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She pulled keys from her briefcase, her hand shaking so much that they jangled, and unlocked her SUV. “I am not reckless.”
“Your driving record proves otherwise.”
She shrugged. “A few speeding tickets.”
“One with an accident,” he reminded her.
She laughed, albeit without humor. “I hit a patch of black ice and slid off the road into a mailbox.”
He tensed, dread tightening his stomach muscles. “It could have just as easily been a tree or utility pole.”
“It wasn’t.” She lifted her chin. “And I didn’t even put a dent in my vehicle.”
“The mailbox wasn’t so lucky,” he pressed. “You need to slow down. Stop being so reckless…”
“I wasn’t going fast. And I’m not reckless. You don’t know me,” she insisted as she pulled open the driver’s door.
He nodded as if he agreed with her, even though he didn’t. “Let’s keep it that way.”
As she planted her toe on the running board, Chad palmed her head, so she wouldn’t hit the metal doorjamb. Her silky hair brushed his palm. She ducked her chin, pulling away from him, and her eyes darkened with anger. “Let’s keep it that way,” she agreed.
Chad winced as she started the SUV, grinding the engine, then peeled out of the ramp with such speed that the gate, raised after hours, rattled.
“You’re wrong,” he murmured. “I know you, Tessa Howard. I know I don’t want anything to do with you…”
But to protect and serve. That was the oath by which he lived. His only reason for living now…
Chapter Two
Shaking from her argument with the lieutenant, Tessa fumbled with her keys to her ranch house. Before she could unlock the door, the knob turned beneath her palm and the door opened. She jumped back, startled.
“Gee, Tess—”
“What are you still doing up?” she asked her younger brother. Since summer vacation had just ended, getting him back in the habit of going to bed early hadn’t been easy.
Christopher, clad in his superhero pajamas, stepped back from the doorway. “I just texted you a little while ago.”
“When you should have been in bed,” she admonished the ten-year-old as she joined him in the country kitchen with its warm oak cupboards and green-apple painted walls. “And what did I tell you about opening up that door without knowing who’s on the other side?”
“I knew it was you,” he said as he climbed onto a chair at the long oak trestle table. “I saw you drive up.”
“You shouldn’t have been waiting up for me.”
“What was the police academy like?” he asked, his blue eyes bright with excitement as he stared up at her. “Did they let you shoot a gun?”
She bit her lip to hold back a smile. “No. It’s not like that.” At least she hoped not, because she should definitely not be trusted with a gun around the lieutenant. “It’s the citizens’ police academy.”
“So what was it like?” Christopher asked, still awed. “What did you do in class?”
She shrugged. “Not much. It was just a bunch of people talking.”
The chief had given a rather eloquent speech with a short question-and-answer period, and each district captain had talked about the areas for which they were responsible. Then the instructor for each session had been about to speak when she had slipped away to return her missed calls. From what she could tell so far, the purpose of the academy was to teach people how the police department and police officers worked, which would be fine if she had any interest, either. But she didn’t. No interest in any police officer.
“Tess!” Christopher yelled as if he’d been trying to get her attention. “Did you ask if I can come next week?”
She shook her head. “No—”
“Tess!” The little boy’s voice squeaked with indignation. “Why didn’t you ask?”
“Because you can’t come. The class isn’t over until past your bedtime.” Although Christopher was not much smaller than her, she lifted him from the chair. Her arms and back strained in protest of the exertion. She breathed deeply, inhaling the fruity scent of his shampoo. At least he’d had a bath, but it looked as if no one had untangled his mop of dishwater-blond curls. “And that’s where you’re going right now—to bed.”
He wriggled out of her arms and protested, “I’m not a baby, Tess.”
“You need your sleep. You should already be in bed,” she reproached him, playfully swatting at his pajama-covered bottom as he headed down the hall.
“Audrey?” she called out in a loud whisper for her fourteen-year-old sister, who was supposed to have been watching the younger kids while their mother was at work and Tessa had been at the damn class she didn’t have time to take. As Tessa had feared, Audrey wasn’t responsible enough yet to handle the others. Besides Christopher and Audrey, there were three more kids.
Tessa poked her head into the first doorway off the hall, where Christopher climbed the ladder of a bunk bed to the top bed. On the bottom bunk slept their brother Joey, the blankets kicked off his small body. Tessa crept forward and pulled the covers to his chin, then pushed back his tangle of brown bangs and pressed a kiss against the five-year-old’s forehead.
He murmured in his sleep. “Mommy…”
“No, she’ll be home in the morning,” she assured him as he drifted back to sleep. After tucking in Christopher, despite his protests, she headed back into the hall and collided with Audrey.
The dark-haired girl was already taller than Tessa, and should have been able to handle the younger kids at least. “Hey, Tess…”
“Where have you been?” she asked, then answered her own question. “On the computer, of course.”
“I had to finish my homework.” The girl’s blue eyes narrowed in an accusatory glare. “You wouldn’t help me.”
Tessa had tried; she’d been on the phone with Audrey most of the second half of the class, when she hadn’t been calling Kevin.
“Where’s your older brother?” she asked. “Did he go out?” Even though Tessa had told him before she’d left for the police department that he couldn’t?
Audrey shrugged. “I dunno.”
Tessa sighed. If Mom let him get his license, like the sixteen-year-old wanted, they wouldn’t be able to control the kid at all anymore. He came and went as he wanted now, with no regard to curfew. A headache began to throb at her temples. She would deal with Kevin later. “And Suzie?”
“She just got to sleep.”
Probably because Audrey had kept the seven-year-old awake when she’d been using the computer in their shared bedroom. “You better go to bed, too,” Tessa said.
“But my homework…” Audrey whined, her lips forming the pout of which the lieutenant had accused Tessa.
“You just said you finished it,” she reminded the teenager.
“But you need to check it,” Audrey insisted. “I’m barely passing algebra.”
Like Tessa had a feeling she would barely pass her class if Lieutenant Michalski had his way. She had to talk him into releasing her from her court-ordered participation in the academy. As she walked back into the kitchen to the homework Audrey had left spread across the table, lights shone through the windows as a car pulled into the driveway. Her mother wouldn’t be home for a few hours yet, not until after the bar closed. It had to be Kevin’s ride dropping him off.
Neither Audrey nor Kevin was responsible enough to take care of the younger kids or themselves; the responsibility was all hers. Tessa had to figure a way out of the citizens’ police academy.
“I’M GOING TO SKIP this week’s class,” Chad warned Paddy as he buttoned up his uniform shirt over the bulletproof vest Lakewood PD officers were required to wear every time they put on their uniform.
Other officers talked and slammed lockers shut as they, too, got ready for their shifts. The long, narrow basement room, with the gun-metal gray lockers and brick walls, reverberated with noise, but Chad suspected the watch commander had heard him and was just ignoring his pronouncement.
While Paddy sat on a bench tying his shoes, Chad glanced over at his friend’s open locker. He noticed the other man had put up new school pictures of his kids, and Chad’s heart contracted with a swift, sharp jab of pain.
He looked inside his own locker, at the pieces of tape stuck inside the door. The pictures were gone. After Luanne’s death he’d taken down her photo. And after his premature son had died two weeks later, he’d taken down his sonogram picture. But he’d left the pieces of tape, as if he might someday have new pictures to post.
But Luanne was gone; their child was gone. Only the pain remained. He couldn’t risk more pain; there would be no more pictures. He reached for one of the pieces of tape, picking at it with his fingernail.
Paddy stood and as he attached his gun, two extra magazine clips, Taser, collapsible baton, pepper spray and radio to his belt, he stared at the pictures of his kids. Since his divorce, he didn’t see his children nearly as often as he liked.
But at least he could see them.
“I’m skipping the CPA class this week,” Chad repeated, with enough volume that Paddy couldn’t continue pretending to have not heard him.
“We’ve already been through this, Junior,” the watch commander reminded him as he closed and leaned against his locker. “You’re the resident emergency vehicle operation and traffic stop expert.”
“You don’t need an expert for this week’s class,” Chad protested, abandoning the stubborn tape. He would have to take care of it later. “You’re just doing the tour of the department.”
Paddy shook his head. “That won’t take four hours. We’re going to show some video footage, too. Give ’em a day in the life of a police officer.”
“I thought that was the purpose of the ride-along.”
“This week we do sign-ups for the ride-alongs,” Paddy informed him. “The tapes give ’em an idea of what to expect.”
Chad snorted. “We never know what to expect when we go out.” A routine traffic stop could easily become a drug arrest, or a shoot-out. Or a confrontation with an unsettlingly beautiful woman.
“Ain’t that the truth,” Paddy agreed with a heavy sigh. “And that’s why I like to share with them that you have to expect the unexpected. Hopefully it’ll inspire them to be careful on their ride-alongs.”
Chad inwardly groaned. Based on her speeding and her wanting to walk the city streets alone at night, Tessa Howard didn’t have a clue about how to be careful. “Maybe you should skip the ride-alongs this session.”
Paddy grinned. “Thinking about Tessa Howard?”
Too much, but he wasn’t about to share that with the watch commander. “She’s not the only one who might be a problem.”
“The mayor’s daughter,” Paddy added with a derisive snort. “Who’s probably spying for her daddy so he can find out where to cut our budget.”
And politics like that was why Chad was happy in his present position. He wouldn’t want Paddy’s job or the public information officer’s, either. “Erin Powell is in the class, too,” he reminded the watch commander.
Paddy uttered a groan. “Kent’s reporter is already a problem.”
Erin Powell at the Lakewood Chronicle was determined to paint the department, but most especially Sergeant Kent Terlecki, the department’s public information officer aka media liaison, in the worst light.
“Why did you approve her application for the academy?” Chad wondered. He would have asked about the reporter’s admittance earlier, but he had been preoccupied with another member of the CPA.
Paddy shrugged. “I left it up to Kent.”
So Chad wasn’t the only one who had erred in judgment.
“Anyway, I need you to pull some traffic stop footage for me,” Paddy continued.
“I can pull the footage,” Chad agreed, “but I don’t have to be there to show it.”
“Yeah, you do,” the watch commander insisted, “in case anyone has questions.”
“With the reporter in the class, Kent should be the one answering all the questions.”
“Maybe that’s the reason he shouldn’t,” Paddy reasoned. “Did you read today’s paper?”
“Not yet.”
“Don’t waste your time,” Paddy advised him. “Hopefully Kent hasn’t seen it, either.”
“I’m sure he has.” Chad doubted the public information officer missed any of Powell’s articles.
“Then that’s another reason you’re not going to want to miss this week’s class,” Paddy predicted.
“Okay, I’ll be there.” If only for moral support for his fellow officer. Chad glanced at his watch and noted that he had some time before the night-shift briefing.
A few minutes later, he stepped out of the stairwell onto the second floor where the offices were located. He intended to talk to Kent, but another voice drew his attention—a fast-talking, feminine one.
“And you don’t have to worry about one-eight-hundred numbers and automated answering services. You’ll have my cell number and can reach me directly, any time day or night, if you have any problems,” Tessa Howard assured the chief as the older man walked her out of his office. “Not that you’ll have any problems. I’m sure you’ll find our Internet and phone service much more reliable than your current carrier.”
“I’ll have to look over your proposal, Ms. Howard,” Chief Archer stalled as he tapped a finger against the folder in his hand. “Then let you know my decision.”
“I’ll be here later this week for the citizens’ police academy,” she said. “I can come in early and check with you before the class starts.”
“That’s right. You’re a member of the academy,” Chief Archer said with a smile of obvious pride in the department.
“Not by choice,” Chad chimed in, unwilling to let her use the CPA as a selling point. Wearing a short skirt and tight jacket again, she could have been in another type of profession. The lady was not above using any of her assets to get what she wanted, as he recalled from her shameless flirting during the traffic stop. “Well, actually I guess the judge did give her a choice—the academy or another speeding ticket.”
“Hello, Lieutenant,” the chief greeted him while Tessa just glared.
Chad ignored her and turned toward his boss, who was also a good friend. A year ago Frank Archer had joined Chad’s unofficial club of widowers. Misery didn’t quite love company but at least appreciated it. “Chief.”
Archer studied him and Tessa, his brow furrowed in deep thought. “It appears you already know Ms. Howard.”
Chad nodded. “Yes, I know Ms. Howard.”
“Humph,” Tessa said and murmured, “He only thinks he does.”
“Then perhaps you two should get to know each other better,” the chief suggested.
“No!” the protest slipped through Chad’s lips.
“That’s not necessary,” Tessa said, leaving Chad to wonder if she referred to his reaction or to his getting to know her better.
