The Big Heat Read online

  Well, maybe.

  * * *

  “Son of a bitch,” Cade swore softly under his breath.

  “What?” Sunny said.

  Apparently not softly enough.

  “No problem. I missed my turn.”

  He had fully planned to turn Sunny over to Marlene. It would’ve been the perfect win-win situation. Marlene truly seemed to be an advocate for Sunny. With a big house and a calm, soothing nature, she would’ve managed to keep Sunny safe and sound at her house until the Three-Star urge had passed. Sunny could enjoy a hot shower, a good meal and a sound night’s sleep without worrying about someone trying to snap her picture or land an interview.

  He’d counted on Marlene being through with dinner and home. He hadn’t, however, counted on Martin being there, too. From the looks of things, they’d decided on more than raw fish and rice.

  Martin’s truck sat in the drive next to Marlene’s car. The redbrick Colonial stood dark, even the Christmas tree in the front window wasn’t turned on. Not quite eight o’clock. Cade didn’t figure Marlene was teaching Martin to knit in the dark.

  “This can’t be the way to the bar.” Accusation sparked in her eyes. “Dive bars aren’t usually in upscale neighborhoods.”

  This whole operation was going from bad to worse. There’d been no way in hell he could let her walk out of the front of that jail and climb into a cab and then he’d been equally unable to turn her loose at any bar in her present state of mind, much less the Three-Star.

  “No. It’s not the way to the bar. You’re not going to the bar. The bar is a bad decision.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the dark house. “That was Marlene’s house. I thought you could stay with her. That was a good decision. Unfortunately, she seems to be entertaining this evening.”

  And now Martin was screwing Marlene—not his worst nightmare but he damn sure wasn’t happy about it because it could very well mess things up at the office just when they were getting back on their feet. Not to mention it totally shot to hell his plan to let Marlene smother Sunny in goodwill. He could hardly knock on the door and drop her off now. And if Martin broke Marlene’s heart, or even dinted it, Cade was gonna kick Martin’s ass up one side of Poplar Street and back down the other, father or not.

  “You lied.”

  She could add it to his ongoing list of sins. “I did.”

  “I want to go to that bar.”

  “Nope. I can’t let you do that.”

  She drummed her fingers on the armrest. “We covered this earlier. You don’t let me do anything. If you won’t drop me off at the Three-Star, take me back home.”

  That definitely wasn’t what she needed with photographers hanging around out front. “Uh-uh.”

  “Drop me off at a friend’s.”

  Not a chance. There was no guarantee her friend would squash Sunny’s plan. “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t need a keeper. Especially not you.”

  “For the record, I followed your campaign. You strike me as a very smart, very responsible woman who makes sound decisions most of the time. This isn’t one of those times. Pardon me for pointing it out, honey. But you haven’t done such a stellar job of keeping yourself out of trouble today.”

  “You can’t just throw me in your car—”

  “I didn’t throw.”

  “—put me in your car and take me somewhere I don’t want to go. That’s kidnapping.” Outrage sent her voice an octave higher.

  He shrugged. Technically she had a point. He trusted she’d see it differently later. “Just think of it as protective custody.”

  “You’re not going to handcuff me, are you?”

  “Only if you want me to.”

  “Your caveman tactics are really getting on my nerves.”

  “I hate that for you.”

  “You can at least tell me where we’re going.”

  He’d known she was going to be a pain in his ass but there was no getting around it.

  “We’re going to the one place I know you won’t get yourself into any more trouble. My house.”

  * * *

  She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Or maybe scream. Screaming might relieve some of the frustration she felt but it would probably startle him while he was driving and that would be a bad thing because then they might wreck and even if they weren’t both killed or maimed that would make her responsible for two accidents in one day and it would be a crying shame to be responsible for wrecking such a beautiful car. So no crying, no lunatic laughing and no screaming.

  Instead she rubbed her right thumb over her hummingbird ring, grounding herself. Hummingbirds bypassed tough and bitter exteriors to find the hidden treasures, the nectar beneath. Chill, Sunny, and think.

  Okay, so maybe showing up at a dive bar and getting smashed and trashed wasn’t the best idea. At the time it felt like she was doing something, taking control.

  She firmly believed that nothing in life was incidental. People came to you, crossed your path for a reason. You either had a lesson to learn from them or you were meant to teach them something. Perhaps both.

  Where was the lesson in Cade Stone? She couldn’t say she liked him, but she’d been drawn to him from the moment she’d seen that billboard.

  Protective custody. The realization crept in on quiet cat feet—she felt safe. His infuriating tactics might rile her and cause all kinds of hormonal havoc, and he obviously considered her an equal annoyance, but for the time being, for as long as he had her in protective custody, she was safe. He’d stand between her and the paparazzi, her and Meeks, her and whomever. He’d keep her safe but there was nothing safe about him.

  “You asleep?”

  “No. I’m having a Zen moment.”

  “What?”

  “I’m trying to think.”

  “There’s a barbecue joint up here. I’m going through the drive-thru. You need something to eat. What do you want?”

  Okay, it was safety with a rough edge, not warm, cuddly safe. Did he have to be so high-handed about everything? “What if I don’t like barbecue?”

  He slowed down and made a right into the parking lot of what was little more than a shack. A weathered wooden pig silhouette, minus one leg, was mounted on the top with The Best Barbecue written across the pig in faded paint.

  “Do you like barbecue?”

  “Well, yeah. But what if I didn’t?”

  He pulled up to the order window. “Then I guess you’d tell me, wouldn’t you? What do you want?”

  “There’s no menu sign. What do they have?”

  “Pork.”

  “What else?”

  He grinned and Sunny was glad she was sitting, because she wasn’t too sure she’d have still been standing, otherwise. “You can get it on a bun or without a bun.”

  Sunny laughed. Do tell. The caveman actually possessed a sense of humor. “Then I think I’ll have the pork. On the bun. Fries?”

  “Jerline can fix you up with some fries.” He rolled down his window. A big woman, Sunny’d guess in her mid-fifties, with red frizzy hair, a yellow mumu and rhinestone-rimmed cat-eye sunglasses opened the glass for the order window. Jerline was colorful.

  “What’s up, Big Daddy?” Jerline sounded as if she’d smoked about a gazillion packs of unfiltered Camels from the time she was born. “How’s my favorite hunk tonight?”

  “Ready to get home and let the tired fall off. How’re you?”

  “My arthritis has been acting up in my left knee but I’m ready to go dancin’ whenever you are. What can I get you tonight?”

  “Three sandwiches, two fries.”

  “Coleslaw?” Sunny asked.

  “And a coleslaw,” he tacked on to the order.

  “Uh-huh. Who’s that with ya? You steppin’ out on me?”

  “Nah, I just found her by the road. You know you’re the only one for me.”

  “You smooth-tongued devil.” She looked over her shoulder and yelled, “Clarence, I need three lit
tle gos, two fry and a slaw. It’s Cade. Put on extra meat.” She looked back to Cade. “We’ll fix you up. Gracie called and we’re all set to cater the Christmas party. Sure appreciate the business.”

  Sunny guessed they’d have pork at their Christmas party.

  “Good deal. It wouldn’t be the Christmas party without The Best Barbecue.” Sunny tried not to stare but he had a nice profile, strong, commanding.

  Jerline leaned her elbow on the windowsill. “She said Linc’s getting hitched.”

  “Yep.”

  “To some wedding planner gal.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You know what that means don’tcha?”

  “That Linc’s lost his mind?” His dry quip didn’t strike Sunny as altogether joking. It didn’t leave much ambiguity as to how he felt about the matter. Was it marriage in general or just his brother in particular? And was it any of her business? No.

  “Get out.” Jerline swatted toward the open window and giggled in a gravelly baritone. “It means you’re next.”

  “Haven’t you heard?” Cade said. “I’m already married.” Sunny’s breath locked in her throat. He couldn’t have kissed her like that if he was married. Well, he could, but dammit…. “To my job.”

  She had no idea what Jerline said. He wasn’t married! Close on the heels of breathing again came the realization that it shouldn’t—make that didn’t—matter a whit to her whether he was married or a free agent.

  Jerline handed a big brown paper sack out the window. “There you go. Bon appetit.” Cade passed it to Sunny. “And don’t do nuthin I wouldn’t.” She waved. “Nice to meet ya, hon.”

  Sunny put the bag in her lap. “Nice to meet you, too,” Sunny said, although the meeting had been totally nonparticipative on her part.

  “Sounds like a nice girl.” Jerline grinned, revealing teeth so startlingly white and straight they had to be dentures. “Mark my words, you’re next, Big Daddy.”

  “Later.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He exited through the drive-thru.

  “Big Daddy? You picked me up on the side of the road?”

  “Jerline calls all the men Big Daddy, and the other, it was just a joke.”

  “She’s quite a character.”

  “You don’t know the half.” He shook his head. “Jerline’s legally blind. It’s a degenerative thing. She and Clarence have had some hard times.”

  Sunny had an aha moment. “That’s why she said I sounded like a nice girl.”

  He nodded. “Go ahead and eat if you want to.”

  “No. I’d rather shower first.” Good lord, it felt unbearably intimate to talk about showering in the close confines of his car when she knew she’d be in his shower.

  “I understand.”

  “I, uh—” This felt awkward. She didn’t exactly owe him an apology. It was more of an acknowledgment that her judgment had been just a little skewed earlier. “I guess going to a bar wasn’t exactly a good idea.”

  He pulled up to a stop sign and glanced over at her. “No. Not exactly.”

  At that moment, with moonlight slanting through the window, etching his face in partial shadow and light, recognition slammed her. She swallowed a gasp. The eyes, the tilt of the head, the nose and chin. She’d started it after the billboards had gone up. It must have been instinct on her part, subconscious inspiration. Her stained-glass project.

  Cade Stone was the wolf.

  Her wolf.

  Chapter 7

  “You’ll need to do something about your car tomorrow,” Cade said, breaking the silence that had stretched between them. She’d kind of looked at him funny back at the stop sign and then clammed up. He found a silent Sunny disquieting. Who the hell knew what she was cooking up over there? At least when she was talking he knew what trouble she was headed for.

  “Thanks. I know. It’ll have to be towed to a body shop. That is, if the insurance company doesn’t total it out. My poor baby. It’s a ’67 Mustang ragtop.” Her voice rang with the pride of a true muscle car lover.

  No kidding? “Sweet. How’d you wind up with that?”

  “I saw it by the side of the road with a For Sale sign and I knew I had to have it.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that. Love at first sight.”

  “Are you always so impulsive?”

  “Only with the important things. When I see something I want. I wasn’t even looking for a car but I saw it and that was it. Sometimes things, people just call to you whether you want them to or not.” Gooseflesh prickled over him. That was exactly the way it’d been when he’d seen her flyer. She’d called to him. And no, he hadn’t wanted her to. “I made sure it was in good running shape before I bought it. I’m not a total nitwit.” He didn’t remember saying she was. “This is a nice car.”

  She ran a reverent hand over the dash, lightly stroking a finger over the chrome cluster gauges mounted above the hand brake and gearshift. It was a very sensual, very sexy move…at least to a man who was into cars. Cade swallowed. Hard. In a heartbeat the atmosphere thickened, awareness arcing between them. She trailed her finger along the edge of the leather seat. “Nice leather. Very supple.”

  He remembered the sweep of her fingers against his neck earlier, the feel of her skin against his. “Thanks.”

  He downshifted to turn and his arm brushed hers. Even through both their jackets it reverberated through him. Was that a soft gasp from her? “Sorry.”

  “No problem.”

  He gripped the wheel tighter. He wanted her to touch him the way she’d touched the car. He wanted her to slip her hand between his knees, trail her fingers up his thigh, stroke his—

  “’72?”

  “What?”

  “Is it a ’72?”

  Oh. The year of the car. Right. “Close. ’73.” Keep her talking. Then he couldn’t lapse into some sexual fantasy about her and him in the damn car. “Is your Mustang a manual or automatic? Six or eight cylinder?”

  “It’s a 390 V-8,” she said, the slight huskiness in her voice firing through him. “Manual. Shifting’s half the fun of driving.”

  Oh, sweet—He could practically feel her hand wrapped around him, shifting him higher and higher.

  His mailbox came into view.

  “We’re almost there,” Cade said.

  He’d never been so damn glad to see his driveway in his life.

  * * *

  Thank goodness. Another few minutes of talking cars and she’d be in serious trouble. Forget it, she was already in serious trouble. He smelled of aftershave, leather and man in the cocooned intimacy of the car. She’d seen the heat in his eyes, the tightening of his grip on the steering wheel. She wasn’t the only one feeling the heat. She was hot, flushed, achy. She wanted the same thing she’d wanted since the first time she’d seen him: she wanted to feel him inside her, know the taste of his mouth, the touch of his skin, his scent mingling with her own. But now she wanted it with an intensity she’d never known before.

  She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. She desperately needed some distance. Cade put on his blinker to make a left turn into a driveway just past a high-end subdivision, but wasn’t part of it. “Here we are.” He waited on a car coming from the other direction.

  She jumped at the chance to focus on something other than a need for this man that dampened her thighs and left her breasts feeling full, ripe. A stone wall farther down the road indicated another high-dollar development. “It looks as if subdivisions have sprung up all around you.”

  He quirked a brief smile. “Yeah, just me sitting in the middle of my twenty acres.”

  “You could make a fortune selling to a developer.”

  “That’s never going to happen. This land has been in my family for over a hundred and fifty years.”

  Sunny had to grudgingly give him points on that. Most people would take the money and run. There was nothing wrong with selling to developers, but it said something about him that preserving his
heritage was outside a price tag.

  Between the headlights and the moon she had a good view of the property. Tall sprawling trees flanked a long paved driveway. It led to a saltbox style house with a front stoop. The drive bisected around to a barn that sported a vintage metal sign over the double doors to the left and then straight ahead to what had to be the back door. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s not fancy.”

  “It doesn’t have to be.” The stained-glass artist inside her found the clean lines of the house and barn aesthetically pleasing.

  He stopped the car at the edge where the driveway met the walkway.

  “I’ll get you inside and then I’ll park the car. No one actually farms the land anymore so I converted the barn into a garage.”

  Sunny opened the door. Cold air rushed inside. Before she knew it he was there, his hand on her arm, helping her out of the low-slung sports car. It was an old-fashioned, gallant gesture that left her all fluttery inside. A patchwork of irregular stones interspersed with grass formed the walk.

  Cade unlocked and opened the door, flipped on a light and ushered her inside. Sunny stopped in the foyer and absorbed the feel, the smell of the house.

  She liked old houses but, like people, they all had different personalities. Her parents had thought she was nutty as a fruitcake when she’d mentioned it as a child. Nadine teased her that she was the house whisperer.

  Mrs. Pearl, however, had understood. Sunny felt the energy every time she “met” a house. This one was nice. It felt like a haven, warm and welcoming. She sensed its embrace, but it was also lonely. She felt its desire for a family to fill its space once again, to have children’s laughter echo off its walls, to know the joy and contentment of lives intertwined. It spoke to her as her own house never had.

  “Nice house.”

  “Thank you.” He was pleased. She knew it as clearly as she knew this had been a place of joy in times past.

  Stairs led upwards, to the left of the door. Wood planks formed the flooring, tongue-in-groove wood the ceiling. “I love all the wood, especially the ceiling.”

  “My great-great-grandfather cut the timber on the property, hauled it by mule and wagon to a mill outside of Memphis. He used it to build the house.”