece of me.

“That’s so damn hot.” He licked my ear, and my hands roamed of their own volition across his smooth shoulders and down his taut arms, our fingers entwining at our sides.

I let out a weird sound between a laugh and a groan. “Yeah. No. My social life was so far from hot.”

“I meant that you saved yourself for me,” he said in my ear.

I liquefied against him. Joy rippled in me and I pinched myself to ensure I wasn’t dreaming. “I didn’t want anyone on my father’s deadly radar. He didn’t handle it well when Kristen started dating. Too many scares and threats.” Understatement of the century.

Jesse’s mouth froze on my neck and he turned stone still beneath me. “At least you and Jade have one thing in common. He hated her boyfriends. She brought a preppy friend of mine to dinner once and faked him out to get him off her back. Mostly, she kept them away when he came… home.” He choked a little on the word “home.”

Jade brought boyfriends home at fifteen? I wasn’t allowed to date until seventeen, and then he had full approval rights, to maintain his corporate image. I hated the frigid edge of jealousy freezing my spine.

Moving on was all I understood how to do. Life had become too delicious and unexpected to allow my past to define me any further. I just needed to figure out how to move beyond it.

Being with Jesse helped. Opening up to him helped even more. “Your house was his home as well as this house. I understand. It wasn’t normal, but I’m not so weirded out anymore. It explains his constant traveling and disappearances, missed outings when he was supposedly working or doing guy things, or on the sailboat my mom hated.”

Jesse trailed tiny kisses along my neck, holding onto me snugly, his hands exploring the hollow of my back. We held each other for the longest time, breathing each other in, giving and taking comfort. I hadn’t felt so accepted and wanted from anyone ever. I didn’t know how I’d survived so long deprived of a boy’s all-encompassing awareness, the push and pull of passion igniting hot coals under my skin. I loved the way his lips left a path of fire across my throat.

Things needed to be voiced, before the road ahead led us onward. “We need to move on from him,” I said. “Whether we ever fully understand, we need to live in the here and now. I don’t want to destroy your good memories. Nothing will change what he did to us, but we possess the right and the means to change what we do to those memories and the future.” I repeated profound words I’d read in a fantasy novel, a hero understanding his quest to save himself and the world.

“I know.” He breathed onto my skin, burning himself into me.

This was the life I wanted. I knew that then. If Jesse was willing to share his secrets with me, I wanted to do the same with him. I wanted more than this explosion of sensation. I wanted that freedom, for that sarcophagus around my chest to break apart, for that door on the cage to allow the bird outside.

In that moment, I wanted Jesse’s mouth moving, his breath burning lower, all over me. Wanton and I had never met, and I wasn’t sure what to do short of making a lame idiot of myself. Welcome to Ivy’s Virgin Emporium, the primo place for the innocent in you. We carry picture books and sex tapes for the educational. All items come bundled with a fan and a cold shower, free of charge.

A low landscape light in the bushes flickered on near us, a second and third chased it. Jade’s voice intruded upon my weird and wonderful moment.

“Holy crap, Jesse. You and Vine?” She gagged a little, and I swore her devil goat-slit eyes glowed red.

I shattered into a million emotions. Jesse gently floated me into the bubbling waters and straightened, discreetly tugging at the crotch of his trunks. I floated to a seat, folding my arms around myself, trying to hinder the tangible lashes poised to strike me down. Or was it the guilt and shame of getting caught in the act of the forbidden?

“The hell? Son of a princess bitch. I’m gonna hurl.” Jade pressed on her middle, bending over the bushes to one side of the back door.

The sounds of her tossing her cookies sent a horrible, shameful fear through my twisting gut.