Craving Heat

by Adrienne Giordano

  He faced Maggie, met her eye.

  “Your mother what?”

  Could he do it? Spill the nasty secrets that had held him and Sam hostage all these years. He’d been obsessed with protecting his family’s image. His own image. Now? His reputation was shot anyway.

  “If she’d tried to cook dinner she’d have burned the place down.”

  “Not a chef, huh?”

  “Actually, I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “She can’t stay sober long enough to handle a stove.”

  Jay wasn’t sure what he expected. He’d always wondered about this moment. The time when he finally admitted his secrets to someone outside of Sam. He’d imagined an outpouring of sympathy, people fussing over how horrible it must have been and suggestions of twelve-step programs. None of which he wanted.

  Pity, he didn’t need.

  Maggie shook her head. “That’s stressful. We have a family in town dealing with that. I get calls about arguments and it breaks my heart. His kids are terrified half the time, but he won’t get help. He says he will and then when he sleeps it off, he changes his mind. It’s a vicious cycle.”

  “That’s rough on the kids. After my dad left, she got worse. The drinking, the beatings, everything went to another level.”

  “Beatings? Oh my God. Your dad left you with her? Who protected you?”

  He grunted. “Me.”

  She stepped forward and locked her arms around him. No, no, no. A burst of panic rattled his mind. This right here? Weakness grabbing hold, reminding him of all he had to lose. Strong men didn’t moan about less than stellar childhoods. Everyone had shit to deal with, why shouldn’t he?

  He should step back. Dismiss her. Assure her he was fine and over it, by now.

  Who he’d be convincing, he wasn’t sure.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “How old were you?”

  Right about when he should’ve been pushing her away, he brought his hands around, settled them at the base of her spine, and inhaled. Maggie, all clean air and soft skin might be exactly what he needed. “My dad walked when I was ten. Can’t say I blame him with a wife like that, but he left us to deal with her. Then the bitterness got to her and she took to the bottle. It’s a brutal combo, alcohol and anger. The trifecta was that I look like him.”

  She backed away, but slid her hands down his arms, settling them at his wrists. “Oh no.”

  “I was her main target until I got too big. Then she turned to Sam and I wasn’t having any of that. With my mitts being the size of frying pans, my mother and I came to an understanding about her abuse.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I could have actually hit her. Although, I wonder about that. If I have it in me.”

  “You don’t.”

  He shrugged. “Luckily, she didn’t test me. She never put a hand on us again. It drove her deeper into the bottle, though.”

  “She didn’t have an outlet.”

  “Nope.”

  “Which is why you like controlling your environment.”

  He stayed silent, but patted her hip hoping she’d understand it as acknowledgment. “I’ve never shared that with anyone.”

  Jesus, what had he done? A few seconds of the receding panic sparked again and then…nothing but lightness. Which he sure as shit never experienced when it came to his mother.

  His ongoing silence equaled Marlene keeping her social status. It worked for him. Her charities and snooty black-tie events occupied her. And freed him.

  If he let it slip about the abuse, if he admitted it, his mother would lose friends. That would, like everything else, be his fault and she’d roar back into his life, calling him every ten minutes, raging about what a selfish bastard he was.

  “You’ve been holding it in all these years?”

  “I have. It didn’t fit the image. The league liked the idea of the blue-blood quarterback. It played better than the wealthy drunk’s kid.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Don’t blame them, I went along with it. With my dad gone, I’ve spent my life trying to keep my mother calm. If she’s calm, she’s not bugging me. That’s what I want. For Drunk Marlene to stay out of my business.”

  “I won’t share it with anyone.”

  “Thank you. I’d appreciate that.” Having given Marlene more than her deserved attention today, he pointed down the path. “Getting closer.”

  What he needed was a few minutes of silence. Time to absorb what he’d just done. His family’s secrets finally spilled, laid out there. All this time he’d imagined the day when he’d finally admit it, the courage it would take.

  Truth was, it hadn’t been that hard. Not with Maggie. Probably because of her job. With the shit she saw in a day, his issues hardly shocked her. Maybe that made it easier to admit.

  He didn’t know. All he knew was that it felt right.

  * * *

  Jayson was quiet. The man hadn’t uttered a word in—she casually checked her watch—nearly fifteen minutes. He’d dropped that bombshell about his family and then went silent.

  Typical male.

  Then again, what was left to say? Particularly since he’d trusted her enough to confide something so personal. He’d trusted her not to sell that juicy tidbit to the press.

  Whether it said something about her character or his—maybe both—she wouldn’t analyze. It didn’t matter. He’d kept his painful past a secret, managing to avoid bitterness while growing into Jayson Tucker, football hero.

  Maggie peered ahead where the path widened toward the road. She drew a long breath and reminded herself to call her parents. Tell them how thankful she was for them. Growing up, her situation was not the norm—Dad being the stay-at-home parent, while Mom conquered corporate America—and Maggie, many times, found herself…embarrassed. What does your father do? In her youth, that question had become a landmine. At first, she’d freely admitted her father was a stay-at-home dad. At least until a classmate’s mother gave her the oh face. The one where she opened her mouth, but nothing came out. That had been the first indication something was different about Maggie’s parents.

  And she’d resented it. Resented that her father wasn’t the stereotypical dad, working outside the home while his wife ran carpool.

  “End of the road,” Jay finally said.

  “It is, indeed.”

  He kept walking, his pace steady, but not fast. “Thank you.”

  “For?”

  “Being you.” He pointed to a hole in the ground, then latched on to her elbow. “Watch your step.”

  “Got it.”

  Rather than let go, he moved his hand down the length of her arm. Sensing what he wanted, she slid her fingers into his and found herself the recipient of Jayson Tucker’s movie-star smile.

  “Maggie,” he said, “you’re the best thing about this week.”

  She squeezed his hand, then bumped him with her shoulder. “Thank you. You’re creating chaos in my town, but…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. You bring out something in me that reminds me I’m female.”

  He snorted. “Oh, you’re definitely female.”

  Now she bumped him harder. “Listen, smart-ass. In my job, being female is a handicap. It’s a boys’ club and I’ve worked hard to be accepted. It’s not easy.”

  “I understand that. You don’t want them to see you as hot.”

  “Exactly. Even on traffic stops, men flirt with me. At least until I give them the ticket they tried to charm their way out of.”

  “It must limit your dating choices.”

  “Lord, you have no idea. Can’t date cops because half of them—at least the ones I find— are intimidated by a woman with a higher rank. They all want to be in charge. Which is fine. I’m smart enough to know when to let that happen and when to tell a man he’s full of crap. It’s about choosing my battles.”

  He stopped walking and faced her. “You need a guy confident enough to accept your strength.”
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  Once again, he got her. How the hell did he know this stuff? “That’s exactly what I need. Are you that guy?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  She smiled. Couldn’t help it. It all sounded good—too good. Jay had enough cocky, pro athlete swagger to pull it off. To make himself believe it. Could he handle her and her life for the long haul? For nights when her phone rang at all hours and times when she couldn’t pick up and follow him around the country to watch his games because she had responsibilities beyond making him happy? Sharing her life wouldn’t be easy. Particularly for a man used to getting things his way. “I guess we’ll see.”

  “I guess we will.”

  They reached the end of the path where the mouth of the road opened to two narrow lanes, then they turned left toward Maggie’s vehicle.

  Wait.

  She froze. Stopped right in the middle of the road because…oh, my.

  “What?”

  She’d parked her SUV so it straddled the road and part of the shoulder, leaving enough room for another vehicle to maneuver around it. Anyone parking on this road would realize they’d have to do the same or risk blocking other vehicles from passing. “The shooter. He had to have left his car here. Just like us. It’s the only path with enough room to park.”

  She moved ahead, scanning the ground as she walked. “Help me look.”

  “Oh-kay. What am I looking for?”

  “I have a friend who smokes. She won’t do it in her car. It’s a lease and she’s afraid of burn holes.”

  “So, she tosses the cigarette butts before she gets in.”

  Maggie pointed two fingers at him. “Boom.”

  A sudden energy zipped between them and Jayson broke away, his long legs tearing up the space heading the opposite direction. “I’ll check down here.”

  Maggie strode across the two lanes, moving slowly as she scanned the ground. Tire tracks. In the dirt on the shoulder. New? If not, they’d have to be recent to still be intact. And Britt hadn’t parked here earlier.

  Wide tires. A truck. Possibly a pickup. She snatched her phone from her pocket and snapped a few pics. Couldn’t hurt.

  After checking the photos, she inched sideways, farther into the road, and continued her study of the pavement.

  Come on, come on. Be there for me.

  “Anything?” Jayson called.

  “Not yet. Tire tracks, though.”

  She took two more steps and the track curved toward the street. As if pulling onto the road.

  Maggie stopped and slowly turned. If he’d parked where the tracks were, the driver’s side door would be…right…about…She stepped left.

  Here.

  Her gaze swept the ground, back and forth, back and forth and…whoa.

  Barely a foot in front of her sat a cigarette butt burned clear to the filter and her pulse slammed so hard her head spun.

  “Jayson! I’ve got something.”

  “No shit?”

  She swung her head right, found Jay jogging toward her. “No shit, fella. Do me a favor. There are gloves and baggies in my center console. Grab them. I’ll take pictures of where we found the cigarette butt and then we’re sending that baby off to the lab.”

  * * *

  After taking Jayson up on his invitation to share the meat loaf she’d watched him mix, Maggie walked through her front door to find Riley sound asleep in the living room.

  Her younger sister, a nerd by anyone’s standards, clearly needed to get a life if she was napping on Maggie’s couch on a Saturday night.

  Between helping Dad create hybrid vegetables and her own job, Ry worked hard. If she wanted to come by for a nap, she’d always be welcome.

  Maggie gently closed the door and winced when the snick of the lock reverberated in the quiet house. Shoot.

  “Hey.”

  Maggie turned and found a groggy and yawning Ry stretching her arms.

  “Hey, yourself.”

  “I fell asleep.”

  “I see that.”

  “I came over to see if you wanted to grab dinner and a movie. Where were you? You’re always home at night.”

  Yowzer. Riley wasn’t the only one who needed a life. Maggie thought back over the last six months. Not one date. Well, there’d been one. Sort of. A friend of a friend who was so nervous about going out with a woman who carried a gun, he’d nearly wet himself.

  Sccccratch that one.

  Riley adjusted her glasses, the cute round ones she’d gotten after returning from Costa Rica on some super-secret endurance project she couldn’t speak about. Lord, one would think her sister worked for the CIA.

  At the moment, her would-be-spy sister’s sable hair was mashed on one side and sticking out on the other. A vision of Mom shaking her head and tsk-tsking popped into Maggie’s head. A brush would be in order before baby sister left.

  “I was over at Aunt Joanie’s.”

  “What’s going on there?”

  “Nothing. I was meeting with Jayson Tucker.”

  “His Hotness?”

  Mags rolled her eyes and headed down the hall toward her bedroom. She’d been renting this place since Mom and Dad returned from South Dakota and moved back into the family home.

  While in the B grabbing coffee one morning, she’d overheard one of the locals filling the town criers in on her mother’s broken hip and the stress of moving her to an assisted living community. Which left the poor woman’s cute little bungalow, with all the furnishings, empty. Three days later, Maggie had a new home, even if it was temporary until she figured out her next move.

  Before Maggie reached her bedroom, Riley fell in step behind her. “What’s the scoop on him?”

  I sucked his face off.

  Twice.

  Couldn’t say that. As much as Maggie would have enjoyed a little girl gossip with her sister, Jayson’s stay in Steele Ridge meant keeping him safe. Doing her job.

  “You know I can’t talk about it. The two incidents involving him are active cases.”

  “And you know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  She hooked the right into her room and went straight to the closet. What she needed was a hot shower, or maybe a cold one to get her mind off one Jayson Tucker, his amazing body—and tongue—and the Kingston competition-worthy meal he’d just cooked.

  She opened the closet’s bifold doors and peered up at the two-tiered organizer. Five of her seven uniform shirts hung on the rod, all of them washed, pressed, and evenly spaced to avoid wrinkling. Every Wednesday, Maggie dropped her uniforms at the dry cleaner and by Thursday, they were ready to roll. Shirts, slacks, ties, everything neat and tidy.

  “Your closet is insane. It’s like a military operation in there.”

  Slight exaggeration on her sister’s part. “It is not. It’s organized. I know exactly where everything is.” Maggie ran her hand over the crisply folded T-shirts stacked on the corner shelf. Red one. It was a red kind of night. She grabbed it along with a pair of running shorts and turned back to her sister who’d flopped spread-eagle on the bed.

  It brought Maggie back nearly eight years when it was just the two of them living in the family house. Both a little lonely without their parents, but making a go of it together. On bad nights, they’d huddle in the giant king-sized bed with a tub of popcorn—Mom would have killed them—and watch B-grade horror movies together.

  Maggie set the clothes on the bed and went to the dresser for underwear.

  Meanwhile, Riley smacked a hand against the comforter. “Come on, Mags! Give me something juicy. I heard he works out with Reid in the morning. Have you seen him with a shirt off?”

  I wish. She snatched a plain white bra and matching panties from the drawer. Jay with a shirt off. She pictured it. All his cut muscles that narrowed to lean hips and…

  She closed the underwear drawer with way more force than necessary and the smacking of wood made her jump.

  “Ha!” Riley said.

  “What ha?”

  “You h
ave seen him with his shirt off.”

  “No.” She laughed. “But a girl can dream.”

  She pinched Ry’s toe and her sister made room for Maggie to drop next to her. She rested her hands on her belly where a steady pulsing brought memories of Jayson’s lips on hers, their tongues clashing and…heat. Lots of heat.

  “He’s so hot,” Ry said. “If he’s intelligent, he’d be the perfect male.”

  Leave it to nerdy Riley to worry about a man’s IQ. “Ry, you don’t get to have a career like his without being smart. This latest crisis notwithstanding.”

  Riley rolled to her side, propped one hand under her head. “Tell me about him. Is he nice?”

  “He is. He’s…” Hmmm, how to explain this? “Mr. Calm and Cool. Charming, but soulful at times.”

  “Soulful? Really?”

  “Yeah. There’s a quietness to him. It’s not weird, though.” She met her sister’s gaze. “You know that feeling? When it’s so quiet there’s tension? That’s not him. When he’s quiet you feel…safe.”

  Riley’s eyes narrowed. “You carry a gun. When have you ever not felt safe?”

  “It’s not that kind of safe.”

  Or was it? Whatever it was, every time Jay got close something in her brain shorted and she craved…him. His arms around her, pulling her tight like he did on the mountain earlier.

  A soft sigh streamed from Maggie’s throat. Dear God. Sighing? What the hell was wrong with her.

  “Oh, no,” Riley said. “You’re crushing on this guy.”

  “I’m not crushing on him. What is this? High school?”

  In full avoidance mode, Maggie rolled to her feet, scoffing the whole way. So she was attracted to him? Didn’t mean they had to get all weak in the knees over it.

  “With the way you’re all sighing, it could be. And, Sis, who could blame you?” Riley sat up and moved to the edge of the bed where she peered up at Maggie. “You’re the sheriff. I get that. But who says you can’t have a little fun with the stud while he’s in town?”

  Was that what she wanted? A slam-bam affair with the football star? To be a groupie he’d picked up along the way?