Page 40 of When the Smoke Clears

“Someone better start talking,” Isla snaps.

Gabe lifts his hands. “You two have things to discuss.”

“I told you I didn’t want to involve Luke,” she fires back.

“And based on what you told me last night,” Gabe counters, “I made a judgment call about both your safety. So you’re talking. It’s the only way forward.”

She puts the ferret down. It darts off like a tiny criminal evading capture.

“I’ll give you space,” he adds.

“No. You stay.” I jerk a thumb toward the door. “We’re leaving.”

“I’m not leaving with you.” Isla crosses her arms over her chest.

“Then I can carry you out of here. This conversation is happening. Ten years is long enough.”

Isla stomps ahead of me across the pavement, muttering under her breath. I catch fragments—“unbelievable,” “safe,” “ruined”—each clipped and sharp.

I open the truck door. She climbs in with a huff. Her lips are pulled so tight they could snap. The sight would be funny if everything inside me weren’t so twisted up.

Isla’s fire is undeniably attractive. It always has been.

Once the engine rumbles to life, she finally breaks. “Where are we going?”

“For a drive.”

She stares straight ahead. “Nothing happened with Gabe.”

I shoot her a glance. “That never crossed my mind.”

She angles her body to face me. “Then why did you charge into his apartment like Rambo?”

“I didn’t ’charge in like Rambo’,” I add the air quotes because she earned them. A smile tugs at my mouth despite everything.

“Could’ve fooled me,” she mutters.

“Why did you leave the inn?”

“I was creeped out by being alone.”

The Isla I knew used to crave solitude like oxygen.

We drive in silence, the rhythmic hum of the tires rolling over the asphalt, the only sound breaking through the stillness inside the cab of the truck. Isla sits like a statue, her hands gripping the denim covering her knees white-knuckled.

As we approach the lake, the sunlight dances on the rippling water, and I take a deep cleansing breath, for the first time in about twelve hours.

I carefully maneuver the truck into a vacant spot on the dusty, uneven ground, shift it into park, and turn toward Isla. “Do you want to walk around?”

Her voice is barely a whisper. “Why did you bring me here?”

The lake was a mirror that never lied. Still one moment, storming the next.

Just like her.

“It’s my favorite place in town.”

When I turn and meet Isla’s gaze, a storm of emotions flickers across her face. Without uttering a single word, she quietly slips out of the truck.