Page 15 of Fire Dancer

Kind of an ego-killer, I had to say.

“So, you’re here to put the bad guy away? And that’s why you’ve been following Stacy — to keep her safe?”

Ingo waited, as if willing me to figure out something I’d missed. But for the life of me, I couldn’t.

“I want to keepeveryonesafe from Jananovich.” He stared deep into my eyes.

I stared back. What was I not getting?

A long minute later, he looked away, disappointed.

All in all, the conversation summarized our fundamental problem. Ingo wanted to save the world. I wanted to make beautiful glass objects. Two objectives with nothing in common except they were both awfully fragile.

I looked at him, struck with sorrow. My sweet, loyal childhood buddy. My gentle, generous ex-lover. My dear, sorely missed friend.

We hadn’t broken up over one big thing. It had been all the little things that had slowly done us in. His work hours. The nights I stayed up worrying about him. Him missing small but important occasions, like one of my art shows.Allmy art shows, actually. Little, forgivable things that were nothing if you took them one at a time, but they added up to a lot. Too much — at least for me.

Part of me must have been holding out hope for a happily-ever-after, but at that moment, I accepted the truth. We weren’t ever going to make this work. Never. Our love was a train that had long since chugged into a dead-end station, and it would never make a comeback. Wisps of steam from the engine were all that remained, but soon, those would fade away with the rest of my sweet memories.

I put my burger down. It would never make it past the lump in my throat anyway.

By then, the candle on our table was close to drowning in its own pool of wax, but I couldn’t find it in me to pep it up a bit.

Then the next song came over the speakers, and I couldn’t help humming the opening notes. Ingo’s eyes met mine, and we both flashed thin smiles.

I took a deep breath, then stood and stuck out a hand.

Ingo cocked his head at my abrupt change in gears. “You’re asking me to dance?”

Yes, I was. Because as Kenny Rogers put it, Ingo did something to me that I couldn’t explain.

I nodded slowly. “Against my better judgment…”

Ingo’s grin was a thing of beauty. He stood, took my hand, and followed me to the dance floor.

One last time,I told myself.One last time.

Chapter Four

INGO

I forced myself to leave the bar before Pippa did, because otherwise, I would have been tempted to follow her home, which just wouldn’t do. It didn’t matter how much I loved her or that she loved me back, as evidenced by the slow dance we shared.

Yes, a slow dance. A terrible idea, but neither of us could resist. “Islands in the Stream” had come on, and that football-jock Pippa had danced with earlier was making eyes at her like that might be his chance, when it was absolutely not. Especially not that song — the one Pippa and I used to call ours back when life was simpler.

“Against my better judgment…” she’d murmured, offering her hand.

The candle on our table had flared, burning brightly.

Against my better judgment too, though that didn’t stop me from following her to the dance floor and easing into old, familiar moves. Close moves, with her chin snuggled against my shoulder and our chests touching. Much like the many mornings-after we’d once shared, with no one in between, just like the song said.

You’d think the daughter of a pyromancer and a dragon shifter might carry the scent of smoke or ash, but Pippa’s was more like lavender incense. Every breath calmed and centered me — enough to make me wonder how I got by without her.

All day, I’d been agonizing over the mystery of the dead “hiker.” But even that faded away when I was with Pippa, and I could believe in good things, at least for a while.

Too bad the next song — Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” — ripped us out of the mood. I’d left Pippa with a peck on the cheek instead of the full-on,Gone with the Wind, bent-over-backward kiss I’d been dreaming of. Then I’d hurried out to my car, where I’d spent five minutes waiting for my heart rate to settle down. Finally, I cranked up the engine and drove into the night.

Janet Sullivan,I reminded myself. The dead hiker. My office wasn’t far. I could easily drive over, log in to the agency database, and do some more investigating.