Hot and heavy, p.1
Hot and Heavy, page 1
Hot and Heavy
Italian Stallions
Book Five
Mari Carr
Copyright © 2023 by Mari Carr
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Created with Vellum
To my beautiful niece, Clare and her new husband, Evan.
You were the inspiration for the epilogue with those vows!
Thank you for asking me to officiate your wedding. I felt so honored that you trusted me to “tell your story.”
Love you both so much.
Contents
Hot and Heavy
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
About the Author
Hot and Heavy
What’s better than one sexy protector? Two.
* * *
Hazel knows she’s in serious trouble when her shady uncle threatens to implicate her in his crimes. When two police officers show up at her apartment, she’s forced to flee Boston in the dead of night. Philadelphia feels like a big enough place to hide…until the seedy motel she’s staying in burns down.
* * *
Kayden and Aldo’s protector instincts rise to the surface after they spot a shivering redhead standing alone at the scene of a fire. Discovering everything she owned was destroyed, the sexy cop and charming firefighter offer her a place to stay.
* * *
None of them can resist their instant, scorching attraction to each other. The three give new meaning to the term “hot and heavy.” Aldo and Kayden want more…hell, they want it all. But Hazel is in too deep, and as her lies begin to unravel, she’s caught between a rock and a hard place.
* * *
Especially when the past catches up to her. Unless she puts her fears aside and offers Aldo and Kayden the one thing she’s never given before—her trust—she stands to lose everything.
Chapter One
“I don’t understand.”
“Hazel. We could understand Grandma misplacing a couple of things, but too many of her possessions have gone missing over the past month or two. Expensive possessions.”
Hazel gazed over Annabel’s shoulder to where Mrs. Maloney sat on the couch. She kept trying to catch the elderly woman’s eye, but Mrs. Maloney was either avoiding her or—more likely—completely unaware of what her granddaughter was accusing Hazel of.
“I’ve never taken anything from this house,” Hazel said. “I would never steal from Mrs. Maloney.”
After working for three years as Mrs. Maloney’s in-home nurse, she was hurt by Annabel’s accusation. The family had always trusted her, praised her work, and sworn up and down they couldn’t live without her. Over the years, she’d begun to feel closer to the Maloneys than she did to her own fucked-up family, which wasn’t really saying much. Because while kind, the Maloney family had always treated her as an employee—a valued one, but still basically the hired help.
Annabel’s brother, Jeremiah, sighed, making it perfectly clear he thought Hazel was lying. Of the two Maloney siblings, Hazel had always been partial to Jeremiah, who was far more laid-back than his uptight sister. None of that easygoing attitude was present now. Right now, he looked pissed.
“Grandma’s engagement ring is gone,” he said.
A knot formed in Hazel’s stomach, another in her throat. How could she defend herself against their accusations?
Jeremiah had been dating a lovely woman, Emily, for the last year, and he’d confided in Hazel a couple of weeks earlier that he planned to pop the question. He’d told Hazel that Mrs. Maloney’s ring would pass to him for his future bride.
“You knew I was planning to ask Emily to marry me. You knew that ring was mine.”
“What are you saying?” Hazel blinked rapidly to beat back the tears. There was no way in hell she was going to cry in front of these two, lest they took that as a sign of guilt.
“You knew your chance to steal it was running out,” Jeremiah sneered at her, a look of pure derision written on his face.
“I didn’t steal the ring. I didn’t steal anything.” Hazel looked at Mrs. Maloney again, praying the dear woman was in a lucid state. “Mrs. Maloney, I—”
“Don’t you dare talk to her,” Annabel interrupted angrily.
Mrs. Maloney’s gaze lifted, and Hazel knew in an instant any hope of help was gone. Mrs. Maloney was suffering from dementia, her moments of clarity growing less and less with each passing month.
When she was first diagnosed, Mrs. Maloney had flat-out refused to move to a nursing home, insistent that she would die in the same house where she was born. Mrs. Maloney had been a powerhouse in those early days, so as a compromise—and since the family knew they wouldn’t win the argument—she’d agreed to a private nurse. Hazel had been hired, and for three years, she’d worked six days a week—Fridays her only day off—from eight in the morning until six in the evening, taking care of her beloved employer.
For the first year, she’d been more companion than nurse because Mrs. Maloney hadn’t required much care. The hours had been a lot more than the elderly woman had needed that year, probably too much, but Hazel had agreed to them because this house was infinitely better than the shithole she called home, and because she’d loved spending time with Mrs. Maloney.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Maloney’s mental state had declined more rapidly this past year, so the family had begun taking turns staying with her at night and covering for Hazel on her day off. Many days, Hazel hung around until eight or nine, waiting for that evening’s relative to arrive.
“Annabel,” Hazel started again, though one look told her the judge and jury had already decided her fate. “I swear to you, I have never taken anything from your grandmother.”
Annabel sniffed. “The silver was here three months ago. We used it for Grandma’s birthday dinner. And Jeremiah saw Grandma’s ring not two weeks ago when he came by to tell her he was going to propose. The only reason he didn’t take it that day was because he was on his way out of town for business and didn’t want to run the risk of losing it. You are the only person outside the family with a key to the house, with access to Grandma’s things. If not you, then who?”
Hazel didn’t have an answer to that. Because the Maloneys were a very tight-knit, close family—no addicts, no assholes, no one who wasn’t well-off in their own right. Hazel had gotten to know all of them very well, and she couldn’t think of a single family member who would steal from their much-loved matriarch.
So…
How could she defend herself when she couldn’t suggest a more likely suspect? Hazel didn’t have a clue where Mrs. Maloney’s things could have gone. While her mind was fading and Hazel could certainly claim that because of the dementia, she’d begun squirreling things away, the woman was never alone. Unless, perhaps…she was getting up at night?
As if he could read where her thoughts had gone, Jeremiah added, “We searched the house from top to bottom yesterday. The entire family was here, and we left no stone unturned.”
Yesterday was Hazel’s day off. It appeared the Maloneys had been busy, building their case against her.
Annabel held up a notebook and began rattling off a list of missing items, all of them expensive things—like the jewelry and silverware—that would also be small enough to carry out in her backpack.
“Several pieces of the missing jewelry were family heirlooms,” Annabel said, her voice breaking at the end, unshed tears filling her eyes.
Annabel’s crying was almost Hazel’s undoing, and she swallowed hard, fighting not to fall completely apart.
Jeremiah placed a comforting hand on his sister’s shoulder, the gentle gesture in direct contrast to the pure venom in his eyes as he looked at Hazel.
“We want it all back,” Jeremiah said.
Hazel had no response to that. If she knew where it was, she would give it to them in a heartbeat, but she wasn’t lying to them. “I don’t have it.”
Jeremiah scowled. “So you already sold it? To who?”
Hazel hated how thin, how shaky her voice was when she replied. “I didn’t t-take it.”
Annabel turned away from her, a wobbly breath escaping. Clearly, her anger was fading in the face of hopelessness. Hazel could only assume they’d expected her to crumble and confess.
Jeremiah took the notebook from his sister, waving it furiously in Hazel’s face. “Bring it all back and we won’t call the cops.”
Shit.
No.
Hazel closed her eyes, searching desperately for some answer, some reply that would convince them she didn’t do what they were accusing her of.
If they called the cops…
She knew how that would end. Because Hazel’s family wasn’t unknown to the Boston Police Department. There was no way in hell the cops would believe Hazel Walsh
God. It had gone as bad as one could go. Because in his attempt to outrun the law, he’d killed two of the police officers in pursuit.
To make matters worse, Hazel’s uncle Dennis had also been in on the robbery, though he’d been captured just prior to the shooting. It was the only thing that had saved him from that same life sentence for murder.
Add to that, her mom’s countless arrests for petty theft, shoplifting, and assault—she had major anger management issues—and the Walsh family was pretty much a household name as far as the Boston cops were concerned, and there was no love lost.
If the Maloneys followed through on their threat, well, while they had no evidence, Hazel didn’t want to test the theory that the cops wouldn’t still find some way to pin it on her.
“I would bring it back if I had it.” Hazel was aware she’d lost this battle before she’d even stepped foot in the house this morning. She cleared her throat, then swiped away the stray tear she hated the second it started to fall. “But I swear to you, I didn’t take anything. I wouldn’t steal from Mrs. Maloney. I love her.”
Annabel had turned back around but refused to look her in the eye. Instead, she shook her head. “I can’t believe you would do this to her. To us.”
“You’re fired.” Jeremiah held his hand out. “Give me back the key. And if you’ve made copies, you might as well throw them away. I’m changing all the locks the second your lying ass is out of here.”
Hazel fought to take Mrs. Maloney’s house key off the key chain, her shaking hands making the task difficult. Finally working it loose, she handed it to him, her gaze on the floor.
She’d spent her entire life fighting to overcome her family’s name and reputation, always keeping herself on the side of right, never breaking a rule, never giving anyone a chance to accuse her of wrongdoing.
A lifetime of being as close to perfect as possible, and it had all been for nothing.
She glanced up at the sound of paper ripping, taking the page Jeremiah shoved into her hand.
“There’s the list of what’s missing. We want it back.”
She didn’t bother to repeat herself, to tell him once again that she couldn’t help him recover what was lost.
Instead, she gave up the fight. Glancing once more at Mrs. Maloney, she longed to be able to go to the woman, to hug her, to reassure her she hadn’t done what they were accusing her of, and to say goodbye.
It was obvious from the way Annabel stood in front of her grandmother, they’d never let Hazel get close.
She swallowed heavily and turned toward the door, anguish pulsing through her with each step, as she realized this was the last time she’d ever be in this house she’d come to love.
“I mean it, Hazel. Don’t make us get the cops involved,” Jeremiah called out as she reached for the doorknob.
She didn’t reply, didn’t bother to defend herself or ask for mercy. She didn’t point out that she’d given three years of her life to caring for their grandmother, driving her to doctors’ appointments, preparing her meals, making sure she took her medicine, and keeping her company.
One false accusation and everything she’d done was washed away as if it had never happened.
She pushed the crumpled-up list Jeremiah had given her into the pocket of her coat. It was mid-February in Boston, which was pretty much synonymous for cold as fuck, though this winter seemed determined to go the extra mile. She bent her head against a gust of brutal wind as she walked to her piece-of-shit car. The air was so cold, her lungs stung. On the bright side, it was frigid enough that it froze her tears.
Climbing into the car, she started it, then slowly slid out onto the quiet street. Mrs. Maloney lived in an older section of the city, a sleepy, quaint suburb, away from the hustle and bustle of Boston’s city center. The elderly woman lived on a street where all the neighbors knew each other by first name and said “hello” or “how are you doing?” in a genuinely kind way.
Hazel had always hated leaving at the end of the workday, forced to return to her own personal hell. For ten—sometimes twelve—hours a day, she could escape her real life and live here, where everything was quiet, where people were nice, where no one looked at her like she was white trash.
Hazel drove back to the shitty apartment she shared with her mother and, now, her asshole uncle. He’d been released from prison a few months earlier, banging on their door in the middle of the night, asking to crash on their couch. At the time, he’d assured them he would only be there a couple of weeks, that he would be moving on to bigger and better things.
Hazel soon learned that was Dennis’s MO. He always claimed to have some big opportunity on the horizon, but it was just a bunch of bullshit words, spoken by a lazy, misogynistic thug. If there was a bright side to being fired—and she was being generous in referring to this as bright—at least now her uncle couldn’t keep sponging off her.
At least not until she found another job…
Fuck.
She sucked in an unsteady breath as the severity of what had just happened continued to sink in. How the hell was she going to find another nursing job without a reference? There was no way the Maloneys would vouch for her abilities, no way they wouldn’t warn off anyone who might consider hiring her.
Her resume was officially garbage.
Hazel pulled into the tiny parking lot behind her apartment building and rested her forehead against the steering wheel.
“Shit,” she muttered. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”
Lifting her head, she looked out the windshield and drew in a slow, deep breath, trying to calm down.
Then, she forced herself to play her “positive game.” It was something she’d invented when she was eight and her life started to go to hell. That was the year her dad had been sentenced to life in jail. The year her mother lost one minimum-wage job after another, thanks to her bad temper and problem with authority figures.
It was the year her third grade teacher—wife of a cop—had stopped looking at Hazel as a bright, inquisitive student and had instead painted her with the Walsh brush, proclaiming to every adult in her elementary school that she was a troublemaker, a problem child. Those claims had followed Hazel all the way through middle and high school, even though she’d never broken a single rule or failed a test.
In order to survive all of that, Hazel had decided to find something good in every horrible thing, so as she looked at her run-down apartment building in the crappy part of town, she tried to find something positive about it.
“At least it has a parking lot,” she whispered to herself.
She grabbed her bag from the passenger seat and dragged herself from the car, locking it. Trudging into the building and up the three flights of stairs—the elevator was broken, but the positive was, Hazel got in a cardio workout—she tried to figure out her next move.
She needed to find a new job, that went without saying, but she couldn’t stop worrying that the Maloneys would carry through on their threat to call the cops. She anticipated spending a lot of time the next few days looking over her shoulder to see if the police arrived.
She could hear the TV blaring from inside her apartment when she was still half a flight of stairs down.
Wonderful. That sound meant Uncle Dennis was home. So much for opportunity knocking. The asshole had planted himself on her couch and was showing no signs of leaving anytime soon.
She opened the door, assaulted by the stench of cigarette smoke and stale beer. That was another thing she’d loved about Mrs. Maloney’s house. It always smelled nice. Like lavender, which, yes, was sort of an old lady scent, but it beat the hell out of living in this stench.
