Hearts in Darkness Collection by Laura Kaye

Chapter Two

“So tell me about some of the weird calls you’ve responded to,” Makenna said, smiling over at Caden. God, he was sexy sitting in the driver’s seat of his black Jeep, big hands gripping the leather steering wheel. Though they were going home to visit her family, he was driving—he found her car, a little silver Prius, more confining than he could stand. They were halfway between her home in Arlington and her dad’s place in Philadelphia and, as always, they never had trouble finding things to talk about. Heck, that was part of what drew her to Caden in the first place.

“There have been more than a few weird ones over the years,” Caden said, quirking a small grin as he looked her way. “Let’s see. There was the woman who got her hand stuck in the garbage disposal. Her sweater snagged on part of the internal mechanism. The sweater was cashmere and she was really pissed that we had to cut it.”

Makenna grimaced. “Why’d she put her hand in the garbage disposal?”

“Dropped a ring down the drain,” he said with a shrug of his broad shoulders. “We found it for her though.” He pursed his lips and his eyes narrowed. “Oh. And once we got a call that a woman was hearing a man yell and scream through her apartment wall. We showed up with the police ten minutes later and he was fine. Turned out he’d been, uh, severely constipated and having a hard time…going.”

Makenna burst out laughing. “That is gross. He must’ve been so embarrassed.”

Caden chuckled. “I don’t know. I think the woman who made the call was more embarrassed than he was. When we got there, she came out into the hallway with us because she was so worried about the guy.”

“That’s a big old case of TMI,” Makenna said, enjoying the conversation. Being an EMT meant Caden confronted a lot of intense and often tragic situations, things about which he didn’t always want to talk when he came home after a shift. So it was nice to learn more about this part of him.

Grinning so big it brought his dimples out to play, Caden nodded. Makenna loved how smiling made his face look so much younger and more relaxed. Between his head scar, the widow’s peak of his shaved hair, and the piercings on his lip and eyebrow, his face could appear harsh, maybe even intimidating. Except when he smiled. “Then there was the guy who called because he thought his penis was going to explode. It turned out he’d borrowed Viagra without a prescription and taken three of them at once. Four days later, he still had an erection.”

“Aw, God. What is wrong with people?” Makenna laughed and turned in her seat toward Caden.

“I don’t know.” Caden winked. “You’d be surprised how many strange calls we get. And dispatch gets the weirdest calls of all. People call to complain about fast food restaurants not getting their orders right, or to ask if the police could go to a movie theater and hold the show time up because they’re caught in traffic, or to find out what the weather is. One old man called because he thought his house had suddenly started having a heartbeat. It turned out his new neighbors next door were in a band and he was hearing the drums. Oh, and then there was the old lady who called because her 72-year-old husband wanted to spice up their sex life by having a threesome. She wanted him arrested.”

“Wow.” Makenna shook her head. “I think I’ve called 9-1-1 exactly one time in my life, and it was when someone on the Metro thought they were having a heart attack. Even then I was nervous to dial the numbers.”

“Well, that’s how it should be,” Caden said. “So many calls to 9-1-1 aren’t emergencies at all.”

Makenna reached over and laced her fingers with Caden’s. Their clasped hands rested on his thigh, giving her a view of the dragon tattooed on the back of his right hand. “Okay, now tell me about some really great calls you went on.”

“I’ve delivered three babies,” he said, a small smile on his lips. “Those were my favorites. Such an amazing thing to be a part of, watching a life come into the world. You know? One of the couples named their son Grayson.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Aw, Caden. That’s so special. I can’t imagine how scary it would be to know a baby was coming and not be able to get to the hospital.” For a moment, Makenna’s imagination ran away with the picture of this muscled, inked, pierced, scarred man holding a brand new baby in those big hands. What a sight that would be. She smiled.

“It was,” he said with a nod. “I’ve also patched up a number of cats and dogs over the years, mostly pets that get trapped in house fires. Just to stabilize them until they get to a vet. But the people always appreciate it.”

“Oh, be still my heart,” Makenna said, squeezing his hand. “If I didn’t already…like you, you would’ve totally won me over with your stories about babies and puppies.” She looked out the windshield to the sunny blue sky beyond and hoped he didn’t hear the way she’d tripped over her words. She’d nearly said she loved him. Because the feeling was always in the forefront of her mind these days.

He threw her a wicked grin. “How do you think Bear picks up so many different girls?” Isaac Barrett was a firefighter at Caden’s station, and he was maybe the biggest player she’d ever met. But he was an also sweet and funny and loyal and would give a person the shirt off his back, and Makenna really liked him.

“Ah, so that explains it,” she said.

“Pretty much.” He lifted their joined hands to his mouth and pressed a kiss against her knuckles.

Heat lanced through Makenna’s chest and her blood in equal measure.

Still holding hands, they settled into a comfortable silence. Makenna’s gaze traced over what she could see of Caden’s dragon tattoo, the one he’d gotten to remind himself not to let fear rule his life. She really admired the meaning behind many of his pieces, so much so that she’d been thinking of getting a tattoo herself. A lot. The idea whipped butterflies through her belly. She’d always been such a good-girl rule-follower that she’d never considered it seriously before meeting Caden. But, inspired by how he’d commemorated those he’d loved and lost on his skin, Makenna had been mulling over a few designs over the past couple of weeks.

I want to do this. The thought came firm and sure, and she felt the rightness of it down deep. “So, guess what I’ve been thinking about lately?”

“What’s that?” he asked, his pierced eyebrow arching as he peered over at her.

It made her want to flick at his little black barbell piercing with her tongue. Her stomach flip-flopped as she gave voice to the idea. “Getting a tattoo.”

Caden’s gaze whipped toward her, his eyebrows cranked down over dark eyes. “For real?”

She grinned and bit her lip. “Yeah. I love yours and the more I think about it, the more I want to do it.”

“What kind do you want?” he asked, his gaze dragging over her so hotly it almost felt like a physical caress.

“I’ve been thinking about a Celtic family tree. The one I like best is shaped like a circle and the tree and ground are made of Celtic knots. Some designs of it place initials below the ground or weave them into the branches, and that’s really cool, too. Here,” she said, dragging her finger against the screen of her smartphone. She opened an image she’d saved in her pictures and held it up so Caden could see. “This is one version of it.”

His eyes flickered back and forth between her phone and the road ahead. “I like that,” he said in a reserved tone. “A lot. How sure are you that you want to do this?”

“Pretty sure,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. It was just a matter of what to get. I wanted it to mean something, like yours do. So I thought about what means the most to me in the world, and it’s family. Once I figured that out and found these designs, I was finally sure. But will you come with me if I get it done?”

He threw a blazing glance at her. “If you want to do this, I’d like to take you to my guy. He’s the best there is. And of course I’ll be there. In a heartbeat, Red.”

She grinned and nodded. His presence would help steady her nerves. “Good,” she said. “Maybe next week?”

“You just say the word,” he said. “And I’ll make it happen.”

Makenna unbuckled her seat belt, stretched across the center console, and lingeringly kissed Caden’s cheek, jaw, neck, letting her tongue sneak out to taste him while she was at it. He smelled good, like soap and mint and something spicy that was pure Caden.

He groaned and leaned into her touch. “Fuck, Makenna,” he whispered. “I don’t want you to stop but I really want you to put your seat belt back on.”

She gave his ear lobe a final lick and settled back on her own side. “Sorry,” she said as the buckle clicked. “I was just feeling really grateful.”

He gave a little chuckle. “Well, I’ll definitely take a raincheck on that. Besides, you can’t put pictures in my head of you getting inked and then kiss on me like that while I’m driving.”

“Why not?” she asked, biting on her lip to try to restrain the smile that threatened. And holy crap if the tone of his voice didn’t make her wish he wasn’t driving. Because she could think of some other very good uses for his hands….

The look he threw her—all blatant desire and frustration—shot heat over her skin. “Because it drives me crazy. And I can’t do anything about it.” He shifted his hips in the seat, drawing Makenna’s gaze downward to the bulge forming in the front of his dress pants.

Slowly, she ran her hand down his chest and stomach to his lap.

“Red,” he rasped, his gaze drifting down to watch her hand rub and grip for just a moment. God, he was a delicious handful. Eyes back on the road, Caden shook his head and grabbed her hand, holding it in a ball against his chest. “I’m not chancing wrecking with you in the car.” He threw her another one of those red-hot glances. “But you better believe we’re revisiting this later.”

* * *

Caden knew what Makenna was doing. For the past two and a half hours, she’d kept him talking non-stop. About his work. About tattoos. About Christmas. She’d teased him and made him laugh and generally kept his mind off of where they were going and what he was about to do—namely, meet her family. Which, of course, meant that she realized how anxious he was. And wasn’t that a complete pisser.

Both because he didn’t want her having to worry about such a thing and because she was right.

Following her directions, he veered off the highway into a suburb just south of Philadelphia.

“It’s less than fifteen minutes from here,” she said, excitement plain in her voice.

Caden nodded and tried like hell to ignore the tensing of his shoulders, the clenching of his gut, and the tightening of his chest. And man how he hated just how familiar these reactions were. Since the accident that had killed half of his family and left him alone with a bitter, angry, broken shell of a father at fourteen, Caden’s body had always responded to stress this way. Working with a therapist years ago, he’d conquered the worst of his PTSD and anxiety and he had some techniques for battling the latter when it hit, but he couldn’t stop it from happening or make it go away altogether.

Caden could never just be normal.

Something he could tolerate when it just impacted himself, but he hated it for Makenna’s sake.

Holding the steering wheel in something close to a death grip, he silently counted backwards from ten, trying to remember his breathing techniques, trying to keep from freaking the fuck out before they even arrived. The last thing he wanted to do was embarrass Makenna in front of her family. Or embarrass himself.

It was vitally important that they like him—that they accept him—too.

Because Caden was falling for Makenna. Hard. Hell, he’d already loved her at least a little that first night they’d spent together. She’d kept him from having a full-on panic attack while trapped in that dark elevator, which had represented pretty much every one of his worst nightmares. And when she’d invited him in—to her home, to her bed, to her body for the first full night he’d ever spent in another person’s arms, he’d probably already fallen most of the rest of the way.

Now, after two months of being with her, after two months of not being alone in every way a person could be alone—because of her, Caden felt like he stood on the edge of a tall cliff. One more step and he’d be free-falling head-first into a precipice from which he’d never return.

And it scared the ever-living fuck out of him.

Because he knew all too well how quickly and unexpectedly those he cared for the most could be torn from him. In the blink of a goddamned eye. And he’d have absolutely no say in it whatsoever. He wouldn’t even see tragedy and heartbreak coming. Just like when he’d been fourteen.

Christ, Grayson. You’re not helping things right now.

He heaved a deep breath and forced his fingers to loosen around the wheel. No, thinking about losing Makenna wasn’t helping his state of mind at all.

“Hey,” she said, squeezing his thigh. “Thank you for coming home with me.”

The smile she gave him was so soft and pretty. It took the edge off of some of the anxiety building inside him. He could do this. He would do this. For her.

“You’re welcome. I appreciate you inviting me.” And he did. Despite all the churn in his head, it meant a lot that she’d wanted to be with him at Thanksgiving. It was nice not to be alone for once on a holiday. Hell, it was nice to be celebrating at all. His mom had always been the life of his family, and when she died, what was left of the Grayson family really died with her.

After she was gone, Caden’s house never saw another Christmas tree, never baked another turkey, and never had another Easter basket waiting on the dining room table on Easter morning. Even after he and Sean had been way too old for baskets and Santa, she’d still marked presents “from Santa” and filled baskets that she insisted the Easter Bunny had delivered.

So being included in Makenna’s family Thanksgiving celebration meant more than he could say.

Soon, Makenna was guiding them into a stately neighborhood full of big, older homes and manicured lawns and tall, mature trees. Most of the houses were made of gray limestone and sat back off the narrow streets, allowing room for wide covered porches and winter-bare gardens out front. Christmas wreaths and garlands of pine boughs and holly already adorned the doors and windows of some of the houses, making the neighborhood even more picturesque.

All of a sudden, curiosity replaced some of the anxiety flowing through Caden’s body. Because all of this represented a part of Makenna he didn’t know. He’d heard her talk about her father and brothers, of course, and he knew her mother died when Makenna was little, but hearing stories and actually seeing where she was from were two different things.

“My house is up here on the corner. Turn right, the driveway’s on the side,” Makenna said.

Caden rolled to a stop in front of the house and leaned to peer out Makenna’s side window. Made of gray limestone, the place was beautiful. Three stories with a porch made for rocking chairs, windows flanked by black shutters, and soaring stone chimneys. An American flag fluttered in the cold breeze from its perch on one of the gray porch columns. “This is where you grew up?” he asked.

“Yep,” she said, smiling at him.

He met her gaze, and loved the happiness he saw there. Well, he loved so much more than that, didn’t he? Even if he hadn’t looked at that reality too closely. “It’s really nice.”

She looked out her window. “It was a wonderful place to grow up. Just being here gives me the warm and fuzzies.”

Be-beep.

Caden’s gaze flew to the rear-view and found a car sitting behind him. “Oh, shit, sorry,” he said, making the right turn.

Makenna chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. Oh, just park on the street,” she said when they saw that four cars already took up most of the driveway in front of the two-car garage.

Caden pulled the Jeep to the curb and killed the engine.

“Looks like my brothers are all here, but I don’t know who the Beemer belongs to,” she said, shrugging. When she turned toward him, she was wearing a smile so full of excitement and anticipation that he was surprised she was managing to sit still. “Ready to meet everyone?”

At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to make her happy, so he nodded. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Now he just hoped he didn’t fuck everything up.