Black Heat

by Ruby Laska

  "Okay, maybe," Roan conceded reluctantly. "But I still can't come to dinner."

  "Matthew made enchiladas," Jimmy said in a wheedling tone. "We've got a fire in the fireplace."

  He was being so nice. Almost like a...brother. Like Hank or Justin at the shop, when she let her guard down enough for them to tease her. Roan felt the powerful tug of wanting to belong somewhere, and fought hard to resist it. "I've got food at home. And I don't want to leave Angel by herself."

  "She can come. Put her in the back of the truck—we'll give her a soup bone when we get back."

  That was what did it. A pretend friend was one thing, but a pretend friend who also was nice to her dog...

  Jimmy got out of the truck and made a little bed out of old blankets in the back. He made sure the shell was locked and lifted Angel carefully before they got back in the car. He drove slowly, like he was transmitting precious cargo, and Roan rode in silence, trying very hard not to pretend that she was heading home where she was still welcome.

  #

  There was singing, an off-key and—as Roan realized after she'd heard a few bars—off-color rendition of an old country standard. A dark-haired man was standing on a chair holding a spatula as if it were a microphone, while a gorgeous blond woman in a vintage dress and fur-trimmed boots laughed and clapped her hands with delight.

  "That's Chase," Jimmy said, taking Roan's coat. "And Regina, his girlfriend, who's up from Nashville for a visit."

  Chase jumped down from the chair while Jimmy made introductions. No one mentioned the fact that Roan had been on the property before, and Regina greeted her warmly.

  "What a beautiful dog!" she said, patting Angel on her silky head.

  They were all being so nice to her, smiling and asking her questions and offering her drinks, as if they didn't all know. Roan tried to resist the notion that they were all feeling sorry for her—the little ragamuffin girl, a charity case.

  "Where's Cal?" she finally asked, her face aching from smiling so much.

  Everyone looked at each other.

  "He, uh, had to go," Matthew said, turning back to the stove. "I'm sure he'd be very sorry he missed you. If he knew you were coming."

  Roan's heart sank as she turned to Jimmy. "I thought you said he would be here for dinner!"

  Jimmy look chagrined. "I thought he would be! He said—I mean, in this weather—who goes out in weather like this? It doesn't make any sense."

  "I told him not to," Chase said, looking up from setting the table. "If he'd known you were going to be here, I'm sure he would have stayed."

  "Come with me," Regina interrupted, pushing back her chair. "Let's let the boys cook. I'm going to fix us a drink. They can call us when it's ready. That sound okay to you?"

  "Um...sure," Roan said. After all, she had nothing to lose, with Cal out in the worsening weather somewhere, while she was left behind in a house full of strangers.

  #

  Cal walked.

  He walked because, when he was done with this errand, he intended to get himself to Buddy's Tavern and order himself a beer and a shot of Jamison’s, and after he drained them he planned to order the same thing again. Tonight he was drinking to the end of a dream that never got off the ground, and he intended to do it right. And—cop or no—any fool knew that when you drank as much as Cal planned to, you don't get behind the wheel. Not when the world was full of people who didn't deserve to pay for your mistakes.

  The funny thing—it was kind of hard to think of anything funny at the moment, actually, as the sleet found its way under his rain gear and into his boots, buffeting his face with stinging needles of ice until he couldn't feel his own flesh —the funny thing was that Cal really wasn't much of a drinker. And he'd had Jamison's only one other time in his life. The stuff had burned like acid going down his throat and tasted about like an old sneaker would if you melted it and poured it in a glass.

  But there was a reason Cal had drunk whiskey that long-ago day. His dad, the one his grandmother missed so much even though he'd been a worthless son and a worse father and a really, really terrible husband—the man drank Jamison’s. Cal knew that because when he snuck the old photo album down from the top shelf of his grandmother's closet, and pored over the photos of his father as a young man, George Dixon was rarely without a bottle of the stuff at hand. "Irish, you know, on his father's side," his grandmother used to say mournfully, as if lineage alone could explain why first her husband and then her only child had deserted her to roam the world.

  Cal didn't forgive his father. Hell no—far from it. But he figured it was the legacy of the old man that had caused him to screw this situation up so badly. Bad decisions were in his blood—and Cal meant to give his bloodline its due, just for tonight. Tomorrow he'd get up and figure out what to do with the shards of his life. But tonight was the night for a reckoning.

  Dusk was already falling by the time Cal left the ranch. It was five miles to the edge of town, another half mile to the police station, and by the time Cal trudged the entire way, fighting the snow and slush, losing the feeling in his fingers and toes, he figured it was nearly dinner time. He'd left his watch and his phone on the dresser in his bedroom. He wouldn't be needing them; all he needed was two minutes to tell the chief he was withdrawing his application to the department. He had his wallet, so if he got hit by a car, they'd be able to tell whose remains they were scraping off the road—but the only car that went by him was Jimmy's truck.

  It looked like Jimmy was bringing a woman home to dinner, which in other circumstances would have been interesting, since Jimmy rarely noticed the female half of the population, as far as Cal could tell. Matthew was making enchiladas tonight, which was usually quite a production, though maybe not the best night to bring a date home since there was a lot of beer drinking and joke telling and general boorish male behavior. Come to think of it, Jayne had hightailed it to book club—poor Regina, in town to see Chase, had insisted on staying.

  Oh, well. Cal wasn't really part of the core group anyway, he reasoned glumly, kicking a chunk of broken asphalt. Back in high school, Matthew and Zane had been best friends, two good-looking kids who were loved by everyone. They played varsity football with Jimmy and Chase, and the four of them took the Red Fork High Bulldogs to the State Championship their junior and senior years. Jimmy helped them study, Chase got them invited to all the parties. A tight crew, with their cute girlfriends and their letter jackets and their bright futures.

  Meanwhile, Cal got suspended four times before the start of senior year, and arrested twice. They'd never given him a chance because he never gave them an opportunity.

  Don't, he warned himself. The four men he lived with were his friends, the best he'd ever had. They'd proved over and over again that the past meant nothing. They'd welcomed him as if he was one of their own. Believed in him when he said he wanted to be a cop. Hell, Zane had gone on conditioning runs with him between hitches, and Jimmy had helped him study for the written exam. Matthew saved all the soda cans for shooting practice along the back fence. Even Jayne had offered to take a day off so she could drive him to his final exams and out for a celebratory drink after.

  Except...there weren't going to be any final exams. Cal felt sick to his stomach as he imagined the look on his friends' faces when they realized that he'd fucked up again. That he'd blown this last chance and was nothing but a guy with a juvie record and a shortage of prospects.

  Don't go there. The voice was adamant, the same voice that had made him keep going to school even when it would have been easier to just drop out for good; the voice that nagged him to return to his grandmother's house even after he let her down for the hundredth time.

  Only something was different now. No: Cal wasn't going to lie to himself, to pretend he didn't know what it was. Someone, not something—Roan was different. She had come into his life and showed him there were reasons to get out of bed every morning that didn't have anything to do with the badge he longed to wear, or the black m
arks on his record. The only thing that mattered was being worthy of her. And if that meant that Cal had to abandon all his other dreams like worthless trash, he'd do it.

  He had chosen Roan. The night he'd carried her away from the house where she'd spent her unhappy childhood, the house where she'd returned only out of desperation, he'd made his choice. And he wasn't sorry, either. Now all he had to do was pay.

  #

  Regina McCary was just so nice.

  Roan couldn't quite figure it out. Regina had some big-deal job in Nashville, as a talent scout or agent or record producer or something. She was here at the ranch because of Chase, but that was all a little vague too. Roan had asked how they met, and the two of them had looked at each other and something passed between them, something that made her heart hurt a little because she'd never had a man look at her that way.

  "I wanted to make him a star," Regina said. "And after he turned me down, he took me to see a boy named Mason Crenshaw—maybe you've heard of him?"

  "That guy who sings 'Sometimes a Fool'?" Roan said, naming the debut hit that had recently stormed the country scene. "I love that song."

  "Yes, well, that happened, and...well, now I seem to be spending more and more time up here. "

  It wasn't any kind of explanation—not one that made sense, anyway, but after Cal's roommates got done apologizing for his absence, Regina fixed Roan a drink she called a Sidecar and they went to sit in the family room, away from the busy kitchen, and Roan finally began to relax a little.

  "This is delicious," she said, taking a big sip of the citrusy concoction.

  "It was popular in the nineteen-fifties," Regina said, smoothing down her skirt. It was full and poufy and perfect. The seam in Regina's stockings was straight and perfect. Her sweater was buttoned just so, leaving a view of her curves that was inviting but prim. Her hair looked like she'd walked out of a beauty parlor on a movie set, like Marilyn Monroe on a good hair day.

  Roan was painfully aware that she was still wearing her work clothes. In addition to the grease-stained brown cargo pants, she wore a T-shirt printed with the logo of a pet rescue organization. She'd worn a bra today, thank heavens; some days she even skipped that, since she didn't exactly need one. She didn't have a bit of makeup on and her hair was a disaster—wet weather made it even curlier, and how long had it been since she got a trim, anyway? She put her hand to it self-consciously, and then she caught Regina looking at her thoughtfully, no doubt feeling sorry for her, and she set her drink down a little too hard on the coffee table.

  "I should go," she said.

  "You should do no such thing!" Regina gasped, putting her hand on Roan's arm. Her perfectly manicured fingers were cool to the touch. Roan hesitated, looking around the family room.

  "It's funny," she said. "Nothing has changed in this room."

  "Oh, I keep forgetting, you used to live here."

  Roan blushed, knowing Regina must know all about her history with the ranch, including the break-in. "When I was little, Daddy had a rule that I couldn't come over here to the bunkhouse and bother the hands. But every year after harvest, when they moved on, Mama and I would come over here and clean. She called it a spring cleaning even though we did it in the fall. This time of year, actually," she added wistfully. "Anyway, these same couches and that television, the table in the kitchen and the dishes and pots and pans—it's so funny to see them again, with, you know, all you guys."

  "It must have been wonderful to grow up here," Regina said. "I grew up in Chicago. I never got to go out in the country. I can't believe I missed so much."

  Of course Regina was from the city, Roan thought, with her polished style and sophisticated manners. Roan had been on road trips to Chicago a couple of times with friends, back in high school. Lake Shore Drive had been beautiful, with its twinkling lights and the black, black horizon where the moon shone down on the lake. But she'd always been happy to get back home.

  "Which room is Chase's?" she asked, trying to get her mind off its wistful track.

  "Last one on the end, with the window that looks out to the shed."

  "Oh! Have you found the hidey-hole yet?"

  "The what?"

  "Every room has one. When my great-grandpa built the bunkhouse he put one in every room so the hands could keep their valuables hidden away. It was just a little thing he did to make it nice for them. Daddy showed me almost all of them. He told me it was an important secret that I would have to keep—"

  Her voice broke off. After I'm gone, he'd said, way back when he was healthy and strong and Roan was sure he would live forever.

  Regina clapped her hands. "Oh, can you show me?"

  "Well, sure, I guess."

  Regina picked up the pitcher of cocktails and led Roan down the hall, past the kitchen full of laughing voices, to Chase's room. She held open the door and Roan stepped into the memory.

  Golden pine paneling that she and her mother had waxed and buffed to a shine. Heart pine floors covered with the same throw rugs she'd beaten over the porch rail. Eyelet curtains in the windows, a quilt on the bed made by her mother's aunt, red and blue patches stitched together in a pattern of overlapping squares.

  Roan put her hand to her mouth, momentarily unable to breathe. So Mimi hadn't gotten rid of everything after all. Her zeal to replace all the evidence of her husband's old life hadn't stretched to the bunkhouse.

  "You all right, honey?" Regina asked.

  "Yes. Yes, it's just..." Roan picked up the edge of the quilt, rubbed the old cotton between her fingers. "I remember this quilt. My great-aunt made it. And that sampler on the wall—" She pointed to the cross-stitched framed piece. "Mom found it in a box in the attic, and she thought my daddy's mother must have made it."

  "Oh!" Regina looked stricken. "Roan, I'm sorry, we'll have to get these things back to you as soon as possible. It isn't right for you not to have them."

  "No, no, I live in a tiny apartment, I wouldn't have room for them. Just knowing they're here...that they're safe, that makes me feel better." An uncomfortable thought struck Roan. She looked from the pearl gray satin dress hanging from the closet door, to the expensive bottles and creams on the dresser. Regina's taste was far more sophisticated than these simple handmade decorations. "Unless you would prefer to replace them?" she asked, swallowing.

  "Are you kidding? I love them. They're irreplaceable, and I promise I'll make sure they are well taken care of until the day comes when you have room for them. Now show me that hidey-hole."

  Roan dipped her head to hide the relief. She was surprised how much she liked Regina, and how easy it was to trust her to care for her family's treasures.

  She knelt down in front of the closet and tugged the short piece of floorboard right inside the closet door, and it slid smoothly out of its fitted joint. Behind was a cavity about a foot long and six inches deep. Roan felt around with her hand and touched something silky.

  "Oh!" She exclaimed, pulling out an old Barbie doll. "Nadia! She was one of my favorites."

  She showed the doll to Regina, who laughed. "You kept your treasures in here...I love that. I would have done exactly the same thing."

  Roan stroked the doll's long red hair. She was wearing a puff-sleeved gingham dress in shades of yellow and pink. Roan's mother had made it for her ninth birthday, along with a matching one for Roan. They'd had a party out behind the house, with lemonade and cake. Her daddy gave all the kids tractor rides, and everyone got to feed apples to Renegade, who was the grandfather of Patch, the mule who currently roamed the ranch, the one animal Mimi had allowed to stay.

  "I love it," Regina said firmly. "You know, Chase and I've been talking about finding a place of our own. Sometimes it's hard, all these people under one roof, and I sure could use some extra closet space, but..." She looked around the room thoughtfully. "I don't know. I guess I've gotten used to it. I'm not in a hurry to let all of this go."

  For a moment neither woman spoke, each lost in her own thoughts.

  "W
ell, I guess we should go back and join the party," Regina finally said. "You want to take a peek in Cal's room?"

  "Oh, I—wouldn't want to—I mean, that would be—" Roan stammered, her face heating.

  "Come on, you know you do." Regina gave her a mischievous grin. "He wouldn't mind—we have an open-door policy around here. It's like a boy's dorm, they go in and out of each other's rooms all the time borrowing things. Seriously, I think they're all in arrested development."

  "Well..."

  But when Regina showed her which room was Cal's, she couldn't resist. It was the smallest room, the one tucked under the sloping west roof, so that you'd have to be careful getting up out of bed or you'd hit your head on the ceiling. It had two narrow dormer windows looking out over the pasture down to the creek. Each had a little ledge that had been Roan's responsibility to dust. Long ago, she'd thought that if it were her room, she would use the ledges for all her treasures: the smooth pebbles she found in the bottom of the creek, the perfect leaves her mother helped her flatten between the pages of a book, the paper-wrapped soaps her mother brought back from a hotel when she went to see her childhood friend in Montana.

  Regina watched her from the doorway. The room held Cal's scent, citrus-y and smoky and masculine, and it brought back such a strong memory of lying in his arms that Roan forgot to breathe.

  Regina came into the room and sat down on the bed, setting their drinks on the night stand. Cal kept things tidy; he'd left few personal possessions lying out. A couple of books were stacked on the window ledge. His phone and watch were lined up next to his alarm clock—why hadn't he taken them with him tonight? Clothes hung neatly in the closet, a gym bag hung from a hook, skis leaned in the corner. Simple, masculine possessions, that gave no clues as to who he was.

  "So where's the secret compartment in this room?" Regina asked, freshening Roan's drink from the pitcher.

  "This is the one room where we never found the hiding place," Roan said, shaking herself free of her reverie. "Daddy says his father never showed him, and he didn't know if it was because it didn't have one when it was built, or it was just so well hidden that everyone forgot about it." She shrugged. "I certainly spent a lot of time in here looking."