Hayden had lost her father in the line of duty when she was only nine years old. It had taken her a long time to recover from the blow. Her only remaining family had been his own. His dad had been her substitute father for twenty years, and now he’d died in the line of duty as well. She had grieved horribly, and it would not be fair to put her through this hell again, should something happen to him.
He loved her too much to take that risk.
“How are things at the station?” his mom asked, bringing him back from his long trance.
Regaining his composure, he cleared his throat. “Fine,” he murmured. “Kyle’s doing a great job. You should be proud of him.”
“Well, I am.” She winked at him over her shoulder. In that instant, the deep creases around her mouth disappeared. They were a new feature, one he didn’t like, just like the careworn expression that recently seemed to be on her face far too often. “I’m proud of all my children.”
Heath didn’t suppress an amused chuckle. “You certainly have enough of them.”
She smiled softly. “That’s your father’s fault. After Kayleigh, he absolutely wanted to have another girl, to even the score, he said.”
“But instead you got Kyle and Ryan.”
“Exactly.”
Her voice sounded extremely wistful. He cleared his throat and, feigning nonchalance, said, “Don’t worry, Mom. Kayleigh got along fine without any sisterly backup.”
“Oh yes, I know.” His mom dried her hands on the kitchen towel and turned to face him. “I’m not worried about Kayleigh. I’m worried about you.”
“Mom.” The corners of his mouth drooped. “There’s no need to worry about me.”
He was relieved when Kayleigh’s voice suddenly boomed through the house. He didn’t want to talk about his mother’s worries again. He still had no intention of going to see a shrink and pouring out his heart, which meant he would soon be suspended, and that news would get through to his mother soon enough.
“Hello, Mom!” Kayleigh shouted. “Do you have anything to eat? I’m starving!”
As she entered the kitchen, she saw her brother and frowned. After their clash at the pub two weeks ago, they hadn’t spoken a word to each other. For Heath, this wasn’t a new experience—Kayleigh wasn’t the only one of his siblings who didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. As a matter of fact, at the moment, Kyle was the only one he got along with. But even they didn’t talk about private things; they stuck with safer topics, like their jobs, or food, or sports.
Their mom grinned at Heath. “Looks like you’re not the only one who came here today to enjoy my cooking, darling.”
Heath crossed his arms in mock offense. “I came here for completely unselfish reasons, Mom. I just wanted to mow the lawn. I didn’t know you would be cooking my favorite meal. Hey, Kayleigh.”
“Hey,” his sister echoed in a slightly huffy voice, which made him grin.
Ellen Fitzpatrick kissed her daughter on the cheek, and then immediately reproached her. “What in heaven’s name have you done to your hair? It looks as if birds were nesting in there.”
“It’s been a long shift.” In her familiar blustering manner, his sister dropped her bag on the floor, pulled at her hair in an unladylike fashion, and opened the fridge to examine the contents. “I didn’t even have time to eat.”
“Then you’ll be glad to know I have more than enough here to feed you.”
“Mom’s making potato dumplings,” Heath informed his sister.
Her raised chin gave him a perverse enjoyment, even though she did it to show she was still miffed at him.
“Ryan should be here any minute, too. The four of us can eat together.” Their mom showed a hesitant smile and then went on to scrutinize her daughter’s messy hair more closely. “It’s a pity Kyle and Shane aren’t here, too, or it would be a real family dinner.”
“Don’t forget Hayden.” Kayleigh crossed her arms defiantly. “But if Heath doesn’t mind, I could call her right now and ask her to come.”
His relaxed mood was gone, and he glared at his belligerent sister, who glared right back at him.
“Mind your own business,” he grumbled, burying his hands in his pockets. Sometimes he still regretted never having been the kind of older brother who put spiders in his sister’s bed or pulled her hair. Maybe that might have helped nip that big mouth of hers in the bud.
“Please, you guys, I don’t want to see you fighting.” Ellen clicked her tongue and focused again on her daughter’s hair. She plucked at an unruly strand and combed her hand through it.
“Ouch! Mom …”
“Be quiet. How could you go to work looking like this? What are your patients supposed to think?”
Like an obedient elementary school girl, his little sister stood still and let their mother disentangle her unruly hair. “My patients are mostly drunken homeless people, Mom. They shouldn’t be worried about the way my hair looks, and they rarely are.”
“You’re not getting any younger.” Ellen tried a new tack, shaking her head at the tangles before her. “Imagine you meet a young doctor who isn’t married yet. What would he say when he saw your hair?”
“Don’t worry. When I think of the doctors at my hospital, all I can I hope is that my hair is enough to frighten them all away.”
The deep sigh Ellen released was worthy of an Academy Award, or at the very least, a Golden Globe. “Who knows who might notice you, if you didn’t run around looking like a scarecrow?”
Kayleigh made a face. “Mom, your logic says I should treat my patients while made up like a circus horse, all cleavage and high heels. After all, what if a hot young millionaire is brought in by ambulance and falls in love with me?”
Heath chuckled. “By ambulance? Whatever happened to the good old prince on a fine steed?”
His sister heaved a dramatic sigh and moaned, “Because of his hemorrhoids, the prince can no longer ride a horse. And I suppose he’ll be brought in for treatment because he caught the syphilis from some young hustler. That is the way the fairy tale would turn out today, Mom. Now tell me, do you really want me to straighten my hair for that kind of apocalyptic scenario?”
“Yeah, yeah, just keep making fun of me,” her mom countered. “But I’m going to tell you a tiny piece of wisdom my mother told me when I was a young thing: You need honey to catch a fly—not vinegar.”
“And I’m going to remind you of the fact that I inherited Grandma’s hair.”
“Kayleigh!”
But his sister’s patience seemed to have run out. She twisted free from her mother’s grip. “Besides, I don’t want to attract flies. They tend to sit on cow shit!”
Amused, Heath interrupted the back-and-forth. “When will the food be ready, Mom?”
“Why don’t you two go set the table so I can finish cooking it in peace? I don’t think talking about hemorrhoids, syphilis, and cow manure is helping any.”
Heath turned and walked silently into the dining room, and his sister followed, though she didn’t seem too happy about it.
“I’m surprised you found the time to pay Mom a visit.” Kayleigh’s voice was practically dripping with disdain. “Isn’t there some ho waiting for you to spend your evening with?”
“Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t beat you up more as a kid,” Heath answered, fighting for calm.
“You never beat me up,” she said.
“Believe me, that’s a mistake I deeply regret.” He went over to the sideboard and took out a stack of plates. “Haven’t you caught on to why I’ve been avoiding all of you for weeks now? I’m so sick of your damned accusations and criticism.”
He heard her disdainful voice at his back. “If you don’t want to listen to our ‘accusations,’ you shouldn’t have treated Hayden like shit.”
He gritted his teeth and gripped the plates so hard he feared he might break his mother’s favorite china. “Kayleigh, you have no idea what you’re talking about, so shut your trap.”
“What do you mean, I have no idea? You broke up with her, just like that!”
“Since when does Hayden need someone to defend her? Why don’t you mind your own business?”
“Hayden is my best friend, Heath. That gives me every right to give you a piece of my mind.”
His entire body stiffened. “You’re my sister, Kayleigh. Have you even thought of trying to see my side of things?”
“Your side?” She sounded incredulous. “You’re sleeping with other women—”
“No, I’m not,” he replied quietly, throwing her a disdainful glance over his shoulder. “You really ought to know me better.”
Her eyes widened in confusion. “Then why did you tell her that? You gotta know how upset that made her! Do you want Hayden to hate you?”
Heath didn’t need to answer because his sister had drawn the exactly right conclusions, and there was nothing he could add. But Kayleigh still didn’t seem to understand.
“Do you have any idea how awful she’s feeling because she thinks you’re sleeping with other women? Goddammit, Heath, how could you do this to her?”
“Kayleigh—”
“What do you think Dad would have said about this?”
Now she was bringing out the big guns. Mentioning their father made it so much worse. Heath set the plates aside, gripped the edge of the sideboard with both hands, and lowered his head. “Dad wouldn’t have torn me to pieces the way this entire family has been doing for weeks now. Why can’t you just leave this alone? It’s my life, and it really is none of your business.”
“Dad would be horribly disappointed with the way you deserted Hayden.”
“I did not desert her!” He banged his fist against the sideboard so hard that one of the crystal glasses inside toppled over. Whipping around, he shouted, “Dear God! Do you really believe that I vacated our house, payed off our loan, left her the car, and stay away from my family just for an end goal of deserting her?”
His sister raised her hands in a gesture of cluelessness. “Well then why are you doing all that?”
“Mom! I’m starving!” Ryan’s booming voice interrupted their heated argument. When he stuck his head into the dining room and spotted his oldest brother, his expression darkened. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be out on a hot date?”
Although Kayleigh had reproached Heath in the same way only ten minutes before, she flinched now. “Shut up, Ryan,” she chided. “You can’t—”
“It’s okay,” Heath interrupted, shaking his head. “There’s nothing better than a loving and understanding family.”
“What’s going on in here?” Their mom appeared in the doorway, glancing back and forth between the three of them. “Why are you yelling at each other? I could hear you in the garden!”
“Ryan can have my dumplings.” Heath slipped past his sister and out of the room. “I’ve lost my appetite.”
When Heath’s phone rang for the fifth time in a row, flashing Kyle’s name on the display, he could guess that by now the entire department knew he was suspended.
He was remarkably calm, considering he was now jobless. Worse, it didn’t even bother him that his chief had confiscated his badge. Let them all do as they pleased. He would not see a shrink, and he would not lay out his problems for anyone to pick apart and analyze. He had Irish blood in his veins, after all, and he didn’t believe in pouring out his heart to a stranger. Not when he was sober, anyway.
Speaking of being sober … Maybe he needed to hop over to O’Reary’s and drown his sorrows in a few pints of Guinness and half a bottle of whiskey. The world would look different afterwards.
Who was he kidding?
He was fucked up.
Heath switched off the TV, threw the remote aside, and lay back on his fold-out couch, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling as the smell of chicken tikka masala wafted through his apartment. He used to love Indian food, but after three months in the constant company of curry and turmeric, he would rather have stuffed himself with raw innards than have tandoori chicken ever again.
His phone rang once again, but this time the name on the display was Greg’s. He couldn’t bring himself to ignore the old warrior, who had ridden in his dad’s truck twenty years ago.
“Hey, Greg,” he answered, bracing himself for the worst.
“Heath.” His voice sounded chiding and concerned at the same time. “You’ve been suspended? What happened?”
“Listen—”
“No bullshit,” the fireman grumbled. “You can be a presumptuous ass if you want to, but you’re also the best incident command we have, and we don’t want to lose you. So tell me straight. What happened?”
Greg was the same age as his father, and he’d always been a figure of authority for Heath. He simply couldn’t lie to him. And he realized that he was yearning for the chance to finally confide in someone. “The chief wanted to send me to see a psychologist,” he admitted hoarsely. “I didn’t go, so administration demanded my suspension.”
“Shit,” Greg swore on the other end.
“Yeah.”
“How can we straighten this out, Heath? The gang needs you.”
“Bullshit,” he retorted, sounding harsher than he’d meant to. “Everyone is replaceable.”
“That’s not like you to think so.”
Heath put his left arm over his eyes and swallowed hard. “I can’t see a psychologist, Greg. I could not stick that out.”
For a long moment, the other man was silent, but then he asked, “Why not?”
Fearing he might burst into tears any moment, Heath croaked, “Because he’d see right away that I’m … that I’m fucked. Since Dad died, I haven’t been able to cope . I can’t deal with it all anymore. And then the breakup with Hayden …”
“Yes. Hayden.” Greg sighed deeply. “Why don’t you go talk to Hayden first, Heath? The girl really loves you.”
Shit … The tears welled in his eyes. “Hayden deserves something better than this, Greg.”
“Something better than what?”
Heath uttered a dry, mirthless laugh. “Something better than a fucked-up firefighter.”
The voice of the older man became serious. “There are two types of firefighters, boy. Those who are able to admit when they’re peeing their pants in fright, but who still go into the fire. And then there are those who cop out, because they don’t want to share their fear with anyone.”
“Since when do you talk like some pathetic priest?”
“Since I became the person responsible for straightening you out. Joe would have kicked your ass a few times already.”
Heath’s free hand balled into a fist. “Dad isn’t here anymore.”
“And that’s not your fault. Jesus Christ, Heath. Do you really want to drown in self-pity? Get up and get your ass back in gear! Loss is a part of life. If you think you can spare yourself or anyone else by putting your head in the sand, you’re dumber than I thought.”
“Thanks a lot,” Heath muttered. “That’s a very considerate thing to say.”
“Screw considerate! You’ve had enough of that already. It’s time someone gave you a piece of their mind. Talk to Hayden, go see the shrink, and come back to work. Who else is going to keep your little brother in line?”
There was a click then. Greg had hung up on him.
Chapter 11
Hayden was relieved when the waiter cleared the last course.
Alec Alexander might have been a nice guy, but dinner was a total disaster. Of course that wasn’t his fault. He’d been charming, he’d chatted innocuously and made a few jokes she would normally have laughed about, but she was just so horribly tense and felt more awkward than a teenager.
They were sitting in a small Italian place, only a few blocks from her house, and Hayden couldn’t think of anything but the fact that someone might see her and inevitably spread the news that she had gone out with another man. Everyone would know. Heath would know. Her biggest fear wasn’t that he would care. Her biggest f
ear was that he really would be unconcerned by it.
At first, she had mused that it might be for the best if she could see this date as a new start. She would go out with a man, she would have a good time, and she would slowly get over the fact that Heath had broken up with her. But it soon became painfully obvious that she simply wasn’t ready. Before she could start a relationship with a new man, she had to get past the separation. And that apparently had not happened yet, for Heath kept haunting her thoughts from the moment she stepped into the restaurant and greeted Alec.
It was awful to be sitting at the table with one actual man in the flesh and another who was not really there, but kept interfering with every thought she was thinking.
“You haven’t told me anything about your family yet,” Alec interrupted her thoughts. “Do they live in Boston?”
She set her glass of water back on the table. She had only taken a sip. Then she brushed some crumbs away absentmindedly. “No. My mom moved back to Illinois when I started college.”
“And your father?”
Her smile was forced, but she kept her voice as light as she could. “My dad passed away when I was nine.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” His expression was sympathetic, but it didn’t keep him from asking another question. “How did he die, if I may ask?”
Her fingers were playing with the red-and-white checkered tablecloth. She wet her lips. “He was a fireman, and he died on duty.”
“Is that how you know the Fitzpatricks?”
“Mm-hm … Joe Fitzpatrick and my dad worked together.”
The blond man drummed his fingers on the tabletop for a moment before he sat up straighter and offered her a candid smile. “How long were you engaged to Shane’s brother?” He saw her stunned expression and raised his hand in apology. “Am I being too nosy?
“A little bit,” she admitted, crossing her ankles under the table. She didn’t know why she’d chosen this dress for the occasion, but it was uncomfortable and made her throat itch where the collar kept chafing. It was a gift her mom sent a year ago. Very respectable-looking and far too high-necked for summer. That had probably been the reason she chose it for tonight. She didn’t want to look dressed-up and flirty, so she’d picked the dark blue dress, a piece she’d never liked, and dug it out from the farthest recesses of her closet.
The Heat Is On (Boston Five Book 1) Page 13
