Black Heat

by Ruby Laska

  Jimmy stood formally, averting his eyes. He was the most polite of Cal's roommates by far, which wasn't really saying all that much, but Jimmy's mother had schooled him in the kind of etiquette that was hard to shake, especially when his mind was on other things.

  Of course, the effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt over his flannel pajama pants, and his legendary bare chest and rippling bicep muscles and sculpted abs were on full display. It would be easy to envy Jimmy his build if he wasn't entirely unaware of the effect it had on women, since Jimmy was a certified genius who, in typical mad scientist fashion, was usually only barely aware of the world around him.

  But something had brought him to Cal's room at...he glanced at the clock on his bedside table: 4:30am.

  "This better be good," he growled.

  "It's, ah, rather urgent. I caught someone trying to break into the farmhouse. I locked her in the bathroom and called the cops, but she's yelling her head off and she wants to talk to you for some reason. Who is she, Cal?"

  Cal was already reaching for his shoes, jamming them on his feet without socks. "You called the cops? You couldn't have asked me first?"

  Confusion passed over Jimmy's face. "Well, you're not a cop yet, technically, so you can't arrest her."

  "Arrest her! Who said anything about arresting her? She's not dangerous, Jimmy, she's just—"

  He bit off his words, cursing himself for not confiding in his roommates earlier. He just never believed Roan would come back and break in again after the other day. After all, she'd given him her word.

  Her word. Which obviously wasn't worth the breath it took to utter it. Anger propelled him to the closet, where he pulled on a jacket. She'd said whatever he wanted to hear. And why not? Cal had fallen for it, no questions asked, like a damn rookie. What he'd done went against everything he'd learned in his training, not to mention violating a code of ethics he hadn't yet earned the right to defend.

  "We've got to let her go," he snapped, pushing past Jimmy. "Put on a coat."

  Jimmy looked down at his torso, as if surprised to discover that it was bare. "It was kind of cold out there," he admitted.

  There would be time to rib Jimmy about his latest display of absentmindedness later. They went quickly and quietly through the house, so as not to wake their sleeping roommates, and Jimmy grabbed his coat from the hooks by the front door before they stepped out into the silent, star-studded night.

  The moon was setting on the horizon, but the sun was still nowhere close to rising. The ranch was blanketed in a wintry peace so absolute that it took Cal's breath. Ice sparkled on the grass, the prior day's rain leaving a glittering reminder behind.

  None of that mattered now. "How long ago did you make the call?"

  "Right before I woke you up. I wouldn't have even come to get you except I figured you'd know the guys who responded and—"

  "Look, Jimmy, I need you to trust me here. We're going to let the girl go. I can't be here when they arrive. Tell them something—anything—tell them I went fishing down at Havers Lake. And tell them she got away. I'll explain later."

  "Cal, she had a knife. You've never mentioned her before so I have to deduce that you don't know her well. This situation doesn't lend itself to simple explanations and—"

  "Jimmy." Cal stopped his friend with a hand on his shoulder. They were still several paces from the farmhouse steps, and precious seconds were slipping by fast. The responding car wouldn't have any reason to go lights and sirens if they didn't run into traffic, so he wouldn't even have any warning before they came down the road.

  He took a deep breath. "I asked you to trust me, man. Please."

  Jimmy glanced at him and held his gaze for only half a second before nodding. "Okay. Whatever you need."

  Cal ducked under the low frame of the cellar entry. There was almost no light until Jimmy snapped on the flashlight. The beam bounced across the dusty cement floor, the rickety stairs as they made their way up to the first floor.

  Jammed in front of the bathroom door was a huge tree stump that Cal recognized from the yard. It had to weigh two hundred pounds. "How the hell—never mind," he said, as Jimmy squatted and lifted the thing, grunting with the effort.

  "I'll just take this back outside," he said through gritted teeth.

  The door burst open and Roan ran smack into him. Cal responded reflexively, his arms wrapping around her wiry body.

  "Roan—"

  "I've got to get out of here, Cal, let me go, please!"

  She managed to break free of him and fled down the hall. But there was something wrong—she was limping, and as her foot came down she yelped with pain.

  "What's wrong?" he demanded, catching up with her easily. "Are you hurt?"

  She shook her head impatiently and tried to keep going, holding onto the wall for balance and hopping. There was no way she was getting away at that pace. "I twisted my ankle when your friend snuck up on me."

  She sounded furious, as though she was the one who had been wronged, but Cal had to put that aside for the moment. He pulled her to him and picked her up, hitching her body over his shoulder.

  "Hey!" she protested, twisting in his arms.

  "The cops are going to be here in a few minutes, and unless you want to leave here in the back of the cruiser you need to shut up and—ow!"

  She'd elbowed him in the jaw, but at his exclamation she went limp. She wasn't very heavy, but getting down the cellar stairs carrying her was difficult, and it was a good thing she'd stopped fighting him or they'd both have ended up in a heap at the bottom, with more than a twisted ankle to worry about.

  "I'm sorry," she mumbled.

  Cal didn't respond, focusing all his effort on not dropping her as he dashed across the cellar and up the steps. It was easier going up, and he was out in the cold air in seconds. Dawn now tinged the sky a faint pink on the horizon. Jimmy had returned the stump to its spot near the rail fence, and was coming toward them, wiping his hands on his pants.

  And Cal spotted headlights bouncing down the rutted lane that led to the ranch.

  His gaze met Jimmy's. "Thanks, man," he said. "Gotta go."

  Jimmy nodded curtly, staring at Roan. Then he sat down on the stump to wait for the police.

  Cal didn't look back. He ran straight for the tree line, Roan limp as a sack of flour over his shoulder.

  CHAPTER NINE

  "How far are you taking me?" Roan asked in a small voice.

  Cal hadn't said anything for the last ten minutes. He'd jogged until they were under the cover of the woods, then slowed to a walk. He had to be exhausted, his breath coming hard, his body hot from the exertion, his muscles moving beneath her in the most distracting way—but he hadn't complained once.

  "As far as I have to to make you someone else's problem," he grunted.

  He didn't sound very happy. Roan couldn't blame him. She'd promised, after all...but this wasn't supposed to have happened. He wasn't supposed to ever find out. If she'd had time to find her grandfather's hiding place, she would have covered her tracks. In the backpack she'd left behind was a new padlock that she would have put on the cellar doors, and with luck no one would ever notice that it had been replaced.

  And then what? A little voice demanded. Were you going to keep seeing him, even after you deceived him?

  Were you going to kiss him again?

  Roan felt dizzy, partly from the blood rushing to her head, and partly from the fact that she was slung over Calvin Dixon's shoulder, pressed against his hard-muscled back. She could easily reach out and trace a path from his back down over his ass to his thighs, and—

  Where had that come from? Roan shifted in Cal's arms, trying to create some distance between them, and he stumbled and almost dropped her.

  "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "I think I can walk now."

  He set her down, more carefully than she probably deserved, and rubbed his back, pain crossing over his face.

  Roan gingerly tested her fo
ot. It felt better—definitely not broken. An Ace wrap and a day or two off her feet was all she needed.

  "I can probably catch a ride back to town," she said, not looking at him. They'd been walking parallel to the road, and even though no cars had passed by, they had to be close to the intersection, where traffic would be busier.

  "Hitchhike?" Cal snorted. "When you can't even run away if some nut case picks you up? I don't think so."

  Just then a car came slowly down the road. They both turned; Roan recognized the big white pickup from the ranch. And at the wheel...the same man who'd locked her in the bathroom.

  Cal jogged over to the road and had a quick conversation with him. Then he called over his shoulder. "Come on, Jimmy's going to drive you home. You need me to carry you?"

  Roan shook her head. Great. So she was going to have to ride in a small enclosed space with the man who she'd hit not once but twice, the second time after it was clear that there was no way she was getting away from him, so some might consider it...unwarranted.

  As she walked to the truck with as much dignity as she could, looking past the truck into the fields on the other side of the road to avoid having to look at either man, she burned with shame.

  This wasn't the first time she'd lashed out when she felt cornered. Or the second. Or even the tenth. It had been her pattern for so long she wasn't sure she was capable of responding any other way.

  The problem was that in the last few years Roan had started to tote up all the people she'd driven away because she'd used anger as a substitute for the emotions that she couldn't bear to face. Too many people had left her—her mother had died, her father had chosen Mimi over her—and now the only ones who put up with her were the most stubborn, the gluttons for punishment. Like Walt. He kept giving her chance after chance, as had her coworkers, until she'd finally moved past her distrust and been able to feel close to them.

  But it was too much to ask from a stranger. And too much to ask from the man she'd kissed in her apartment, and then run away from.

  Cal was holding the passenger door open, looking at her with an inscrutable expression on his face. Roan was suddenly conscious of what she must look like as she got into the truck and moved to the middle of the seat. She touched her hair, which had escaped its elastic and was tangled and wild. She'd bitten her lip at some point and she knew it must be swollen. And of course she hadn't bothered to put on any makeup for her early-morning raid.

  "Put on your seatbelt," Jimmy said.

  She did as she was told. Next to her, Cal did the same. Then Jimmy made a slow, careful three-point turn and headed back toward the ranch.

  "Roan, this is Jimmy Mason. Jimmy, meet Roan Brackens."

  "Brackens? As in the family that owns the ranch?" Jimmy asked in surprise. "Then why didn't you just bring a key?"

  "It's...complicated," Roan mumbled.

  "Well, unfortunately it may be more complicated than you're aware," Jimmy said. At least it didn't sound like he was holding a grudge about the two punches she'd thrown. Of course, there was a strong likelihood that he hadn't even noticed them; Roan probably did more damage to her knuckles pounding against his rock-hard chest than she had to him. "The police officers found your backpack."

  Roan winced; she knew it had fallen from her shoulders when she'd tried to elude Jimmy. "But there's nothing in it. Just a padlock and bolt cutters."

  "They probably won't run prints if you told them she didn't take anything," Cal said. He knew that the department was overworked; if they suspected that the break-in was simply a squatter with nowhere else to stay, they probably wouldn't pursue the case.

  "Yes. However, there's the fact that she wrote her name and phone number on it with Sharpie. They let me know they'd be pursuing that, even when I assured them that nothing was missing."

  "Oh, no." Roan put her head in her hands. How could she have been so stupid? The pack had a little rectangle sewed into it; it had reminded her of the backpack her mother had bought her when she started kindergarten. She'd embroidered a special patch with Roan's name and address and hand-sewn it in place. It was that memory Roan had in mind when she wrote her information down, just in case she left the pack in a restaurant or at the shop or...she'd had the thing for so long she must have forgotten.

  "And, they want to talk to you, Cal," Jimmy continued. "Apparently they think pretty highly of you. Thought you might be able to add to the report, given your extraordinary investigative powers."

  If he was being sarcastic, he didn't let on. Jimmy was an unusual person. Unfortunately, getting to know him better was probably not going to happen.

  Cal rubbed his eyes with his hand. Roan stole a look at him out of the corner of her eye. He looked utterly miserable, whether from the strain of rescuing her or from the trouble she'd caused him, she wasn't sure.

  She didn't say a word. Before long they pulled up in front of the house. The street was bathed in morning sunshine, making even the humblest houses look pretty. The trees were dressed in autumn colors; the leaves on the ground were a riot of orange and yellow and red. Soon the snows would blanket the town in white, but for now the November skies were so blue they almost hurt her eyes; the mornings crisp and clean.

  Fall had always been her favorite time of year at the ranch. Her mother cut corn stalks from the summer garden and tied them in decorative sheaves for the front porch. She let Roan help her wire gourds and pretty leaves to a grapevine wreath, and they gathered pumpkins from the patch she grew just for Roan, saving the prettiest ones to carve for Halloween and sharing some with her friends.

  Thanksgiving was the best of all, when Mom's sister and her family made the four-hour drive to spend the holiday with them and stayed overnight.

  Aunt Nina and Uncle Ted and her cousins didn't come around after Mom died. Roan figured it was just too painful. She could understand that. As for Mimi...after one disastrous attempt in which the turkey never cooked all the way through, and she burned the stuffing even though it came from a mix, she insisted that they go into town for every holiday dinner. Roan soon arranged to be invited to friends' houses to get out of celebrating the holiday with her father and Mimi. Her dad hadn't objected...even though she had always sort of hoped he would.

  The last few years she'd gone to Walt's house. It was nice, but it never really felt like Thanksgiving to her. Walt's wife made her dressing with oysters and cornbread, and it was good, but it was nothing like Elaine Brackens' chestnut and apple recipe. Walt's three brothers and their families spent the day watching football, and dinner was served on paper plates to make cleanup easier.

  Roan knew she was lucky to be included, and she felt disloyal even considering turning down the invitation, but this year...maybe this year she'd just stay home. Buy a soup bone for Angel, maybe have Gayle save her a slice of pumpkin pie from the diner and eat it while watching the Macy's parade, which she had always watched with her mother while she rolled out pastry crust for the pies.

  "I'll turn myself in," she blurted. "I'll go down there this afternoon and tell them it was me."

  Except—what if she had to stay in the jail? What she had done was breaking and entering, after all, as well as leaving the scene of a crime. Although technically Cal had been the one to take her from the scene of the crime. If it hadn't been for him, she'd have been waiting in that bathroom when the cops came.

  Not that she'd ever turn Cal in. She'd tell them that he tried to stop her from leaving, that she'd kept going despite him. Except, if they saw her ankle, they would know there was no way she could have gotten away without help.

  "You're not turning yourself in," Cal said shortly. He rubbed his temples in frustration. She was sure he'd gone through the same thought process that she had.

  "Okay, you're right. I'll wait for them to come get me—that'll give me some time to figure out what to do with Angel before I go to jail."

  "Criminy, you're not going to jail," Cal snapped.

  "It's a misunderstanding," Jimmy offered. It mig
ht have been Roan's imagination—her desperate wish that she could wind back time and forget this stupid plan, especially since now she'd dragged two other people into it—but she thought he might be softening toward her. "Maybe I could tell them how I didn't give you a chance to explain. Because I didn't, really."

  "What did you tell them?" Cal asked quietly.

  "Just that I told her to stay in the bathroom while I went to the house to call the police, since we don't have much cell service out here, and she ran away while I was gone."

  Cal snorted. "They didn't ask you why you thought she'd stay put? There's no lock on that bathroom door."

  "I said that she gave me her word of honor that she would stay."

  Cal laughed, a humorless sound. "Only you, Jimmy. Who were the officers who responded?"

  "Maberry and...Chang, I think?"

  Cal made a small moaning sound.

  "Is that bad?" Jimmy asked.

  "No. They're good cops. They just...well, I doubt they've ever heard of a perp being detained by nothing but the Golden Rule, you know what I'm saying?"

  Jimmy gave him a quizzical look. "You're saying that..."

  "Never mind, buddy, it's fine. Listen. I owe you one. I know that asking you to lie for me was way over the line. I'll find a way to make it up to you."

  "But it's my fault," Roan said. "I'm the one who messed everyone up."

  "It's okay," Jimmy said simply. "Cal will fix it. You can count on him."

  She gave him directions the rest of the way to her house. Cal got out, offering Roan his hand. She took it gratefully, pangs shooting through her ankle, but then forced herself to let go and walk toward her house on her own.

  "You'd better get back to the ranch," Cal said to Jimmy. "Just in case...we don't want anyone seeing you here."

  "What about you?"

  "I'll call Matthew to pick me up. I want to make sure Roan's okay and then I'll head over to the Bluebird."

  "Don't eat there and ruin your appetite," Jimmy said. "Matthew will be pissed if you don't eat at the house. He's making blueberry muffins and maple-cured bacon."