"In that case, why don't we take the morning off and go recreate our fake date hiking photos for real? There's signal in the mountains here, so if they call with a design emergency—oof!" He tried to sound as injured as possible as she bonked her shoulder against him. "What? Are you saying there aren't design emergencies?"
"I'm saying you're teasing me," Sabrina murmured contentedly.
Luke grinned. "Maybe. But really, it might be good to get away from the project for a few hours."
"And you don't know how many more mountain hikes you'll get to take on a whim," Sabrina said more quietly. "I hate to askyou to come to the city, Luke. The great outdoors around here seems much more your vibe."
"Hey." Luke set her back, feeling serious. "Again, my job can be done anywhere. And I travel for it, so I'm not just going to be sitting around your apartment waiting for you to come home. Your job is much more fixed than mine. I know they're okay with at least some remote work, but I don't want to take you out of the thick of it in your home office. You're building a hell of a career here, Ms. Not-Quite-Thirty-Four-With-Your-Own-Lead-Project. And if I understand star architects?—"
Sabrina laughed, but he went on, meaning every word. "—then you'll be traveling as as you become more in-demand. If nothing else, that's easier from the city."
"You're not wrong, but…"
"No but." Luke dipped his head to kiss her. "We've got another few weeks in Virtue, and then we'll head for the city until you're so well-established that people will come to small-town New York just for the privilege of talking to you in person. How's that sound?"
"Great," Sabrina admitted with a faint blush. "Unlikely, maybe, but great."
"Not unlikely at all."
"But what about kids?" Sabrina blurted.
Luke stepped back, eyes wide, then took her hands and led her to the couch. "This is a sit-down conversation," he said firmly, and she did, flushed and worried-looking before he asked, "Are kids on your agenda?"
"Yes? In an 'I always thought I'd have them' way? But also…it depends so much on what you want, Luke."
"I would love kids," he said as gently as he could over the sound of his own pounding heart. "But you're worried about whether I'd want to be the stay at home parent, because that's never been part of your plan. Right?"
She nodded, lips pressed together in a thin line, and he was tempted to lean over and kiss that line into its usual fullness. But that didn't seem right, just then. She didn't need to be teased into certainty. She needed to really believe him. Luke lifted her hands and kissed the knuckles instead, then lowered them, his thumbs brushing over the kisses he'd left. "Again, my job can be done anywhere. Even from a home gym while the kids are napping." He grinned a little. "And it'd probably be a real eye-opener to a lot of my followers, especially the dudes, about how exhausting 'just' parenting is. I get what you need," he said more softly. "If you want kids and need a partner who's willing to step up, I'm your guy."
Sabrina sniffled and threw herself forward into his arms, face buried in his neck. "How are you so perfect?"
Luke, closing his arms around her gently, chuckled. "Magic. Fate wouldn't have brought us together if we couldn't be what the other needed."
"I obviously never thought magic was real," Sabrina whispered. "But honestly, even if you didn't turn into a rabbit, I'd still be pretty sure youweremagic, at this point."
"We'll make it work," Luke promised in a murmur. "And that's magic all by itself."
CHAPTER 23
Hiking helped get Sabrina stop worrying, at least a little bit. Quiet, giggling, trailside sex helped even more, with the thrill of potentially getting caught heightening the encounter, even if there was literally no one else around for miles. And for a little while, if she was in her head at all, it was with the idea of having met a man who supported her career goals as completely as Luke did. She could barely imagine it, and yet here he was, right at her side.
Descending back into town, though, brought her worries about the train station back. She'd looked it up in the aftermath of the fire and found out that most arsonists came back to see the destruction they'd wrought, and that most of them didn't set another fire in the same location. By that logic, the station should be safe. Except it hadn't really burned down, so the lingering fear that the arsonist would come back and try again wouldn't leave her. It was silly forherto stay at the building site as much as possible, as ifshecould prevent another attempt…but that didn't stop her from wanting to do just that, so after lunch, Sabrina went to work, mostly to watch quietly or have quick, bright conversations with the crew.
Near quitting time, though, the investigator Gladiator Architecture had provided came to find Sabrina, and offered her hand to shake. "Do you have a minute?"
"Of course." Sabrina kind of liked the investigator, who was a strapping red-haired woman named Liz Rice, who had a strong grip and a determined gaze. "Have you learned anything?"
"A string of arsons I think are connected," Liz said with a firm nod. "I've been looking into similar MOs. This was a fairly crude setup, so I started by thinking it was a newbie, but I'm not so sure anymore. There have been a number of similar arsons over the past several years."
"Years? Shouldn't that have been noticed already?"
"You'd think, but the problem is they've been across state lines. We don't necessarily share all the same information with other states, and a lot of arsonists set fires in the same general area. They don't travel. But this one…" Liz took her phone out, opened an image, and handed it to Sabrina, who frowned over the red line skipping across the northeastern states and even Michigan, and then, in a couple of places, considerably farther west.
"Those are all over the place. I don't see what any of them have in common?"
"I didn't at first either, but scroll to the next picture."
Sabrina did, and a blue line came up under the red ones. It ran across the map without breaking or deviating, as regular as… "They're on the same line of latitude?"
