Page 53 of The Heat is On
In the side mirror, Rio could make out the dangerous black plume that clawed the sky, evidence that the fire they’d thought they’d beat had roared back to life.
Not unlike this little adventure, because the closer they got to civilization, the closer Rio came to someone mistaking him as a real fugitive and shooting him on sight.
No way. Because the only thing on his brain the minute they’d gotten some wheels—after the idea of nabbing Buttles—was tracking down Skye and telling her…
What?
That he loved her? No…but…maybe that she’d ignited something inside him he’d thought cold. He could call it hope, and it simmered a heat through him that he didn’t want to die. So, maybe…maybe they could figure out what that meant.
He was tired of living his life behind bars, lying, pretending to be a criminal.
He wanted…well, maybe what his parents had before the nightmare.
A family, a home. Someone who helped keep fed the warm hum in his chest.
Someone he could so very easily love.
“Turn here,” Darryl said and pointed to a cutout in the road, more of a dirt path than a road, but many homes up here were simply scrabbled out of the wilderness. He slowed and turned east off the highway, low branches suggesting the driveway needed a trim.
The smoke billowed out to the northeast, and even Darryl saw it now and sat up. “That looks bad.”
Right. And Skye might be heading back into it. The thought put a fist around his chest, and Rio clenched his jaw against the rush to dump Darryl at his house and follow his heart back to the fire.
But Skye was smart and strong, and she knew what she was doing.
I’m in way over my head, Rio. I live in terror that I’ll get it wrong.
Another prayer—this time easier, given the last answered plea—rose from inside him.Please, God, help her not to freeze. Give her everything she needs.
The rutted dirt road—barely accessible—wound back at least a mile before daylight opened into a yard and an A-frame with a wide porch off the front. Flowers in washtubs and wooden containers lined the porch and the wide steps, welcoming and fresh. To the left, an open shed held a snowmobile, a four-wheeler, and stacked firewood. Beyond the house, a trail led to a tiny lake, backdropped by a mountainside.
Seriously. Darryl had a little piece of paradise carved out here.
And then the door opened.
A pretty brunette, her hair pulled back, waddled out. But instead of holding her amazingly huge belly, she gripped a rifle and stood on the porch with a growl on her face.
Rio pulled up, stopped the car. “Listen, I’m serious—”
“I’ll tell you everything,” Darryl said and nearly ran out of the car. “Alicia!”
Rio got out slowly, watching as Darryl ran up the steps and swept her up. She dropped the rifle and cried out with joy.
Life was so unfair. Rio spent his time alone, putting away jerks who went home to women who loved them.
He wanted a woman who loved him. Who took his face in her hands and kissed him without hesitation, regardless of his crimes or the fact that he wore dried blood and the remnants of a brutal escape on his face and body.
Rio retrieved the gun—just in case—and waited for the reunion to end, looking out at the lake and beyond, to the undulating black and gray smoke. He couldn’t see flames from here, but the fire must have tripled in size.
“What are you doing here?” Alicia leaned away from Darryl, glanced briefly at Rio, then back.
“I had to see you,” Darryl said. “I was worried about you. And the baby.” He leaned down, kissed her belly.
Rio just stood there, stymied. Except, he was tired of lying. “We broke out of prison.”
Darryl shot him a glare, and appropriately so because Alicia gasped. “What—Darryl!”
He took her hands. “I had to see you, babe.”