Free Burning Up by Anne Marsh Page A

you really want to do, Lily, but right now I want to hear what Rio found.”
    Because, clearly, he’d found something, or he’d have just pointed that Harley straight on back to Strong.
    â€œFine,” she snapped. “We can discuss it later, Jack.”
    His hand dropped onto her shoulder. If she looked down, she’d see those fingers—those fingers that had been places she had no business allowing them, not on her front porch—and, God help her, she wanted to look. Wanted to touch. Jack had her all tied up in knots.
    â€œLots of footprints. He was up there, watching.” Rio’s eyes met hers, waiting for her reaction. “Your stalker.”
    â€œHe’s found you.” Jack’s voice hardened.
    â€œWe thought he might have,” Rio pointed out.
    â€œBut why?” She asked the question that had tormented her ever since the horror began. “What did I do to make him come after me like this?”
    Jack’s hands closed around her shoulders, pulling her close. She wanted to sink into that heat. When she was with Jack, she felt safe. Protected. She fought to remind herself of why she shouldn’t lean back, shouldn’t let the strength and the heat of him hold her up. She’d always stood on her own two feet, done things for herself.
    â€œYou didn’t do anything, baby,” he said. “This isn’t your fault. For some reason of his own, he picked you for his sick games. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
    â€œHe spent hours up there,” Rio continued. “Looks like he picked his spot and hunkered down. Not ex-military, or he wouldn’t have left those footprints. He came up from the other side of the ridge. I can show you the path he took if you want.”
    Rio hesitated, and Jack nodded slowly. “So he’s a watcher. We suspected that. He’s been watching Lily for at least two years now. He’s fixated enough that he followed her here from San Francisco.”
    â€œThere’s something else you should see,” Rio said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWe know he likes to burn things.” Rio shot an apologetic look at Lily. “But it’s more personal than that. He built himself a fire up there. Just a small one, and he did it really carefully, so he wasn’t trying to burn the place down.”
    The unspoken not yet hung in the air between them.
    â€œWhat did he burn?” Nausea had her swallowing hard. He’d always chosen something of hers, something personal.
    Fury flashed in Rio’s eyes, and she realized that maybe she didn’t know him as well as she thought she did. For just a moment, the man had been all predator. “A book,” he said, tossing a plastic bag toward Jack.
    Jack’s hand shot out, catching the bag and handing it to her. “Is this yours?”
    â€œNo.” She shook her head. She recognized the book, though. A romance by one of her favorite authors. The top half of the book was charred and black, but she knew that white farmhouse perched on a green hill beneath a sliver of cloud-gray sky. “But I’m reading it now. It’s on my bedside table.”
    â€œYou’re sure that book is still there?”
    She hated the possibility that a stranger had been inside her house, touching her things. She’d come back to Strong because she knew everyone here. There were no strangers. Or—she shot a rueful glance at Rio’s unfamiliar companion patiently waiting for him—not for long, at any rate.
    â€œPositive,” she said, handing the bag back to Rio. “I saw it this morning. I bought it last week, at the general store in Strong.”
    â€œShit.” Jack dropped a kiss on top of her head, and she wondered if he realized what he’d done, or if the little caress was instinctive. “So he’s not just watching you—he’s following you, too.”
    Just the thought of having this creep’s eyes on