Slow Heat (39 page)

“I need coffee, and a shower.” His dad dropped his feet to the floor and scrubbed his head. “What time is it anyway?”

“Somewhere around five.”

His dad squinted up at his son. “You get any sleep?”

“I don’t want to sleep.”

His father was smart enough not to play the parent at that moment. He found his jeans, climbed into them, then pulled them up to his slender waist and zipped the fly.

“Run downstairs and bring up a few coffees. It will be faster than room service and give you something to do.” His dad pulled out a ten and handed it to Micah. “If she’s cute give her a big tip and flirt with her, damn it. Nothing cures the pain better than jumping onto another saddle.”

Micah glared at his dad, grabbed the ten, found a key card on the desk along the wall, then stalked out of the room without commenting. What his dad said was despicable. Micah didn’t want another woman. He wanted Maggie.

The three of them barely finished half their cups of coffee before room service was ordered. Micah went through a pot of coffee on his own and tried eating a plain bagel. He tossed the thing down on the platter with just one bite out of it. His stomach was in too fierce a knot to put anything in it. Showering washed the grime off him but he still felt dirty inside. He walked out of the bathroom towel-drying his hair. He doubted he’d ever feel clean again.

“About ready?” Uncle Joe had his laptop set up at the table and had opened the curtains.

“Yup,” Micah said. He dropped the towel on the floor by the first bed then sat on the edge of it. “Where are we headed?”

“I’ve routed us out of California this way,” his dad began and moved to sit next to him with his atlas in hand.

“I’ll send the directions to your cell phone,” Uncle Joe said.

“We’ll drive south of the Rockies,” his father continued, drawing a line with his finger on the map.

“MapQuest shows we can get into Texas just after midnight.”

“We’re going to drive that far?” Micah asked.

“Your uncle and I agree that we need to put some good distance behind us today.” His father gave him a pointed look. “Just in case.”

“Okay. Whatever.” Micah gulped down his lukewarm coffee, stood and stretched, then grabbed his duffel. “Ready?”

“Grab my suitcase, Micah,” Uncle Joe said and began shutting down his laptop.

Micah followed his dad and uncle down to the SUV they were driving and helped load their luggage in the back. They were headed to DC, and although neither his dad nor uncle had mentioned it yet, he would kill two more men.

Since when did this start to bother him?

Immediately he was so sick to his stomach his coffee began rising to his throat. Micah gripped the side of the truck, bent over, and braced himself as all the coffee he’d consumed came up with a vengeance.

“Goddamn, boy,” his father grunted behind him.

Micah endured the dry heaves that followed.

“Are you going to make it?” his uncle asked and opened one of the truck’s doors.

Micah straightened slowly. He stared across the parking lot, toward the busy street, and the interstates twisting around one another. Half an hour in that direction would get him to Maggie’s house. Turning slowly, he focused on the other interstate. That route would take him to his next murder.

When did you start thinking of them as murders?

Slowly the sludge in his brain began lifting. All his adult life he’d fired his gun or held his rifle to his shoulder and stared at the mil dots. It had been an incredible high securing his target, then watching the body slump after a perfect aim. He had never missed, never had to shoot twice. That was, never until he’d been with Maggie. Stabler had lived long enough to point out the truth to him. Micah was just now seeing it.

When he turned, still holding on to the back of the SUV, both his uncle and his dad were watching him. They already knew what he’d just figured out.

“You’re right,” he told both of them.

His dad exhaled loudly and squinted at the parking lot. “Don’t do this, son.”

“I’ve got to, Dad. I love her. Maggie was right. If I leave now I won’t be good to either one of you.”

“If you stay here you very well could get your ass arrested,” Uncle Joe hissed, looking worried as hell as he gazed at Micah over his father’s shoulder.

“It’s a chance I’m going to take. I can’t leave like this. You didn’t see her crying.” Micah felt sick again.

“We can head up to Santa Clarita,” Uncle Joe said to the back of his brother’s head. “Won’t be so bad hanging out there for a few days. That waitress liked me.”

“That waitress liked us,” his father said, disgusted.

Some women really got off on the thought of being with Micah’s father and uncle at the same time. It was the twin thing. Micah’s father didn’t like sharing his women. Micah felt the same way. He couldn’t leave LA knowing some asshole might come sniffing around Maggie. She was unemployed. Her uncle was probably going to prison. Micah wasn’t going to be the ultimate tragedy in her life.

Suddenly he was no longer light-headed, or sick to his stomach. “I’ve got to go,” he said again. This time he touched his father’s arm. “I don’t regret anything you’ve taught me,” he whispered.

He thought he saw understanding in his father’s eyes. “You’re the best there is. The best there probably ever will be.”

“I want to try being the best at other things now.”

“Like what?” Uncle Joe asked.

“Like being Maggie’s man.”

His father shook his head, disgust still lingering in his expression. “I’ll give you a week.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“He meant we’d give you a week before we hit the road,” Uncle Joe elaborated.

Micah nodded at his uncle. His father’s expression didn’t change.

“Honor-bound is honor-solid,” Micah told his father. “Grandpa Paul used to say that all the time.”

“Yes, he did,” his father acknowledged, although his hardened expression didn’t change.

“He used to say find another who is the same and they will run by your side sure as Mulligan blood runs through our veins.”

His father nodded once.

“I’ve found that, Dad,” Micah said softly, not quite getting why he wanted his father to understand—but he did. He wanted that annoyed look to go away before he left. Emotions he’d never experienced before had surfaced with Maggie. He didn’t want to risk feeling more unfamiliar emotions if the last looks he saw on his father’s face were disappointment and anger. “Dad, I wasn’t even looking. But the first time Maggie and I spoke the chemistry was so far off the charts neither one of us could pull off much of a conversation.”

“Lust is a hell of a lot different from love,” Uncle Joe told him.

“Love holds you through once that lust fades, son. You think you’ve got that?” his father asked.

“I won’t know without giving it a shot.”

His father’s nod was barely noticeable.

“Dad.”

His father stared at him, not grunting or nodding or doing anything to show he knew his son had a question. Maggie might have a deep-rooted temper, but those roots ran just as deep in Mulligans. Micah worried his father might be angry with him for a long time.

“Tell me something before I leave.”

“You keep mentioning leaving but I see you standing there not moving. There is always a reason for hesitation.” Of course when his father finally did speak, it was to point out Micah might have even more issues to deal with.

Yesterday Micah was a man on top of the world, strong and invincible, more powerful than any other man alive. Today that world had toppled to the ground. There was no strength. No matter how hard he tried pressing forward with his dad and uncle, Micah didn’t have the strength to keep taking the next step. In fact, he’d never felt weaker in his life. He wasn’t powerful. He wasn’t invincible. He was nothing without Maggie.

“I’m not hesitating, Dad.” A trait he held on to now that he had never embraced before was honesty. And he wasn’t going to let go and release the one redeeming quality he had swarming in a world of death—yes, murder.

“I’m going after her, Dad. This life we’ve built together isn’t worth losing her. Not to me. You can tell me what this Mulligan did, or what that Mulligan did, and I’m sure all of them took the path best for them. This is what is right for me. She walked out the door on me and I let her go. I have to try.”

“Her world is one you don’t know,” Uncle Joe said, his hazel eyes softening in a way Micah’s dad’s never did. “Your father is worried it’s not your world.”

Jacob glared over his shoulder at his twin. “I know how to fucking talk.”

“Then tell him what he needs to hear. The sun is coming up and it’s getting hot. I’m not going to keep standing here while you two stare at each other and pussyfoot around what needs to be said.”

“Suddenly you’re a Goddamn counselor?” his father snarled.

Uncle Joe threw his hands up in the air and walked away from both of them to the driver’s side. “I’m sitting in here long enough to smoke a cigarette, then I’m fucking out of here,” he called out.

Micah wouldn’t miss his father and uncle fighting. The two of them could go at it worse than wild dogs.

Micah waited until Uncle Joe got situated inside the SUV and closed the door. The vehicle started and Micah continued standing next to it. The motor helped keep their conversation private.

“What was Uncle Joe talking about last night?” Micah didn’t hesitate with the one question he had to have an answer to. “He said I’d break the Mulligan curse if I left without getting her pregnant. I thought the Mulligan curse caused all women to leave us.”

“Either way, it looks to me as if leaving us now will only bring you heartbreak.”

“I have to stay and give it a shot. Dad, tell me,” Micah insisted. He wouldn’t focus on how his heritage suggested any relationship he might enter was doomed from the start. He couldn’t go on with his life without giving love a chance. “What did Uncle Joe mean? You said Mom left when I was ten.”

“She did.”

Micah put it together. “You left her when she was pregnant with me.”

“Our life wasn’t conducive to raising a family.”

Micah stared at his father. He didn’t feel inclined to pass judgment. All he wanted was to understand. “She came back to you?”

“No. I found her.”

“And she took you back?”

His father grumbled and sighed. Raking his fingers through his hair, he scowled and stared over Micah’s shoulder. “I don’t make apologies,” he began gruffly. “I was told your mama had a son. She was living in a small town in Indiana and there were some rough people around her. When word got to me I was told she was struggling to feed you and keep a roof over your head. I didn’t think about it for long. The right thing to do was pretty clear. We drove into town and I went to her house. What I heard had been true.”

Jacob looked down, patted his pockets, then paused before straightening again. It was an act he did from time to time when he forgot he’d quit smoking. His dad glowered, once again, at some object over Micah’s right shoulder.

“Your mom wasn’t too thrilled to see me. But after an evening of conversation, we agreed that I would take you with me. She showed back up in our lives when you were seven, eight, something like that. Then when you were ten she left.”

“Maybe that explains why I don’t have clear memories of her,” Micah mused.

His father looked at him. “I did a good job of raising you.”

“Yes, you did.” Micah didn’t hesitate. “You taught me everything I know.”

“Yup.”

“You also gave me values.”

“I tried.”

“I need to do this, Dad.”

“The law is going to come down on you, boy. I don’t want that for you. You took that job with that bounty hunter. He was a cop before that. Once a cop, always a cop.”

Micah didn’t say anything. King might turn him in. Without asking, Micah stepped forward and gave his father a hug. Jacob hesitated a second but then wrapped his arms around his son and hugged him fiercely.

“I’ll see you again, Dad.”

“Keep Saint Michael with you.”

Chapter Sixteen

“We have a few more people to interview but we have your application and résumé and we’ll give you a call if we’re interested.”

It was what Maggie had heard for the last two days straight. She needed a job. Plunging into interviews and driving around town from one place to another, whether it was a place she thought she’d like working at or not, had seemed a smart idea two days ago. If she had stayed at home, she would have stayed in bed and cried all day.

Maggie glanced both ways before crossing the street from the courthouse. If she were crying right now no one would have noticed. She was dripping with sweat.

“Screw this,” she complained, and tossed her thin leather attaché case, which had her appointment schedule and copies of her résumé in it, to her passenger seat.

Maggie didn’t understand why leather seats were considered an extra in cars. She tugged on her skirt, fighting to get it to cover the back of her legs so she wouldn’t burn them when she slid behind her steering wheel. No such luck.

“Ouch!” she howled then hit her steering wheel, hurting the side of her hand. “Life sucks,” she complained out loud.

After turning her car on and blasting the AC, Maggie pulled her appointment book from the side pocket of her leather case. It was one thirty, and she had a two o’clock appointment written down.

“Where? Oh no! What was I thinking?” She hadn’t been thinking.

Her two o’clock was with a fugitive apprehension business, which was how she’d written it down. When she looked at the address, she groaned. It was KFA. It had to be. Apparently they were looking for an office manager to answer the phones, schedule appointments, and do light filing as well as payroll. Maggie had scheduled interviews or dropped off résumés with anyone who had a job opening in her field. She’d gone to eight different companies since yesterday morning; this was her last appointment.

“I can’t do it.” She slammed her appointment book shut. It would be too hard knowing Micah had worked there. The owners would know she had history with him. Hell, they had fired him. It would be pointless to even try.