The Heat Is On (Boston Five Book 1) (2 page)

Apparently he’d learned to lie more convincingly than fifteen years ago when he’d tried to fool her into believing his parents had allowed him to see
Terminator
in the theater. Now, she uttered a choked sob, grabbed her purse from the couch, and ran from the apartment.

And Heath could finally give in to the urge to ram his fist into the wall.

Chapter 1

When she pulled onto the quiet street in Charlestown, a Boston suburb, Hayden immediately recognized Kayleigh’s car. She suppressed a sigh. Right then, she’d have rather been alone. A glance in the rearview mirror revealed swollen eyes and a shiny red nose. Her friend would see right away that she’d been crying, and she’d also know that her own brother was responsible. Hayden was not in the mood for the impending discussion, but she also knew she couldn’t get rid of Kayleigh now. She was a Fitzpatrick, after all, and as such, she was known for her obstinacy.

Hayden knew all too well that it was practically impossible to be left alone once you were considered a Fitzpatrick family member. After all, she’d known the family since she was five years old. All four sons possessed a pronounced pigheadedness, and their sister Kayleigh was in no way inferior in that regard.

For a moment, the thought that she was not really a member of the family any longer held her in a chokehold. Her fingers tightly clutched the braided leather on the steering wheel of her van. And the fact that she and Heath had bought the vehicle only six months earlier filled her with sheer despair now. They’d wanted to buy a family van because they’d been thinking of marriage and babies. How was it possible that everything had fallen apart so quickly?

She was living alone in a house Heath had bought for them two years ago and renovated diligently. She drove a car that had been intended for their swarm of children. And she still wore the engagement ring he’d put on her finger in front of the entire family. But now it seemed he wanted nothing to do with her. They would have been married pretty soon, but Heath had already canceled the date for the church ceremony, even though his mother and brothers had tried to convince him not to. Hayden had been unable to express the awful way she felt.

She swallowed bitter bile as she looked at the house with its remodeled façade and newly paved driveway. She couldn’t go on living here and driving this car, not while Heath was living in that dump and cruising around in some jalopy he’d found somewhere—probably a junkyard. When he’d left her all of a sudden, he had insisted she stay in the house and keep the car, and she’d agreed because of course she’d assumed the separation was merely a knee-jerk reaction to grief. She’d known him for twenty-three years, so, naturally, she’d been sure they would get a grip on the situation sooner or later and work through it together. Any other option had seemed ridiculous. For three months, she’d been constantly telling herself that Heath would soon realize how much he needed her and that he would return to her.

Now she saw what a huge, naïve error that had been. Today’s encounter had shed a harsh and unambiguous light on their separation. It was over.

It was really and truly over.

All the excuses she’d found for his behavior in the preceding three months were suddenly exposed as desperate attempts at whitewashing the truth: Her fiancé had changed and didn’t want to marry her anymore. The why didn’t matter, because his decision seemed irreversible.

Hayden turned into the driveway and killed the engine, remaining in her seat for a moment with her eyes closed. She took a deep breath.

How could she go on living here, in the house they had chosen and inhabited together? How could she drive to work in this car every morning? And how could she go on being a part of the Fitzpatrick family, if, in reality, she wasn’t? She understood Heath insofar as she knew he was grieving, for she was doing the same. That was the reason she wanted to be there for him, but he had pushed her away and hurt her deeply. The mere thought of him and other women …

The awful feeling in her stomach grew, so she struggled to ban such images from her head. The thought of him sleeping with, kissing, or even touching other women made her so mad she couldn’t bear it. But the irrefutable fact that remained was: Not only had she lost her fiancé, but also her oldest and best friend.

As she got out of her car in slow motion, the hollow question of how on earth she was supposed to go on echoed in her head. Normally, she was no mope, but she had been beside herself with worry and doubt for weeks now. It was difficult to even pull herself together enough to get done what was necessary. Even though her job kept her from too much brooding during the day, that changed as soon as she left the school building and the noise of the kids died away.

Speaking of noise … As she walked up the three steps to her front porch, she was greeted by her stereo—Heath’s stereo—turned up so high that she was afraid the police would be on her doorstep any minute. Though that wasn’t really a problem, given that two of the Fitzpatrick men were police officers, but she could really do without the added trouble of annoyed neighbors.

As she entered the house, she threw her coat and purse on the couch, turned down the volume on the stereo, and received a frown from the dark-haired woman who stuck her head through the kitchen doorway. Mouth full, she complained, “Hey! I love that song!”

“And I love my peaceful coexistence with my neighbors,” Hayden replied, shaking her head and slipping out of her shoes. She walked barefoot into the kitchen, shooing her friend away from the fridge and grabbing a small bottle of water from it. Though she had scrubbed the entire kitchen this morning and done all the dishes, it now looked as if a tornado had blown through. A tornado called Kayleigh, who was now sitting placidly on a chair eating a cup of Hayden’s yogurt.

Kayleigh must have come directly from her night shift at the hospital. Not only had she missed Sunday Mass, she was also still wearing her work clothes, minus the white lab coat and stethoscope. The young ER doctor had dark circles under her eyes, but she appeared wide awake, which may have been due to the fact that she appeared to have eaten half the contents of Hayden’s refrigerator while she was gone.

“Where have you been?” Kayleigh’s green eyes flashed from underneath her dark brown bangs, and it reminded Hayden of Kayleigh’s brother, older by two years. All the Fitzpatricks looked very much alike, but it was especially the three oldest—Heath, Shane and Kayleigh, who had each been born within a year of the previous—that looked strikingly similar. They all had their father’s dark brown hair, but Heath and Kayleigh also possessed the same green eyes they’d inherited from their dad, too. No wonder Hayden couldn’t stop thinking of Heath when she looked into Kayleigh’s face.

“I went to see Heath,” she admitted in a throaty voice.

Her friend raised both her eyebrows, but otherwise, her expression didn’t give away what she was feeling or thinking. “How is he doing?”

“Not well.” Hayden sat down at the table with a lump in her throat, absently smoothing a crease in the tablecloth and staring at the polished hardwood floor.

“You know him well enough,” Kayleigh said soothingly. “He’ll be okay eventually. He’ll get back on track.”

Hayden shook her head, looking depressed.

“He just needs a little time.”

“That’s what I thought, too, but now …” She paused, cleared her throat, and then blurted helplessly, “He looks like hell, Kayleigh, and I mean it. If he goes on like this, he’ll be dead and buried soon.”

“Heath is not an idiot,” Kayleigh said resolutely, but her concern about her brother’s well-being was clear in her voice. In the preceding months, Hayden had learned that neither Kayleigh nor her three brothers ever really talked about Heath’s problems. They obviously thought he was better off dealing with them on his own. Only Ellen, their mother, openly confessed to being worried about the condition her eldest son was in.

“He was badly hungover, his apartment looked like a dump, and there was garbage everywhere. I don’t know how many empty bottles of alcohol he had lying around—”

Kayleigh interrupted her with a comical face but didn’t sound as carefree as she intended when she joked, “Well, he’s Irish, after all.”

“That isn’t funny,” Hayden replied softly.

“I know.” Kayleigh sighed. “But what am I supposed to do about it? He won’t talk to me.”

“He sleeps with other women.” Hayden forced out the words, her whole body trembling, and she was shocked by her confession. When she said it out loud, it became unbearably true.

Even though she didn’t look at her directly, she sensed Kayleigh stiffen and heard her gasp. “Hayden …”

“He … That’s what he told me himself.”

“But that is baloney! Heath is crazy about you. He loves you.”

It felt good to hear Kayleigh say that, but Hayden could no longer be sure it was true. She didn’t want to believe that Heath didn’t love her anymore, but his behavior and his abrasive tone were enough to convince her that was the case.

“Kayleigh, your brother broke off our engagement and canceled the wedding.”

“But only because he’s so thoroughly rattled! This will pass, Hayden, trust me. Soon he’s going to realize he made a huge mistake.”

“No.” Hayden interlaced her trembling fingers in her lap. “He was completely serious. What am I supposed to do? I love him, and I’m out of my mind with worry, but he broke up with me, and … and he has sex with other women …” She broke off, unable to continue.

“If he’d slept with other women, I’d know about it.”

“How would you know?” Hayden pleaded, her voice now thick with tears.

Kayleigh rolled her eyes. “Because I’m his sister, and someone would have told me if Heath had been seen with other women. Have you forgotten where we live? Everyone in Charlestown knows us.”

It was true. In the heavily Irish district of Charlestown, the Fitzpatrick family was known all over the place. But it was cold comfort to Hayden.

“He could have gone out elsewhere to meet women,” she pointed out, her voice still trembling and weak.

“Heath is not the type to sleep around, Hayden. He was in love with you when he was six years old, and he still is.”

“Then why would he tell me something like that? To hurt me on purpose?” It was a difficult question to voice and consider. Heath had never been thoughtless or cruel. So Hayden had no idea how to deal with him telling her a lie or trying to hurt her now.

She had always believed she knew him better than any other person in the world. But now her world was upside down, with brutal, sharp edges everywhere.

“Heath would never hurt you, Hayden.”

“But he did.” She swallowed the lump in her throat und sat up straight. “For months he’s been evading me, and now he suddenly tells me he’s seeing other women. It’s … it’s just …
over
.”

Kayleigh hesitated. “It’s just … He’s still suffering because—”

“I know that,” Hayden cut in sharply. “We all know that. But Heath is not the only person grieving, Kayleigh. How is your mom supposed to feel? Or you, for that matter? And do you think I don’t grieve for Joseph at all?” She started to cry. She bit her lip hard to keep herself from sobbing and soon tasted the metallic tang of blood on her tongue. “I wanted to be there for him, but he wouldn’t let me.”

Her friend stood and put her used cereal bowl in the sink. Then she came over and put a hand on Hayden’s shoulder. She smelled of yogurt and disinfectant. Hayden briefly closed her burning eyes.

“I don’t know what it is that’s wrong with my brother right now,” Kayleigh said softly. “And I am so sorry that his behavior is causing you pain, but I know he doesn’t mean to. You and him, you belong together like peanut butter and jelly.”

Hayden uttered a sound that was part snort, part laugh, and part strangled sob. “Kayleigh …”

“Seriously. If the two of you can’t be happy together, who can?”

She shook her head weakly. “Your brother no longer wants to marry me.”

“My brother is off the rails right now, but he will get back on track. Don’t give up yet.”

Hayden had been telling herself the same thing for weeks, but she finally felt she had to be realistic. Mustering a strength she didn’t quite feel, she said, “I’ll have to speak to him about the house.”

“The house?” Kayleigh froze and looked at her, nonplussed.

Hayden nodded. “About the car, as well. And his furniture is all over this place, too. We’re going to have to separate our belongings.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little rash now?”

“No.” Hayden lowered her eyes, avoiding the obstinate Fitzpatrick face of her friend. “If he wants us to be history, we’re going to have to sort these things out.”

“Heath wants you to live in this house and drive that car. That means he cares about you.”

“It only means he doesn’t care about his own life. It doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

Sunday dinner was a fixed event in the Fitzpatrick family. Hayden would have preferred to stay home tonight, but she couldn’t refuse Ellen’s invitation or withhold her bread pudding from the twins, who loved her food. So here she was, entering the house with a casserole dish in her hands, nodding at Kayleigh, who was lounging on the living room sofa in shorts and a t-shirt, watching some sports show. Hayden walked down the corridor of their typical working-class home built in the early 1920s. The smells were familiar, and the wooden floor creaked at all the usual places. It was all too familiar.