Crave the Heat

by Marnee Blake

  Secrets had ruined her first marriage. Except Jeff had kept his secrets because of his job. Dak? He’d kept his intentions a secret because she’d disagreed. If he’d go behind her back with this thing, would he lie to her about other things?

  Because she got the impression that there was more going on with him than he’d said. He must have believed there was a good reason for Jesse to drag his brother in. So what was it? And more important, why hadn’t he told her what it was?

  It didn’t make any sense. Mostly, it highlighted how she didn’t know that much about him. They’d connected physically, sure. And he had a way of looking at her, of listening, that made her want to share everything with him.

  The same didn’t apply for him, it seemed, which was unfortunate because she’d come to care about him so much.

  Maybe it wouldn’t have hurt as much if she didn’t.

  Her mistake. What she should do is end it now. She’d already been down this road before. Dak might have kept this secret for different reasons than Jeff had—reasons she still didn’t know—but the result was the same. She was still dating someone who couldn’t be completely honest with her.

  He followed her into her kitchen. She’d been home for an hour and it had been a long day, so she’d changed into sweats, a tank top, and pulled her hair into a high ponytail. It had gotten hot this afternoon—typical Oregon fall weather. Some days you needed a coat, some days you put on shorts.

  She snagged her wineglass from next to the stove, and tipped it toward him. “Would you like a glass?”

  “No, thanks.” He propped his hands on her counter. “Heidi, I should have told you I was going to call Jesse.”

  “Yes. You should have.” She stirred the pot on the stove. Already her chili was starting to smell good.

  He glared at her. “You aren’t making this easy.”

  “Oh, is that my job?” She sipped her wine. “Sorry if I’m not doing my part here. Because I thought your job was to help me on this investigation. Isn’t that what your father asked you to do? Now, I have no idea what you’re doing.”

  “I’m sorry.” He didn’t move. If he’d come closer, tried to touch her, she would have blown him off. Instead, he held her eyes, allowing her to read his face.

  What was it about this man? Every logical piece of her said that she should remain closed off from him. She didn’t understand what was with him, but her gut told her that it was complex. But, if he wasn’t going to talk to her, then there was no way for her to figure it out.

  She glanced down, stirring her chili again.

  “My mother is sick.”

  “I know.” Yeah, that was all she knew. Another puzzle piece with no matches.

  “She had a heart attack, last year.”

  Her gaze found his. “I’m so sorry. Is she okay?”

  “I don’t know, really.” Dak ran his hands over his hair. “I can’t even say now, to be honest. She stopped by the air center today. I haven’t seen her in years and today, she just showed up.”

  “Because of Mikey’s questioning?” It was the only new development. “Is that why she came to visit?”

  He tucked his hand under his chin. “She stopped by today, to tell me that I should have let things with my brother go.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah. I tried to talk to her, but she left quickly. I have no idea why she bothered. Said my dad sent her.”

  She grimaced, studying him. His father had wanted him to help her. At least, allegedly. Now that she had some experience with Lyle Parrish, she could only guess he had other motives. Maybe motives that included protecting his younger son. She firmed her mouth, studying him.

  Her head dropped, and she leaned on her hands, shaking her head. She’d known all along that his brother might be involved. That wasn’t why she was upset. “You lied to me.”

  “Listen, Heidi—”

  “No. If it wasn’t a direct lie, it was an omission of information.”

  He rubbed his jaw, obviously upset.

  But she wouldn’t let that sway her. She couldn’t. “Why didn’t you tell me this morning that you were going to go no matter what? When Jesse called me in there, I wasn’t prepared at all.”

  “Because you were going to try to stop me.” He exhaled sharply. “And nothing you said was going to change my mind.”

  “So what I said didn’t matter?” Just what she liked to hear.

  “Of course it mattered.” He scowled at her. “But your safety matters more to me.” His expression softened. “It means everything to me.”

  Damn it. It was hard to stay mad at him when he said things like that. “I didn’t know what to ask him. I had nothing.”

  “Because I have nothing. I have no evidence.” He paced away, his hands in his hair. “Nothing to go on at all. I hadn’t talked to anyone in my family for a long time. I told you I left when I was seventeen. But it wasn’t so much that I left. My father kicked me out.”

  “What?” It wasn’t that she didn’t know people who had difficult relationships with their parents. But, the more she discovered about the Parrishes, the more confusing it became.

  “My brother, he got into trouble, at school, with some friends. Things weren’t great at home. My mom didn’t want to be on the reservation. She isn’t indigenous, and she didn’t feel like she belonged. Mostly she’s an introvert, has a hard time making new friends. My father was building his business, so he wasn’t home much. My brother, he floundered.”

  “Lots of kids behave badly.” There had to have been more than that.

  “Yeah, well, I told you my house in Washington burned down, right?”

  “Yes.” She softened, in spite of her wanting to remain strong and firm with him. So much tragedy. “You told me that was the reason you became a firefighter, that you wanted to make sure that no one else lost their home.”

  “Well, when we moved here”—he exhaled, and his head dropped—“I caught him once, in our shed. He looked lost, confused.” His fingers bit into the counter, so hard she could see his white knuckles. “He was holding a can of lighter fluid.”

  A chill ran up her spine. Lighter fluid. Except, that wasn’t exactly a smoking gun. “There are a lot of reasons—”

  “The ground was coated.” He shook his head. “I could smell it, so strong it made me gag. The grass, it was soaked. All around the building.” He met her gaze again, beseeching. “I asked him what he was doing. He didn’t say anything. He only stared at me. Almost like he didn’t know how he got there.”

  “That’s when I told my father. I told him what I’d found, told him that I thought that Mikey was going to hurt someone. He’d already had a couple of other run-ins with the law—like I said, shoplifting, fighting, all sorts of things. I said I was worried, told him that I thought he might have wanted to burn down our shed.” He exhaled. “I told him that I was afraid he might have burned down our old house in Washington.”

  “Oh God.”

  “My father and I got into a huge fight. He took a swing at me. It wasn’t the first time he’d hit me. But this time I hit him.” His mouth tipped up, the half smile she was becoming all too familiar with. “It got worse and ended badly. When all was said and done, I was on my way to California, and I have no idea what happened here afterward.”

  Calmly, Heidi turned the stove off. She covered the chili, still boiling, and walked around to Dak’s side. Then, she wrapped her arms around him.

  He had been a seventeen-year-old boy, trying to get help for his brother. It had taken a lot of courage to speak up, to stand up to his father. Watching his mother and his brother falter, knowing his family was hurting, he must have felt so helpless.

  Though she’d never met his mother, she had firsthand experience with his father and his brother. While his father struck her as arrogant and highhanded, his brother had only seemed broken.
Lots of times, especially when she’d listened to interrogations of drug dealers, she’d come across the same blustering swagger. It always hid a whole lot of fear and disillusionment.

  That’s how Mikey Parrish struck her—lost.

  “Why didn’t you tell me all of this sooner?” This was the part she was having so much trouble understanding. She could have helped, if he’d let her.

  But he hadn’t. He’d kept everything to himself.

  “I was afraid I wouldn’t see my mother again.” He pulled back. “My father controls her. She talks to who he wants her to talk to, sees who he wants her to see. She even said that my father asked her to come today.”

  “He’s afraid.” There was no other answer. “He’s hiding something. We’ll need to push him harder, you know.” If Lyle Parrish was trying to hide something, that meant there was something to hide.

  Dak nodded. “I know. After your car, I couldn’t keep quiet anymore. I’d hoped that you’d have more luck finding something, with Jesse and Maisie’s help. I tried to talk to Mikey, but I was getting nowhere. But the car…” He ran a finger along her cheek. “You could have been hurt, babe. I had to say something. I should have told you first. I should have.” He shrugged again, and the vulnerability on his face tugged at her heart. “I was—I suppose I was ashamed. I couldn’t find the words.”

  “Ashamed?” That caught her off guard. “What do you have to be ashamed of?”

  “I got kicked out of my house. My father was so mad he made me leave. For a long time, I thought it was my fault, that he’d been right to send me away, that I had done something wrong by trying to get Mikey help, upset the balance in my home. I thought I’d made peace with that, but apparently not.”

  She wrapped her arms around him, dropping her head to his chest and breathing him in. This man. As a boy, he’d stood up to his father, a man she knew to be domineering, to get help for his brother, and then spent years suffering from being ostracized. Yet still, when he worried about her, he’d taken the chance to cut all ties with his family, to be sure she wasn’t harmed.

  What would she have done in his situation? At seventeen, he wouldn’t have had any way to get his brother help on his own, short of calling the police himself. Even then, she wondered how far he would have gotten. After witnessing Dusty Kirk’s obstruction, there was a good chance he would have been ignored.

  After the accident and her miscarriage, her family and friends had treated her like a porcelain doll. They’d spoken softly to her, careful with their wording of everything. But, the worst part had been that no one had touched her. She must have been so broken that her loved ones hadn’t wanted to hurt her further.

  Later, she realized that she’d wanted someone to try to hold her together.

  So, she held him there, in her kitchen, next to a pot of chili. He remained stiff, but after a moment, he pulled her closer, tucking her against his body. She burrowed in, wanting to absorb some of his pain.

  When he sighed, she pulled back, keeping his hand in hers. Looking up at him, she hoped he could see that she wasn’t judging him, that she saw him, the impossible position he’d been in.

  Tugging, she led him down the short hall to her bedroom. As she held his gaze, she started stripping out of her clothes. First her shirt, then her pants. Her bra and panties followed.

  It only took him a second to get into the swing of things before his clothes joined hers on the floor. He stepped forward, folding her against him, the last of their barriers gone as he covered her mouth with his. As they kissed, she touched him, running her hands over his body.

  Today, if Dak needed someone to hold him together, she could be that for him.

  Their kisses and touches became frantic, and he lifted her into his arms. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her to the bed. They tumbled together, a mass of arms and legs and seeking hands. She arched into him, desperate to get close to him. What had started as a need to fill his hollowness became a desire to fill her own.

  Maybe, together, they could fix themselves.

  As he came inside her, she sighed, gathering him as close as she could. Though his rhythm was slow at first, as if he wanted to savor the pairing, soon they were moving against each other, desperate to get where they were going.

  When they fell apart together, she opened her eyes, watching him and pressing her fingers into his back.

  They settled, and he rolled down next to her, curling her against him. As she tucked herself into his arms, she glanced up, so she could watch the calm on his face.

  Tomorrow, they’d need to deal with this. But tonight, they had each other.

  Chapter 14

  “I shouldn’t be here.” Dak tapped his fingers against his thighs, sitting in the passenger seat of Heidi’s rented SUV.

  “It might help.” She gripped the steering wheel, glancing in the rearview mirror. Jesse Broadridge was supposed to meet them any minute now. “We couldn’t get anywhere with your brother, but maybe if you’re here, it’ll help.”

  He severely doubted it. Dak stared across the street, at the sprawling house he’d lived in during high school. Set back in the huge lot, with the lawn perfectly manicured, the bushes pruned. His father had always been meticulous about their house upkeep. He kept an entire team of landscapers on the payroll. As a real estate developer, he never wanted to give any future clients a reason to believe he wasn’t put together. From the outside, the place looked like a palace.

  What a joke.

  “Do they know we’re coming?” He continued to stare at the house. His mother was inside, he was certain of it. He couldn’t stop thinking about their conversation yesterday. Her mood had been erratic. One moment she’d appeared calm; the next she’d lashed out at him. He didn’t remember that from his childhood. She’d always been more even keel.

  Heidi nodded. “I didn’t want this to feel like we were ambushing them. Jesse called.”

  “What did my father say?”

  “He said that it didn’t matter if we stopped by, they had no comment.”

  Of course he had. Dak laughed, but it wasn’t funny. “This is going to be a disaster.”

  Her mouth thinned, but she didn’t respond. This hadn’t been her idea, either. Jesse had wanted them to try again. Dak’s father was an important part of the community. If Jesse planned to mount any sort of investigation specifically about the Parrish family, he needed to make sure that he covered his bases. That meant giving them every chance to cooperate.

  It would still end badly.

  “Here he is.”

  In the side rearview, Dak caught sight of Jesse’s police cruiser pulling in behind him. He inhaled, bracing himself. “Let’s go.”

  Jesse pulled in first, and Heidi followed behind them. As their cars wound up the driveway to the front of the house, the dread in his stomach reminded him of when he’d returned home after curfew when he was sixteen. As they all got out of their cars, no one said anything. Apparently, Heidi and Jesse wanted to get it over with, too.

  On the front porch, Jesse rang the bell, following it up with a knock.

  When the door opened, his father stood in the frame. He didn’t even cast a glance in Dak’s direction, instead leveling his glare on Jesse. “Officer Broadridge. I thought I told you that we would have no other comment.”

  “Morning, Mr. Parrish. I know that’s what you said, but I hoped maybe you’d had a change of heart.” Jesse offered an easy smile, a smile he probably believed would tie them together, remind Dak’s father that they weren’t enemies.

  He obviously didn’t know the man very well at all.

  Lyle folded his arms. “I haven’t. Maybe you would take the word of my long-missing son over Mikey who has been living here, in our community, since he was in middle school. But I definitely won’t.”

  Maybe his father’s nastiness would have riled him up years
ago, even a few weeks ago, but not today. Staring at the stranger in front of him, Dak let go of whatever remained of his feelings for the man. He had no idea what had happened the last twelve years, even in the years before that, but this wasn’t the person he remembered from his childhood. That man had been overbearing, but he hadn’t abandoned him.

  Shrugging off his father’s words, Dak glanced past his father. “Is Mikey home?”

  “He doesn’t live here.”

  “I assumed not. But I bet he’s here now anyway.”

  His father’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not letting you talk to him.”

  “He doesn’t make his own decisions anymore?” Dak folded his arms over his chest. “Not that any of us ever made our own decisions here.” He looked behind his father, at the immaculate foyer. He’d be willing to bet that everything in the house was completely spotless.

  “You’re one to judge. It’s not as if your decisions of late have been very good.” He snorted before nudging his head toward Jesse. “How long has he been involved in this investigation? A week? Two? When do you think he started to suspect his brother? Bet it wasn’t just yesterday. What else do you think he’s hiding from you?” His father propped his hip against the door. “Did he tell you about how our house burned down in Washington? Funny, he lived there at the time, too. Seems that these arsons have only started since he returned to Oregon.” His father’s derisive gaze found him. “Maybe you’re looking at the wrong Parrish brother.”

  Heidi gasped.

  Outrage poured through Dak. “You wanted me to help out with the investigation. Having me involved in it was your idea.”

  His father shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He pushed away, reaching for the handle. “As I said before, though, Mikey won’t be answering any more questions, Officer Broadridge.”

  “Mr. Parrish—” Heidi reached out. Maybe she planned to keep him from closing the door, maybe not. But his father’s glare would have frozen anyone.